John Ahearn and Rigoberto Torres welcome Maria and Corey to her mother. New York-based Alexander and Bonin

Since the late 1970s, two Bronx artists have honored their neighborhood by making sculptures of their neighbors

John Ahearn, a sculptor, started creating lifecasts in the Fashion Moda window in 1979. Fashion Moda was a renowned multidisciplinary arts center in the Bronx that ran from 1978 until 1993. Ahearn's public demonstrations of lifecasting, an odd and interesting artistic technique that creates sculptures by placing molds on living persons, rapidly generated controversy. Ahearn said, "I had a good experience with people coming in and showing interest in the process.

Taxi driver Wally was among those drawn to Ahearn's lifecasting and returned home to share what he had seen with his family. Rigoberto, Wally's cousin, who was 17 at the time and worked at his uncle's business producing religious statues, eventually heard about it. Ahearn and Rigoberto's encounter that day marked the start of a long-lasting, exceptionally successful creative partnership.

Ahearn said, "I got a very strong sensation that Rigoberto was not like everyone else I had met in the Bronx thus far. "I trusted him because I knew him. I experienced this immediately after we got to know one another. Rigoberto was aware of lifecasting and the sharing of it. He started conducting lifecasting in his area using the items he had bought from Fashion Moda.

Ruth Fernandez, Rigoberto

Rigoberto Torres, the full name of that young guy, went on to become a renowned sculptor of works that represented and praised life in the Bronx and collaborated with Ahearn for many years. Torres said he didn't know he was starting a lifetime creative career at the moment. I simply wanted something to do instead of working at a factory, which wasn't fulfilling, he added. "It's complicated at first, but over time you become family," the person who lifecast me said.

The Bronx Museum of the Arts honors John Ahearn and Rigoberto Torres' 40-year partnership with Swagger and Tenderness: The South Bronx Portraits, a comprehensive survey of their joint work that features 65 pieces in the neighborhood whose diverse personalities, occupations, and cultures served as the inspiration for these sculptures. The exhibition, which features archive photos and memorabilia and runs from October 26, 2022, through April 4, 2023, is the first significant retrospective of the pair's creative partnership since 1991.

Applying molding material to the body of an artist's live, breathing subject includes lifecasting, a very private and complicated method of producing incredibly realistic sculptures. A stunningly accurate replica of the subject is left behind when the mold has set up and taken on its form. Lifecasting calls for extreme stillness from the subjects and takes a great deal of faith; for example, it's crucial to utilize straws while lifecasting faces so that the subjects may continue breathing. It provides for a special sort of interaction between an artist and their model since it is such a close process, and the nature of the finished piece reflects that bond. To explain it to others and help them comprehend what it is, Torres added, "It takes a while." Making sure that our subjects don't tremble or feel anxious is difficult.

Ahearn likened lifeasting to spontaneous street photography because of the immediacy it may provide. Ahearn said, "When I initially began lifecasting, I compared it to a Polaroid. It was rapid, straight, and extremely present. The sculpture is there when the material is laid down and removed, and it is almost finished. It looked like a simpler, more straightforward method to create anything.

John Ahearn and Rigoberto Torres’s Life on Dawson Street. Photograph: Martha Cooper

The artworks on display in Swagger and Tenderness feel approachable, approachable, and very reflective of the stories of the Bronx community as a whole, showcasing the everyday presence that shapes the texture of life in the Bronx and befitting a popular artform more like Polaroid photography than fine art statuary. Ahearn and Torres' lifecasts of various figures may be found in Swagger and Tenderness, including a guy standing over an 80s-style boom box, a graffiti artist wearing a gas mask and a black sweatshirt, two ladies sharing a tender embrace, and a man crouched behind his proud pet dog.

The curators Amy Rosenblum-Martn and Ron Kavanaugh took special effort to design an experience that genuinely welcomes the community in and creates a location where people can stay and feel at home since these sculptures are created by and for the Bronx neighborhood. The show, which aims to capture the spirit of the area around it, even includes designated tables where visitors can play a game of skelzies or dominoes while taking a break from seeing the artwork. According to Rosenblum-Martin, the goal of the show is to "amplify John and Rigoberto's radical love for all Bronxites." It is unquestionably pushing against a white-box aesthetic and in favor of the architectural beauty seen in the structures in the neighborhood around the museum. We're creating locations for folks to relax and play in where they feel welcome to bring their whole extended family and friends.

John Ahearn and Rigoberto Torres, 2022. Photograph: Argenis Apolinario/The Bronx Museum of the Arts.

The exhibition book, which aims to portray many voices from the Bronx in various ways, was created under Kavanaugh's direction. A graphic book about a teenage girl from the Bronx and including Ahearn and Torres is one of them. It was written by Kavanaugh and drawn by Bronx artist Sole Rebel.

In response to a question on the show as a whole and the inspiration for his graphic book, Kavanaugh said: "It's necessary today to have heroes. I had considered John and Rigo to be that. It takes bravery to set up outdoors and ask your neighbors to participate in your art project. They both went into the neighborhood to engage others. I could never see myself willingly participating in anything like [lifecasting]. In a different sense, it is heroic of John and Rigo to have persuaded others to leave their homes, cover their faces with plastic, and take part.

Swagger and Tenderness delivers a feeling of enthusiasm and upbeat energy that highlight what community is all about and is a reflection of the numerous warm ties that Ahearn and Torres have created during their decades of collaboration. Making people smile and watching their faces when I do this gives me great satisfaction, said Torres. This show is interesting and worth seeing because of the sensation of joy and social cohesiveness it evokes.

The South Bronx Portraits exhibit, Swagger and Tenderness, is on view at the Bronx Museum of the Arts in New York through April 30, 2023.

Thanks to Veronica Esposito at The Guardian whose reporting provided the original basis for this story.