Art
New York City’s El Museo del Barrio, that little gem of a museum on upper Fifth Avenue, is getting a redesign and renovation that will change its face from dowdy to dashing. More importantly, the new design will express with its architecture the welcoming message that has always been the heart of El Museo’s philosoply: Bienvenidos. Come right in! ¡Mi casa es tu casa!
When El Museo reopens to the public on October 17 after a year-long renovation, visitors will be greeted by a redesigned courtyard, a new glass façade, modernized galleries, a café, an expanded gift shop and, of course, the museum’s ever-friendly staff.
Standing on Fifth Avenue at 104th Street in El Barrio (Spanish Harlem), El Museo is located in what was once a fortress-like orphanage on Central Park. The new design by Gruzen Samton Architects creates a modernist entrance, through the large Fifth Avenue courtyard, where a café will serve Latin food in nice weather. The building’s front wall on the ground level has been punched out and replaced with glass, creating an open, spacious feeling. Redesigned galleries will, for the first time, display the museum’s permanent collection as well as temporary exhibitions.
“Our new facilities will help us to better serve our community, the public at large and all those who love the arts,” says Julián Zugazagoitia, the director of El Museo.
The people who live in El Barrio and many hip New Yorkers, have long known El Museo is one of the most vibrant and cutting edge museums in town. Since its founding in 1969, El Museo has been much more than an exhibition space for Latino artifacts. It’s the cultural hub of a community whose roots stretch from New York City to the Caribbean and throughout Latin America. Over the years it has mounted shows that range from pre-Columbian Taíno art, to 20th-century Latino performance art to the paintings of Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and the Mexican modernists.
One of the most sensual and intriguing shows I’ve ever seen in a museum was El Museo’s 1999 “Altares de los Orishas,” a series of installations by contemporary Latino artists inspired by traditional Afro-Caribbean religious altars. That show embodied the museum’s holistic approach to the visual arts, which insists that artifacts are only part of a larger cultural environment. It’s an environment that includes music, poetry, theater, dance, politics and spirituality. This very Latino approach to art and life has put El Museo at the vanguard of New York museums and helped nudge curators across the United States to think outside the museum box and the box-like museum.
True to its commitment to the living arts and New York’s diverse Latino community, El Museo has, since its inception, sponsored a variety of arts and educational programs, including school groups, workshops, films, music, dance and poetry performances. It’s biggest and most popular community event is the annual January 6 Three Kings Day Parade, when thousands of costumed residents from El Barrio snake through the neighborhood streets, accompanied by camels and sheep, to celebrate Epiphany and bestow gifts on more than 1,500 local children.
To celebrate the new Museo, an exhibition, “Nexus: New York: Latin American Artists in the Modern Metropolis, 1900-1942” will open on Saturday, October 17. The show will look at early 20th-century Latino artists who worked in New York and were involved in the era’s avant-garde art movements. The first show to seriously explore the Latino connection to New York City’s art scene during these years promises to be an eye-opening experience.
Did you know that Jackson Pollock was first introduced to the use of liquid paint at a 1936 experimental workshop in Union Square, taught by Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros? It was time to make the paint brush obsolete, argued Siqueiros, who was then already a major force in the world of art. So all those famous “drip paintings” now hanging in MoMA and around the world … They never would have happened without the Latino influence.
For more informtion about “Nexus: New York,” ongoing cultural events and the reopening of El Museo del Barrio, stay tuned to El Museo’s website. And circle your calendar for Saturday, October 17. Save that date!
El Museo del Barrio - 1230 Fifth Avenue at 104th Street NYC – 212 831-7272
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1 Comment
July 6, 2009 at 1:06 q07
Thank you so much for the support! We’re eagerly awaiting to open our doors to the public during our grand re-opening this fall!
-Mairelys A.
Public Programs Outreach Coordinator,
El Museo del Barrio