Identity Reimagined: Reframing La Colección
Join El Museo del Barrio for a special symposium dedicated to new scholarship that rethinks the critical histories that have shaped the Museum’s Permanent Collection. Together, we will contextualize El Museo’s unique intersection of art, activism, and Latinx culture.
This conversation, made possible by the Terra Foundation for American Art, marks the launch of El Museo’s most ambitious Permanent Collection study and initiative in over a decade.
2:30pm | INTRODUCTION
El Museo del Barrio’s Curatorial team will share an introduction and overview of the symposium and the significance of the Museum’s Permanent Collection. Participants include:
– Rodrigo Moura, Chief Curator, El Museo del Barrio
– Susanna V. Temkin, Curator, El Museo del Barrio
3:00pm | FEATURED SPOTLIGHT SPEAKER
El Museo’s featured speaker Adriana Zavala will explore histories of collecting and exhibiting Latinx art—as a category and concept that falls betwixt and between hegemonic frameworks—in museums and other art institutions across the United States.
– Adriana Zavala, Executive Director of the U.S. Latinx Art Forum; Associate Professor in art history and race, colonialism, and diaspora studies at Tufts University; and the current Andrew W. Mellon Professor at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art
4:00pm | NUYORICAN HISTORIES AND PUERTO RICAN VANGUARDS
This panel will cover East Harlem art networks such as En Foco and Taller Boricua, the importance of print culture and photography in Nuyorican activism, and Puerto Rican vanguards and their afterlives. Participants include:
– Abigail Lapin Dardashti, Assistant Professor of Art History and Visual Studies, University of California, Irvine
– Serda Yalkin, Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Art, Art History, and Visual Studies, Duke University
– Melissa M. Ramos Borges, Professor, Art History and Theory, University of Puerto Rico (Mayagüez and Río Piedras)
Moderator: Lee Sessions, Permane
Methuselah Virtual Launch: Conversation between guest curator Olga Viso and artist Reynier Leyva Novo
#RMO | Get your tickets TODAY to view 'Raphael Montañez Ortiz: A Contextual Retrospective.' Tickets available at elmuseo.org! (Thursday-Sunday, 11am-5pm)
Also on display in this gallery are three examples of the artist's more recent large-scale assemblages, where he deconstructs model houses purchased online. Denoting a psychoanalytic inflection and a particular interest in domestic contexts, these works refer to his early Archaeological Finds shown elsewhere in the exhibition. Works by artists Maria Teresa Hincapie and Laura Anderson Barbata address these notions from different perspectives - from a cathartic unleashing of the power of domestic objects to the recuperation of ancestral myths through a collective process as a form of healing for a Yanomami community that has been imperiled by the extractive exploitation of its ancestral lands.
Video by @orestionline
#RMO Get your tickets TODAY! 'Raphael Montañéz Ortiz: A Contextual Retrospective' on view now until September 11th! (Thursday-Sunday, 11am-5pm) Get tickets at elmuseo.org!
Physio-Pyscho-Alchemy is one of Montanez Ortiz's main contributions to contemporary art. This concept runs through several decades of his production, and in the 1980s it resulted in performative works that relied on shamanic healing, meditation, breathing, rituals, and the dream (psychoanalysis). As well as what Montanez Ortiz described as the Ethnoaesthetic, which constitute the underpinnings of this approach to art making. Documentation of several of these performative and participatory works spans a vast chronology and occupies a wall in this gallery.
Video by @orestionline
On View NOW ‘Raphael Montañéz Ortiz: A Contextual Retrospective’ - Get tickets TODAY at elmuseo.org!
In late February, El Museo del Barrio visited Raphael Montañez Ortiz's home studio for an intimate conversation about his childhood, spirituality, inspiration, and more. Check out this sneak peek.
Full video is on view in Las Galerías and exclusively on El Museo's digital guide on the Bloomberg Connects @bloombergconnects App. See 🔗 in bio.
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📽 by @orestionline
#SUPERSABADO | Join us for a full day of in-person activities celebrating the arts and culture of El Barrio! Inspired by our current exhibition, Raphael Montañez Ortiz: A Contextual Retrospective, we are honoring the founder of El Museo by celebrating the community that is home to the museum: El Barrio.
Meet us on 104th Street for family-friendly music by DJ Nina Vicious @nina_vicious, dominos hosted by Capicu, art-making in collaboration with @tallerboricua, neighborhood tours, as well as free admission to Las Galerías.
The block party will be followed by a concert at 4pm in El Museo’s El Teatro, featuring Grammy Award winning musician Davíd Sanchez’s Carib, presented in collaboration with Carnegie Hall Citywide @carnegiehall. Grammy Award winner David Sánchez @davidsanchezmusic is recognized worldwide as one of the finest saxophonists of his generation. Combining instrumental mastery, an unmistakable sound, and deep knowledge of jazz and Latin music—as well as the many traditions that influence them—Sánchez achieves extraordinary results as both a performer and bandleader. The performers include David Sánchez, Saxophone; Luis Perdomo, Piano and Fender Rhodes Piano; Ricky Rodriguez, Bass; Obed Calvaire, Drums; and Markus Schwartz, Percussion.
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INFO: Super Sábado: Celebrate El Barrio! | Saturday, May 21st from 12-5pm | FREE, RSVP at elmuseo.org
#RMO | Performance has been at the center of Montanez Ortiz's artistic project since his Archaeological Finds series, as documented in the original images of these works. Beginning with his prominent participation in the 1966 Destruction in Art Symposium (DIAS), an interdisciplinary gathering led by artist Gustav Metzger in London, Montanez Ortiz's public performances grew in importance. His Chair Dis-Assemblage and Piano Destruction Concert are from this pivotal moment: through these pieces, his work becomes more and more intertwined with his own image, which also led to a growing mass media presence through television broadcast appearances. Since then, the artist has conducted hundreds of performances in the United States, Europe, and Latin America, on the stage and in exhibition spaces, and talking on various personas, from entertainer to shaman. Montanez Ortiz performs these actions like rituals, and with his destructive gestures often aimed at the piano, explores the instrument's sonic potentialities and strong association with Western ideals of high culture. In earlier works, animal sacrifice was also integral to the performances, reflecting the artist's interest in animism.
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INFO: Raphael Montañez Ortiz: A Contextual Retrospective | On View Now (Thursday-Sunday, 11am-5pm) | Get tickets TODAY at elmuseo.org | 🎥 @orestionline
#RMO | In 1957, Montanez Ortiz chopped a 16 mm film of a Hollywood Western movie into pieces using a tomahawk, a type of axe native to several Indigenous groups of North America. He then placed the fragments into a medicine bag, randomly selecting and recomposing them together, backwards and upside down, while chanting a ''Native American war cry:' The resulting work, ''Cowboys and Indian'' is shown in this room, together with two other films from the late 195os ,News Reel and Golf, in which the artist intervened found footage using radical gestures to deconstruct and challenge our perception of moving images in society. These works are presented here with wall pieces where he expands on the manipulation of space and time, experimenting with the grid, repetition of elements, found objects, and combustion. While these formal explorations belong to larger art historical narratives, including Dada's cut up techniques, assemblage aesthetics, and Abstract Expressionism's debates around the pictorial plane, they also relate destruction to broader historical and political contexts. On another wall in this room, works by other artists promote a dialog between Montanez Ortiz and destructive practices in different parts of the world.
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INFO: On View Now (Thursday-Sunday, 11am-5pm) | Get tickets TODAY at elmuseo.org | 🎥 @orestionline
#RMO | The Archaeological Finds are among Montanez Ortiz's most important bodies of works and are central to his aesthetics. Executed between 1961 and 1965, they are the direct result of his physical interaction destroying objects during performative actions. These works push the notion of a finished, autonomous art object, towards a more porous definition of temporality. This idea is implied in the term ''archaeological;" that both allude to the excavatory actions to which the objects have been subjected to, as well as the idea of ruins that they evolve. The mattresses, sofas, and chairs presented here also reference domestic contexts and the human body. By destroying them, the artist believes to be releasing the spirits of objects - and, metonymically, their users - from their actual physical matter.
In a recent interview, Montanez Ortiz related this ritualistic and mystical reading of his practice to his experience playing among the streets and empty lots of New York's Lower East Side, where he was also exposed to different religious cultures, from Judaic-Christian traditions in the neighborhood's temples and churches, to the Caribbean syncretic traditions in his own household: ''We'd climb over the fences, jump up and down on the couches, tear them apart, throw rocks at the windows, see how many windows we could break with the idea that every window you broke, you released an angel. So, there's always this mystical background for me!”
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INFO: On View Now (Thursday-Sunday, 11am-5pm) | Get ticket today at elmuseo.org | 🎥 @orestionline
Ponte Ready: Melanie Santos
Ponte Ready: Melanie Santos
El Museo del Barrio mourns the passing of activist, artist, and friend, Hiram Maristany. A beloved life-long resident of El Barrio (East Harlem), Hiram was an original member and official photographer of the Young Lords in New York, a revolutionary group of young Puerto Rican activists who organized for social justice in this community during the late 1960s-1970s. During this time, he captured the activist history of East Harlem, and the most iconic moments in the history of the group.
A key figure in the Nuyorican arts movement during the mid-1960s, Hiram was an integral part in the early history of El Museo del Barrio, as a director of the Museum from 1974 – 1977. As a photographer Maristany’s work transcended the purely documentary, and testified to the beauty in our communities, of which form a part of the Museum’s Permanent Collection. His works have been included in numerous recent exhibitions at El Museo, including ¡PRESENTE! The Young Lords in New York (2015); Down These Mean Streets (2018); and Culture and the People (2019), and Taller Boricua: A Political Print Shop in New York (2021).
Today, and always, we are grateful for his friendship, and loyalty, and continue to be inspired by his commitment to uplifting Puerto Rican and Latinx communities. Rest in power.
VIRTUAL SYMPOSIUM: Popular Painters & Other Visionaries
PANEL 1: INSTITUTION & REPRESENTATION
The panel “Institutions & Representation” will consider the institutional forces behind the representation of historical artists working beyond conventional museum and gallery circuits. Exploring the who, how, and why certain artists achieve visibility (or lack thereof), this panel will question the institutional frameworks at play.
📚 Raphael König, Associate Scholar, @harvard; and Director, Cérès Franco Collection
📚 Adele Nelson, Assistant Professor, Department of Art and Art History, @utaustintx 📚 Victor M. Espinosa, Assistant Professor Sociology, @theohiostateuniversity
PANEL 2: BLACK MODERNISTS IN THE AMERICAS
The Panel “Black Modernists in the Americas” draws on a curatorial interest in bringing Latin American, Caribbean, and U.S. artists in dialogue through the exhibition. Specifically, it reflects the show's presentation of works by Brazilian Heitor Dos Prazeres, African American artist Horace Pippin, and Haitian artist Micius Stéphane.
📚 Anne Monahan, Professor, Art History department, @fitnyc
📚 Bruno Pinheiro, Ph.D. candidate in History, State University of Campinas, Brazil (UNICAMP)
📚 Jerry Philogene, Associate Professor, American Studies, @dickinsoncollege
#POPULARPAINTERS | Final Weeks! On View through February 27th! Reserve your tickets TODAY at elmuseo.org.
Themes of labor, religion, festivities, and architecture, as well as popular visual sources referencing the body, consumption, Indigeneity, and syncretism provide the narrative thread of the exhibition, which is divided into four sections. Visible/Invisible focuses on spirituality and Afro-Atlantic religions, with works alluding to rituals, mystical visions, and cosmologies. Inside/Outside explores the hybrid influence of European painting and popular culture, including both art history and autobiography. Public/Private showcases an interest for vernacular architecture and the representation of landscapes, while Animal/Human presents figurative works that combine anthropomorphic and zoomorphic forms by Latinx pioneers working across the U.S.
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🎥 @orestionline
As the art world mourns the loss of artist Carmen Herrera, we invite you to see this clip from El Museo’s May 2020 program dedicated to the life and legacy of the late artist.
Full video is available at elmuseo.org and the Museum’s YouTube channel at elmuseodelbarriony. #qepd #rip #carmenherrera #cuba
#ENFOCO | On View NOW through February 27th! Reserve your tickets TODAY at elmuseo.org.
Created in response to negative images of Puerto Ricans and their exclusion from local cultural institutions, the images in the portfolio were photographed over the course of two years. With each following their own individual vision, the photographers turned their lenses to three different themes: Labor (Dante), Small Business (Cabán), and Education (Biasiny-Rivera). The resulting images offer a rich visual testament of New York’s Puerto Rican population, both in urban and rural settings.
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🎥 @orestionline
Charles Biasiny-Rivera: Memories of El Barrio and En Foco
An oral history with photographer and En Foco founder Charles Biasiny-Rivera. Held in conversation with El Museo del Barrio's Chief Curator Rodrigo Moura and Curator Susanna V. Temkin, Biasiny-Rivera shares details about his childhood growing up in East Harlem and the Bronx, his initial forays into photography, the formation of En Foco, and his experiences taking images in New York City schools as part of the Documentation Portfolio currently on view.
The interview was conducted upon the inauguration of El Museo's current exhibition En Foco: The New York Puerto Rican Experience, 1973-1974, with the support of Bloomberg Connects.
#ENFOCO | Check out this #sneakpeek of next week’s premiere video screening of an oral history with photographer and En Foco founder Charles Biasiny-Rivera. Held in conversation with El Museo del Barrio's Chief Curator Rodrigo Moura @rodrigoemoura and Curator Susanna V. Temkin @svtemkin, Biasiny-Rivera shares details about his childhood growing up in East Harlem and the Bronx, his initial forays into photography, the formation of En Foco @enfocoinc_ and his experiences taking images in New York City schools as part of the Documentation Portfolio currently on view.
This program is in partnership with En Foco, Inc. with the support of @bloombergconnects and @tdbank_us.
INFO: Wednesday, February 2nd at 6pm EST | Free via YouTube Live, RSVP at elmuseo.org | 🎥 by @orestionline
#ELBARRIO Enjoy this El Barrio highlight, featuring the Graffiti Hall of Fame @graffitihalloffame_nyc.
Artist and museum educator, Carlos Jesus Martinez Dominguez @feegz173 shares with us the historic importance of Tats Cru @tatscru and this iconic site in our community, located on Southwest corner of Park Avenue and East 106th Street in New York City.
INFO: To learn more about this site, check out El Museo's bilingual guide on the Bloomberg Connects app - see ⛓ in bio | 🎥 courtesy of @davefotogram #elmuseoentucasa #elmuseo #elbarrio #aroundtheblock #graffitihalloffame
Virtual Tour: Popular Painters & Other Visionaries
Join Rodrigo Moura @rodrigoemoura, Chief Curator, and Susanna Temkin @svtemkin, Curator, to explore Popular Painters & Other Visionaries, currently on view at the Museum. The curators will provide an overview of the exhibition and will take questions from the audience.
The exhibition examines the practices of 35 artists working on the margins of modernism and the mainstream art world throughout the Americas around the mid-20th century. The exhibition creates new dialogues between Latino and Latin American artists, with an emphasis on the US, the Caribbean, and South America and the African diaspora in these regions.
We are deeply saddened to hear of the passing of legendary musician Hector ‘Tito’ Matos. An instrumental part of El Museo feel Barrio’s Three Kings Day (Virtual) Celebration, Tito shared with us his talent, commitment, and love for this special day. Our condolences to his family, friends, and the Puerto Rican cultural sector. #qepd
Three Kings Day 2022 Celebration (All Ages)
#threekings #ThreeKingsDay #parranda #music #camels #reyesmagos Celebrate Three Kings Day with El Museo and comedian Suni Reyes! Featuring our Honorary Kings, Madrinas and Padrinos, along with performances by Kinto Zonó, an 11-piece ensemble group dedicated to keeping the musical traditions of Puerto Rico alive; Legacy Women and Alma Moyo, New York’s leading ladies of Afro Boricua Bomba and Afro Dominican Palos; and more!
Celebrate Three Kings Day with El Museo today! TUNE IN AT 6pm EST for Part II today's Virtual Celebration at El Museo's YT (elmusedelbarriony) or Facebook (@elmuseo) For more info visit elmuseo.org/3K2022
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Enjoy this sneak peek of tonight's Celebration with a clip from @kintozono, an 11-piece ensemble group dedicated to keeping the musical traditions of Puerto Rico alive! Hosted by actress and comedian, Suni Reyes @suni_rays_, the evening will also feature our Honorary Kings, Madrinas and Padrinos, along with performances also by Legacy Women @legacywomennyc and Alma Moyo, New York’s leading ladies of Afro Boricua Bomba and Afro Dominican Palos; and more!
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El Museo del Barrio’s 45th Annual Three Kings Day (Virtual) Celebration is made possible thanks to the generous support of @conedison and @poncebank. With additional support provided by @nyculture; @nyscouncilonthearts; @govkathyhochul; the New York State Legislature, and New York State Senate. #3kings #threekings #threekingsday #parranda #guiro #coquito #reyesmago #belen #burritosabanero
Three Kings Day 2022 | Stories + Music (Families & Schools)
#threekings #threekingsday #parranda #music #camels #reyesmagos Hosted by Victor Cruz, and his animated character TITA, join us for a fun-filled educational program to learn about Three Kings Day, the treasured cultural celebration observed in the Caribbean, Latin America, and the diaspora. The program features a special presentation by Teatro SEA, and a performance by Tito Matos y La Máquina Insular from Taller Comunidad La Goyco in Puerto Rico, and more. Join the fun with your crowns and instruments!
Celebrate Three Kings Day with El Museo today! Join us for a TWO-PART virtual program at 11am (Families and Schools) and 6pm (All Ages) via El Museo's YouTube Channel. Tune in! For more info visit elmuseo.org/3K2022
TUNE IN AT 11AM for Part I of Today's Virtual Celebration at El Museo's YT (elmusedelbarriony) or Facebook (@elmuseo)
Hosted by Victor Cruz and his animated character TITA, join us for a fun-filled morning and learn more about Three Kings Day, featuring a special presentation by Teatro SEA, and a performance by Tito Matos y La Máquina Insular from Taller Comunidad La Goyco in Puerto Rico, and more. Be sure to bring your crowns and instruments to join the fun!
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El Museo del Barrio’s 45th Annual Three Kings Day (Virtual) Celebration is made possible thanks to the generous support of @conedison and @poncebank. With additional support provided by @nyculture; @nyscouncilonthearts; @govkathyhochul; the New York State Legislature, and New York State Senate. #3kings #threekings #threekingsday #parranda #guiro #coquito #reyesmago #belen #burritosabanero
Celebrate Three Kings Day with El Museo this Thursday, January 6th! Join us for a two-part virtual program at 11am (Families and Schools) and 6pm (All Ages) via El Museo's YouTube Channel. Tune in! For more info visit elmuseo.org/3K2022
Familias and Schools, tune in tomorrow at 11am for @teatrosea new theater production, Sueño de Reyes / Dream of Kings. Written and directed by founder and creative director Dr. Manuel Moran. Enjoy this sneak peek!
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El Museo del Barrio’s 45th Annual Three Kings Day (Virtual) Celebration is made possible thanks to the generous support of @conedison and @poncebank. With additional support provided by @nyculture; @nyscouncilonthearts; @govkathyhochul; the New York State Legislature, and New York State Senate. #3kings #threekings #threekingsday #parranda #guiro #coquito #reyesmago #belen #burritosabanero
#3K2022 | Celebrate Three Kings Day with El Museo this Thursday, January 6th! Join us for a two-part virtual program at 11am (Families and Schools) and 6pm (All Ages) via El Museo's YouTube Channel. Tune in! For more info visit elmuseo.org/3K2022
Enjoy this sneak peek of a special performance by Tito Matos y La Máquina Insular from Taller Comunidad La Goyco @la_goyco in Puerto Rico! Tune in tomorrow at 11am for full performance and Part I of our Three Kings Day Celebrated for Families and Schools.
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El Museo del Barrio’s 45th Annual Three Kings Day (Virtual) Celebration is made possible thanks to the generous support of @conedison and @poncebank. With additional support provided by @nyculture; @nyscouncilonthearts; @govkathyhochul; the New York State Legislature, and New York State Senate. #3kings #threekings #threekingsday #parranda #guiro #coquito #reyesmago #belen
#SUPPORT | As we close out 2021, we wanted to share a few highlights thanks to your support and generosity. Today, we ask you to consider making a fully tax-deductible gift to El Museo! It is with your support that we can bring you forward-thinking exhibitions, public programs, and engaging education initiatives.
In Las Galerías, El Museo debuted three exhibitions this past year. ESTAMOS BIEN – LA TRIENAL 20/21, opened in the spring, was the Museum’s first national survey of Latinx art. In the fall, the Museum concurrently opened Popular Painters & Other Visionaries and En Foco: The New York Puerto Rican Experience, 1973-1974. These exhibitions not only reflect the core values of the institution and demonstrate our commitment to expanding the art historical canon.
El Museo’s Education Department served thousands of students via virtual programs, while the Programs team engaged with hundreds of visitors in-person, both on-site and in community spaces. We also continued to keep traditions alive through cultural celebrations. In January of 2021, El Museo hosted its first-ever virtual Three Kings Day Celebration, and a joyous celebration of Dia de Muertos in East Harlem's La Marqueta, this past October.
El Museo received a wealth of media coverage this past year. The Museum was featured on the national show CBS Sunday Morning. After receiving critical acclaim, El Museo’s La Trienal was recognized among the ‘Best of 2021’ by The New York Times and selected among the top 10 exhibitions in the US Hyperallergic. Most recently, our on-view exhibitions have already received coverage in The New York Times.
We enter 2022 hopeful, and excited, as we prepare for the opening of Raphael Montañez Ortiz – A Contextual Survey, a retrospective dedicated to artist, educator, and founder of El Museo del Barrio, Raphael Montañez Ortiz, opening Spring 2022. I ask you to please help us keep this momentum with a tax-deductible donation to our Annual Fund. Your c
Portraying Our Communities: Latinx Photography Past and Present
On the occasion of the current exhibition En Foco: The New York Puerto Rican Experience, 1973-1974, join El Museo del Barrio in conversation with contemporary photographers Sebastian Hidalgo and Star Montana. Working in their hometowns of Pilsen, Chicago, and East Los Angeles respectively, the two photographers represent new generations of Latinx photographers whose practices reflect a shared, community-driven ethos with the Bronx-based collective. Moderated by El Museo’s Curator Susanna V. Temkin, the discussion will center on Hidalgo and Montana’s current projects, and will consider the significance as well as on-going challenges of centering Latinx narratives within contemporary photography.
The conversation will be preceded by an introduction and virtual walk-through of the exhibition by El Museo’s Chief Curator, Rodrigo Moura.
El Museo is hiring! We currently have openings in Education, Finance, Marketing, and Operations. For more info, visit elmuseo.org. Apply today!
