AMID CRITICISM, EL MUSEO DEL BARRIO TO HIRE CURATOR WHO SPECIALIZES IN US LATINX ART
El Museo del Barrio in New York is currently looking to hire a curator who specializes in the United States’ Latinx art and culture, a pursuit that may allay recent concerns about the museum’s program; various cultural figures have criticized the institution for prioritizing artists who hail from Latin America over Latinx artists who are based in the US. The museum told Artforum that it has been developing a plan to build its curatorial capacity for several months.
Following the museum’s announcement earlier this month that Brazilian-born Rodrigo Moura was named chief curator, artist Marta Moreno Vega, a former director of the museum, pulled her work from an upcoming exhibition. In a Facebook post explaining the move, she wrote: “El Museo is excluding the communities it was created to serve. In its origins, the parents who fought for the then school project wanted their children and their children to learn and value their history and continue the legacy of their inheritance that was invisible in the schools. . . . It is now an institution divorced from our communities not addressing the issues that are impacting our people.”
Moreno Vega accused the institution of adopting a more Eurocentric vision that “devalues” the work of the coalition of Puerto Rican parents, educators, artists, and activists who helped found the museum. In addition, the San Juan–based curator Marina Reyes Franco has said that she will no longer participate in a panel at the museum that she had been asked to moderate. According to Artnews, she called the recent hiring of Moura—who most recently served as an adjunct curator of Brazilian art at the São Paulo Museum of Art—“the latest misstep in a series of decisions that have taken the museum in a direction away from Puerto Rican/Latinx artistic community and concerns.”
The museum, however, must not only worry about remaining relevant to the communities of the creatives who established it. El Barrio, the East Harlem neighborhood where the institution is located, has been dealing with gentrification, and the demographics of the area have changed over the last decade. In a 2014 interview, the museum’s former manager of education and public programs, Stephanie LaFroscia, commented on the issue. “The changing community is a challenge to us, we are now serving different families, not just Latino families who speak English or Spanish, there are also languages the staff doesn’t speak.”
The museum may be able to address some of the concerns being raised in the very exhibition that Moreno Vega has refused to be a part of: “Culture and The People: El Museo del Barrio, 1969–2019.” The first part of the show, opening on April 11, will focus on the museum’s legacy and will feature works from its permanent collection. The second part of the exhibition, which will be on view from June 11 to September 29, will address its cultural trajectory.
According to El Museo del Barrio’s job description for the position, the new member of its curatorial team will have expertise in the “art and culture of historically marginalized Latinx communities in the United States including but not limited to Puerto Ricans, Chicanos, Afro-descendants from the Americas and LGBTQ populations” and “will support the museum’s effort to emphasize the importance of Latinx art as part of the art historical canon, and our advocacy efforts.”
[Update:]
More than two hundred people have signed an open letter demanding change at El Museo del Barrio. Titled “Mirror Manifesto,” it claims that the museum is out of touch with its roots and that its upper management is trying to turn it into “an elitist institution for Latin American art.”
The document reads: “Given the continued failure of El Museo del Barrio to fully embrace its responsibility to the many diasporas that make up the Latinx communities in NYC and across North America, generations of Latinx artists pouring out of BFA, MFA, & PhD programs have come to see the El Museo as irrelevant.”
It also maps out how the museum can reform and regain its institutional identity. The letter calls for a more diverse board, the establishment of a residency program for emerging Latinx artists, and an overhaul of its hiring practices.
News of the open letter was first reported by Artnews.
In response to the open letter, El Museo del Barrio provided Artforum with the following statement:
“El Museo del Barrio is a dynamic institution whose mission expanded more than 30 years ago to reflect the diversity of El Barrio and Latinx communities across the United States and beyond. Through our exhibitions, programming, and educational initiatives, we are committed to portraying the complexity and interplay between Puerto Rican, Latinx, and Latin American communities in order to present a robust picture of our individual and collective experiences.
We appreciate the feedback from our community and the recognition of the importance of the breadth and range of the Latinx experience.
We are already in the midst of a number of new initiatives – including expanding our curatorial team with the call for a Latinx Curator and other programs that will launch in the future. In doing so, we will strengthen and advance our advocacy role, nurture professionals in Latinx art, and foster the growth of artists at all stages of their careers, especially emerging artists.
El Museo is firmly rooted in the belief that art is agent for social change and building on our accomplishments over the past 50 years, we understand that shared cultural experiences transcend geographic borders and encourage working collaboratively to inform cultural dialogue locally, nationally, and internationally.”
The institution also said that it was “saddened” by Moreno Vega’s decision not to participate in its “Culture and The People” exhibition. It said: “Her work will be missed in the exhibition’s important dialogues on our collection and legacy, but we will of course honor her request.”
