courtesy: El Museo del Barrio

It used to resemble a community center, with telltale signs of it’s history as a public classroom, the answer to a demand for artistic representation. African Americans and Puerto Rican parents, teachers, and community activists in central and East Harlem lobbied for an institution that celebrated the arts of their people. A grassroots effort realized in 1969 has indeed blossomed into a vibrant and progressive institution after 40 years with it’s latest refinishing. Now it looks like a real museum, rising to the occasion of it’s all too important mission — to represent the Latin American art community with some of it’s acquired 6,500 works, and many more stories and cultures interwoven in the fabric of it’s visual representations.

El Museo del Barrio opened their doors to members and special guests this week from the art world. The mood was festive amid the salsa and chatter of new patrons, ushering in the 44-million-dollar renovation by architect Jordan Gruzen. Wood, glass and metal beckoned to passerbys on 5th Ave.

Inside were  the coming-out exhibits Nexus New York: Latin/American Artists in the Modern Metropolis curated by Deborah Cullen, Director of Curatorial Programs, which centered upon New York-based artists of Latin American and Caribe descent who produced works from 1900 to 1942. Voce y Visiones, curated by Elvis Fuentes, is a broader examination that covers the depth of the museum’s collection. Here are two diverging shows with the common theme of a museum putting it’s best foot forward.

The corridors were packed with work in both shows — maximizing the space to the gills in a rich and authoritative brush stroke on the Latin American art movement. The recognizable icons Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo were intermixed with Joaquin Torres-Garcia’s “Fourteenth Street.”

Small crowds of people marveled around contemporary work like Ester Hernandez’s provocative “Sun Mad” and a work by  Marcos Dimas, discussing the context.  The 1987 piece “La Cama” by Pepon Osorio was a focal point in the midst of it all.

The big opening is Sat. It’s free, and rain or shine, it will be busy.

courtesy of NY Times

Fifth Ave. at 104th St. (212-831-7272)—“Voces y Visiones: Four Decades through El Museo del Barrio’s Permanent Collection.” Opens Oct. 17. |  “Nexus New York: Latin/American Artists in the Modern Metropolis.” Opens Oct. 17. through Feb. 2010 (Wednesdays through Sundays, 11 to 5.)

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Art Review | ‘Nexus New York’: Art Currents Flow Two Ways in Pan-American City, U.S.A. (nytimes.com)

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