Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

This short text appears in a catalogue of works in El Museo del Barrio’s permanent collection. It addresses several works by artist Leandro Katz. Among them, a chromogenic photographic print titled Lunar Typewriter (1980). It depicts an old- [...]

This exhibition brochure, written by guest curator Julia P. Herzberg, explains the ideas behind Leandro Erlich’s installation Neighbors. The brochure contains her curatorial statement and a brief artist’s biography. It describes Neighbors [...]

Carlos Tortolero wrote this text in response to an article by Lonnie Bunch, “Museums, Diversity, and the Will to Change” (which appeared in the July/August 2000 issue of Museum News), noting that, while Bunch’s article was well written and [...]

In this lecture at the Maryland Institute College of Art, Puerto Rican-born artist Bibiana Suarez presents an overview of her work and considers the role of race and ethnicity in her art. She begins the lecture by explaining her ethnic background and [...]

On the occasion of the exhibition La casa de todos nosotros: Antonio Martorell y sus amigos [A House for Us All: Antonio Martorell and Friends] held at El Museo del Barrio in 1992, Puerto Rican curator Susana Torruella Leval analyzes Antonio [...]

Puerto Rican art historian and curator Petra Barreras describes Rafael Montañez Ortiz’s work as startling and demanding of responses from viewers. She calls Ortiz “a shaman” who has continually looked for ways to heal society through art. [...]

On the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Caribbean Cultural Center, the executive director, Melody Capote, asserts the relevance of concluding the first quarter of a century of the institution with an exhibition of the work of visual [...]

This essay, written by curator Deborah Cullen, offers an account of how El Museo del Barrio was founded out of the drive to establish a creative nexus for Puerto Rican artists who exist between the mainland United States and the Caribbean island. [...]

This essay, written by curator Deborah Cullen, offers an account of how El Museo del Barrio was founded out of the drive to establish a creative nexus for Puerto Rican artists who exist between the mainland United States and the Caribbean island. [...]

In this brief artist statement, Puerto Rican-born artist José Caraballo posits that El Museo del Barrio’s exhibition of recent acquisitions serves as a reminder of the existence of Puerto Rican artists, and their struggle for recognition in the [...]

This catalogue for the 1980 exhibition, Comadres: A Collective Environmental Exhibit by Ten Women Artists, wasdesigned as a folder containing loose sheets of handwritten minutes taken throughout the different meetings in preparation of the [...]

This article written by Puerto Rican anthropologist Arlene Dávila, analyzes the debate over El Museo del Barrio’s change in mission from a grassroots organization concerned with the empowerment of Puerto Ricans to a museum of Latin American art. [...]

In this typewritten open letter, the artist collective Taller Boricua [Puerto Rican Workshop], criticizes El Museo del Barrio for excluding the work of several New York-based Puerto Rican artists from an unnamed exhibition of Puerto Rican art jointly [...]

In the curatorial statement by Susana Torruella Leval in the 1991 exhibition, Con To’ Los Hierros: A Retrospective of the Work of Pepón Osorio [Armed to the Teeth: A Retrospective of the Work of Pepón Osorio],she breaks down the artist’s [...]

Susana Torruella Leval relates her experience as curator and director of El Museo del Barrio throughout the 1990s. She discusses the process of maintaining professional standards of care for the museum collections of Puerto Rican, Latino, and Latin [...]

In this short introduction to the exhibition catalogue, Jorge Soto Sánchez: Works on Paper, 1974–1979,Jack Agüeros—director of El Museo del Barrio from 1977 until 1986—maintains that while the artist was well known as a painter and sculptor, [...]

In this letter, artist Marcos Dimas writes to art critic Lucy R. Lippard and invites her to review his exhibition at El Museo del Barrio. Dimas discusses his participation in an activist artist collective, known as the Art Workers’ Coalition, and [...]

In her review of a retrospective exhibition of the art of Marcos Dimas at El Museo del Barrio, Grace Glueck discusses the following works: El Bohique, Ritual Assemblages, Tribute to Tito, The Voyager, and Dream Room. She describes Dimas as fusing [...]

In this essay, Petra Barreras del Río relates her experience as curator and interim director of El Museo del Barrio throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s. She describes the process of building up the financial and administrative resources of the [...]

Former curator of El Museo del Barrio, Gladys Peña-Acosta relates her experience as chief curator and interim director of that institution throughout the late 1970s and into the ‘80s. She discusses the process of introducing professional standards [...]

In this essay, Rafael Montañez Ortiz, an artist of Puerto Rican descent born in the United States, relates his early history as an artist and activist working in New York City during the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s. He provides a firsthand account of [...]

In this essay, Rafael Montañez Ortiz, a United States-born artist of Puerto Rican descent, argues that Eurocentrism, patriarchy, and racism have deprecated the art and culture of peoples from the Americas, Asia, and Africa. He notes that the legacy [...]