El Museo del Barrio: Beyond the Canvas
“Culture has no influence on art.”
This was one of the more unique responses to the questions I posed to visitors exiting Las Galerías of El Museo del Barrio, Manhattan’s leading museum for “[presenting] and [preserving] the art and culture of Puerto Ricans and all Latin Americans in the United States” (El Museo). It was also one that sparked a debate between the art student that made this claim and the young student that accompanied him; a debate that went on for so long that I decided to move on and speak with other visitors while their low-volume quarrel continued in the normally quiet museum lobby. I had asked about the role of culture in the creation and dissemination of art. “Maybe people don’t think culture is so important after all,” I thought to myself. “At least not when discussing artwork.”
Although one student armed with a sketchbook and sporting ripped black jeans would disagree, the majority of museum-goers I interviewed believe that culture has a significant influence on the creation of art through all mediums. Most of them also agree that there is great opportunity in using art as a tool for education, though none of them could go into detail as far as how exactly that could be done. I wanted answers, so I decided to seek out the opinions of the curators and executive board of El Museo del Barrio. I was excited to learn from experts in the field about how culture is defined through art and how its presentation to the public can benefit immigrants. This goal turned out to be much more complicated than anticipated.
I envisioned myself walking into the museum lobby, following a big sign reading, “Offices,” and entering a portal into the world of Manhattan’s greatest minds in Latino art. Upon actually entering the lobby, however, I found no such sign. I asked the only visible museum employee, the store cashier, how I could gain access to the invaluable knowledge that the board members of the museum surely possess. He didn’t know. The spacious, nearly empty lobby and its plain walls were reflective of the opportunities available to me in it (there was just about nothing there).
This was okay! A minor setback. I’d soon be speaking with the museum’s artist-in-residence, Claudia Alvarez, during her open studio session. I was ready to learn as much as I possibly could from her about the idea of utilizing art as a tool for education. With my questions in mind and notebook in hand, I waited for her to finish conversing with a group of people I can only assume were her friends. I awkwardly stood around the area, observing the same nearby pieces of art for over an hour and a half before being informed by a very polite and very large security guard that the gallery would be closing in fifteen minutes. Rather than interrupt Ms. Alvarez’s discussion, I decided to ask her through email if she’d be willing to answer a few of my questions about culture and El Museo. She agreed, but never actually replied to my second message with my availability for a meeting or to the questions I sent her weeks later as a reminder that she hadn’t gotten back to me. She did inform me, however, that she has had very little contact with the administration of El Museo. Great! We had a lot in common.
My focus temporarily shifted to the “contact us” page of the El Museo website. I sent an email detailing my goals to the press inquiries address. I received no response. I tried the “general information” address instead. Nothing. A phone message left for an El Museo event coordinator by a mutual friend remains unanswered. My LinkedIn connection requests sent to board members are, as of writing this, still pending. Why has it been so difficult for me to get in contact with the leaders of this organization? A brief look into its history provides some valuable insight and potential reasons.
In May of this year, Berta Colón, an executive in El Museo, was dismissed from her position on account of “performance reasons” (New York Times). Colón accused a colleague of employee intimidation and wrote to the board of trustees that projected revenues for the museum were often grossly inflated. This is one of several issues in power dynamics that the museum has faced in recent years. El Museo has been struggling financially; it has reduced its operating hours and made staff cuts in recent months. The appointing of Guadalajara-born Patrick Charpenel as Museum Director in May has been widely praised, though occasionally controversial. One museum visitor I spoke with (who made sure to inform me she is of Puerto Rican heritage) claimed that the museum is straying from its mission to present Puerto Rican cultural contributions established by activists and artists during the museum’s founding in 1969 by moving to a broader mission of featuring art from across Latin America and the Caribbean. These concerns present an interesting point: is El Museo being more inclusive of various cultures by expanding its coverage, or minimizing the contributions and impact of the people that founded it in the first place? Although this particular visitor felt strongly about the subject and there is some coverage of it online, no other guests that I interviewed had enough knowledge on the matter to form an opinion.
Geography plays an essential role in the crafting of El Museo’s mission. The museum’s being in New York City is important to its role as a cultural institution, though its being in Spanish Harlem is vital to its role as one that aims to serve Latinos. Harlem is known for being comprised of communities of lower-class minority groups, particularly African-Americans (their complicated status in the area outlined well by John L. Jackson’s “Harlemworld”) and Latino immigrants (mostly from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, as is common in New York). Harlem’s current changing environment largely due to gentrification somewhat mirrors the changing state of El Museo.
A trend that became clear during my interviews with museum-goers is that people were almost always ready to talk about how their past experiences with culture influenced how they perceived art itself, but they took a noticeable amount of time to come up with a response when asked how they perceive the actual presentation of the art. When I asked them whether they think the interests of the individual curators or the organization as a whole are made clear through in the presentation and description of works, nearly all responded that they’ve never thought about that before. After all, they paid the “suggested donation” to observe artwork that was presented to them and to learn about artists, not the people who chose to feature them or their motivations.
If art is reflective of culture and a museum serves as a collection of art (and therefore a collection of culture), it would not be misguided to claim that those who decide what artistic works are featured in an exhibit also decide on what aspects of a culture are shared with viewers. An art curator does more than simply choose the prettiest pictures to show the public. They create a narrative that will design the image of a culture. Given that this is a great amount of power, it is important to understand who holds it and whether they work in the interests of those they are meant to serve. Yasmin Rodriguez, an ex officio museum trustee, states that El Museo has a history of supporting audiences from “poor and working classes” (New York Times). However, at first glance, the leadership of El Museo does not seem to reflect this idea.
The Chair of El Museo del Barrio, Maria Eugenia Maury, is married to a multimillionaire biotech founder (Observer). Claudia Marmolejo, Second Vice Chair, is an Executive Director at Morgan Stanley. Members of the Board of Trustees include Juan Domingo Beckmann, CEO of José Cuervo. While it is not uncommon for museums to have wealthy people in positions of power, it is particularly interesting to see them on the board of El Museo since multiple pieces featured in the galleries criticize class inequality and the wage gap in the United States. This is not to say that well-to-do people can not work in the interests of the lower class. However, one can’t help but feel an initial sense of hypocrisy for a museum whose director lives in a lavish condo in Trump World Tower to feature an exhibit titled “Nasty Woman, Bad Hombres,” a clear condemnation of the actions and words of President Trump. This point was not mentioned by visitors I spoke with until I brought it up, and it was answered with, “Huh…” four times. It seems to make sense for a museum focused on Latino art be led by people of Latin American heritage as El Museo is, though it is difficult to believe that the museum’s leaders can truly understand the struggles of the lower-class population it claims to serve, even if many of those leaders are described as philanthropists. I began to think that my difficulties in contacting the aforementioned director and other museum executives was by design; that an important conversation was being consciously avoided.
It took some time for me to realize that I was yet to include a key question in my research: What is art? I set aside some time to experience the main exhibit in El Museo for myself to try forming an answer, keeping in mind the idea of the existence of a universal gaze and the dichotomy between art that is considered popular and that which is considered bourgeois. The exhibit I observed was titled Nkame by the late Afro-Cuban printmaker Belkis Ayón, which served as a look into the secretive Abakuá fraternal society believed to have been established in Africa.
I found the exhibit fascinating. I was quickly enveloped into the story of Ayón, who committed suicide at age 32, and the narrative her works led me through. Her interpretations of the Abakuá were intriguing and almost haunting; her incredibly detailed figures representing the deities of the society stared at viewers with faces free of features with the exception of wide eyes, appearing curious, mysterious, and inviting all at the same time. In one print, the figures invited viewers to join a celebration. In another, they invited the viewers to join in death. I thought the experience was intense, a feeling shared by others who observed the exhibition. Although I had set out to attempt creating a definition for art, I instead came up with an answer to my original question of whether art could be used as a tool for education. Spoiler alert: I strongly believe so.
I had planned to learn about how working with the museum has affected the lives of the immigrant members of the board and immigrant artists featured in it. I instead realized that my observation of artwork put me in an introspective state and made me question my status as the child of immigrants and my identity as a Latino. I learned I was not the only person that felt this way; visitors young and old and of Hispanic heritage or otherwise stated that they occasionally thought about their role in the world and their role in their communities after observing art that they felt some kind of relationship with. This is the real achievement of El Museo and all art-sharing platforms that achieve similar results. I can imagine that putting people in this state of introspection is a part of the mission of the museum, though being as I was unable to get in meaningful contact with any administrators there, I can’t be sure. Bringing our own culture into question makes us more appreciative of that of others. This act doesn’t only benefit immigrants, it benefits us all (although a certain art student in ripped jeans may claim otherwise).
