October 14, 2009
El Museo to reopen with more space, free Saturdays
 After a $28 million renovation, El Museo del Barrio will reopen Saturday with a free open house to debut its 10,000 square feet of new space filled with Latino art with a very strong connection to the New York City experience.
“It’s a long tme coming, but we finally look like a museum,” Tony Bechara, the chairman of the board of trustees of El Museo, said Wednesday during a media preview.
The museum, now 40 years old, started in a classroom, migrated to a storefront and in 1977 moved into its current multi-use Fifth Avenue building, which was originally an orphanage. Twelve years ago it drew fewer than 20,000 visitors anually; before it closed for renovations last year, more than 125,000 people came through the museum’s doors, El Museo director Julian Zugazagoitia said.
The renovation not only provides extra gallery space, but has opened up the Central Park side of the building with more glass and a redesigned courtyard with an entrance to El Cafe, (which has a Pan-Latino menu culled from 17 cultures.) The goal is for the courtyard to serve as a gathering spot for East Harlem and the Upper East Side at the top of the Museum Mile, said architect Jordan Gruzen. (Although Zugazagoitia noted they’ll cede the “top” title to the Museum for African Art when it opens at 110th Street.)
The art itself is as much about New York City as it is Puerto Rico, Latin American or the Caribbean. The inaugural exhibition, “Nexus: New York: Latin/American Artists in the Modern Metropolis,” focuses on the avant-garde art produced from 1900 to 1942 in NYC as well as Cuba, Mexico, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Peru and elsewhere.
Displayed in airy galleries featuring bold colors and text in Spanish and English, the walls are filled with works by Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and the caricatures of Miguel Covarrubias, (who Al Hirschfeld credited as an influence.)
The art is both modern and old, including pre-Columbian artifacts from the Taino people of Puerto Rico. Oversize quotations fill the white space of the walls: “In New York I’m immensely rich — millions of images I drreamed and desired — millions of things that appeal to the intelligence. My city — the most city of all cities.” — Joaquin Torres-Garcia.
This Saturday, El Museo will host a day of free activities, including live music, art workshops, book readings and walking tours of the neighborhood. It will be the first of the musem’s new Super Sábado days; on the third Saturday of each month, the museum will open for free with special events sponsored by Target.
 Starting in November, museum admission will be a suggested donation of $6 for adults, $4 for students and seniors. The museum will be open Wednesdays through Sundays from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
El Museo is located across the street from the Central Park Conservatory Garden, on Fifth Avenue between 104th and 105th streets, map.
Image source: (Top) Joaquín Torres-García, New York Street Scene (Escena de una calle de Nueva York), 1920, Oil and collage on academy board coated in gray paint, 18 × 23 15/16 inches (45.7 × 60.8 cm), Yale University Art Gallery, Gift of Collection Société Anonyme, Photo courtesy Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut, © 2009 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VEGAP, Madrid.
Other pictures: Amy Langfield/NewYorkology. El Museo galleries; architect Jordan Gruzen with a photograph of the unrenovated courtyard; El Museo as seen from Central Park.
October 14, 2009 3:11 PM in Architecture, Cheap Stuff, Foodology, History, Kids, Museums, Tours, Upper East Side
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