As part of itsreopening on Saturday, October 17, 2009,El Museo del Barrio will unveil the Carmen Ana Unanue Galleries, the first space dedicated to the museum’s Permanent Collection, fulfilling one of the main objectives of its renovation campaign. The galleries will showcase, on a rotating basis, highlights from one of the oldest and most important collections of twentieth-century Caribbean, Latino, and Latin American art in the United States, along with related events and educational programs. The inaugural exhibition, Voces y Visiones: Four Decades Through El Museo’s Permanent Collection, made possible thanks to the generous support of American Express and the National Endowment of the Arts, will take viewers through a timeline of El Museo’s history in relation to the history of Latin American and Caribbean art in New York, the United States, and internationally.
The inaugural Voces y Visiones exhibition will include a rich and varied range of artworks and historical objects from the permanent collection ranging from Pre-Columbian Taíno works, to Santos and other devotional objects, prints and posters, and modern and contemporary art. Presented in three sections that will focus on milestones in the history of El Museo, Voces y Visiones encompasses more than 200 pieces of artwork documentation and memorabilia from a variety of mediums and cultures.