HOME › explore online › permanent collection › modern and contemporary

permanent collection

explore now

Modern and Contemporary header image

El Museo del Barrio's Permanent Collection of Modern and Contemporary art includes paintings, sculpture and installation, photography, and mixed-media works. These holdings are, primarily, postwar expressions by Puerto Rican artists based both on the Island and in New York. The collection also includes selected Mexican, Central, and South American artists active in the contemporary New York art scene.

El Museo's holdings of modern and contemporary art is particularly strong in Post War works (1950–the present), including paintings (over 400), photography (over 700), and other contemporary, mixed-media and three-dimensional and time-based forms, such as video, primarily created by New York-based Latino artists (in total, over 1,500 works). Presently, El Museo is seeking to actively build its Permanent Collection by developing the holdings of Post-War art, with a sustained focus on artists/groups/schools who emerged in, produced in, or interacted within, New York. El Museo's Bienal, The (S) Files, and the artists featured within, continue to be extremely supportive of the Museum and allow us to represent the pulse of contemporary Latino expression.

 

Vargas-Suarez Universal, Virus Americanus XIII, 2003, Oil enamel on wood, Collection El Museo del Barrio, NY Acquired through "PROARTISTA: Sustaining the Work of Living Contemporary Artists," a fund from the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Trust and a donation from the artist, 2003.16, Detail.

Dominican Artwork

In particular, the museum seeks to create focused areas of works overlooked or under represented in museums of Latin American art, or encyclopedic institutions that have Latin American collections. We strategically plan to develop holdings in these neglected areas through the scholarly research, outreach, and presentation of exhibitions and related publications and programming which bring us into active contact with stakeholder in these areas. Successful examples of this strategy include our focused holdings of contemporary work by Dominican artists, as well as photography, video, and other materials that document actions by artists of the Americas. Working towards these goals, El Museo has received many wonderful donations, and has made selective acquisitions, that add to the strengths of our Permanent Collection holdings.

 

Tony Capellán, Mar Caribe (Caribbean Sea), 1996, Installation: 500 found plastic sandals with barbed wire, Collection El Museo del Barrio, NY, Acquired through "PROARTISTA” Sustaining the Work of Living Contemporary Artists," a fund from the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Trust, in collaboration with the artist and Samson Projects, Boston, 2006.14, Detail.

Social and Political Themed Artwork

Within the collections of paintings, photographs, and small-scale sculpture are reflected many modes of expression--including works that explore social and political themes--that serve to amplify El Museo's important holdings in graphics. In these, the artists generally employ realistic, impressionistic, or expressionistic styles. Many of the photographs, in particular, document everyday conditions in El Barrio (East Harlem) or Puerto Rico. Included as well are paintings that incorporate realistic (or nostalgic) depictions of landscapes or cityscapes, particular regions or historically-important places, significant objects, and/or architectural elements.

 

Carlos Osorio, Símbolos que nos joden (Symbols That Enslave Us), 1973, Oil over acrylic and sand on canvas, Collection El Museo del Barrio, NY
Gift of Jimmy Jimenez, P92.80, Detail.

Abstraction

El Museo's Modern and Contemporary Collection also includes objects in which abstraction is an important, if not the prevalent, form of language. These pieces have been created by artists trained in the global artistic languages that emerged in urban industrial centers of the Caribbean, Mexico, and South America in the late 1950s. These include geometric and perceptual explorations of color and shape, process¬ oriented works, and expressionistic modes of abstract language that allow for intensely personal and psychological responses.

By mid-century, artists around the world challenged the representational quality of art itself. At the core of their concerns were the very processes of "abstraction" and "representation." A selection of conceptual paintings, photographic, and mixed-media works in the Permanent Collection, incorporating various metaphors -- as well as political, social, and economic commentary, and, frequently, the use of language -- attest to this important trend.

 

Carmen Herrera, Red on Red (Rojo sobre rojo), 1959, Oil and acrylic on canvas, Collection El Museo del Barrio, NY, Gift of Tony Bechara, P96.9.2a-b, Detail.

Mixed Media Artworks / Installation
explore collection area

A growing selection of paintings, sculpture, mixed ¬media forms, and installation pieces reflect a hybridization of styles that exemplify global postmodern trends in which Puerto Rican artists working in New York, in particular, played a leading role in developing. These include incorporations of everyday objects and printed matter that lead to a collage of styles, serving to reference prior cultural production. Often gently humorous, these works are usually, at heart, critical challenges to stereotypes and cultural assumptions.

Leandro Katz, Lunar Typewriter (Máquina de escribir lunar), 1980, Chromogenic print, Collection El Museo del Barrio, NY, Gift of the artist, Ph97.1, Detail.