DÍA DE MUERTOS 2020

Celebrate México’s beloved 3,000 year-old tradition commemorating friends and relatives who have passed away with El Museo del Barrio! This year, we are presenting, in collaboration with Calpulli Mexican Dance Company, a series of virtual programs from November 1 – 2, 2020. Be sure to stop by Las Galerias through November 15th (Saturday and Sundays from 12-5pm only) and check out an altar by artist Libby Paloma and Ace Lehner. All programs open to all ages.

ALTAR: SHARE A NAME AND MEMORY OF A LOVED ONE WHO HAS PASSED AWAY!

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Libby Paloma and Ace Lehner, Sweet Blue, from the installation series, Por Vidx, Mixed media installation, soft sculpture, found objects, fabric flowers, metallic foil, light, tacks for participants to include images and notes, 2020

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Sweet Blue by artists Libby Paloma and Ace Lehner

On view in Las Galerías October 24 – November 15, 2020 (Saturdays and Sundays, 12-5pm only)

We invite you to share the name, memory or image
of a loved one who has passed away!

Submit the memento in the Galleries or submit online via email at press@elmuseo.org. All online submissions will be posted on our Día de Muertos webpage and be included in the on-site installation.

Sweet Blue, is part of Por Vidx, an ongoing series of collaborative installations created by Libby Paloma and Ace Lehner. The sculptures are informed by altars often found within Latinx domestic spaces constructed to remember passed ancestors. The work aesthetically echoes the intricate ofrendas built for Día de Muertos within the Latinx community.

Por Vidx also reflects on and honors members of the LGBTQ+ community by incorporating adornments found in queer aesthetics and communal spaces, an all-to-often underrepresented or marginalized constituency. Together, Paloma and Lehner reflect these communities in their lived cultural experiences and insert a hybrid intersectional aesthetic practice into the gallery space. Each installation brings together found and made objects, textiles, mixed media, and much more built-in situ as site-specific mixed-media sculptures. Each piece creates room for viewers to contemplate and reflect, perusing various textures and materials, making meaning out of unexpected juxtapositions, and ultimately experiencing an other-worldly moment.

The installations propose new ways of engaging with art historical traditions and challenge exclusionary practices while offering forward-moving futurity. The artists aim to honor ancestors while pushing for a different, more beautiful future.

During this year’s Día de Muertos celebration, we honor the extraordinary number of lives lost due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the lives lost as a result of systemic racism and violence, and those fighting to create change. Visit our altar and share a name and memory of a loved one who has passed away. Instructions available on-site.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Libby Paloma is an interdisciplinary artist originally from California, currently based in New York. Paloma’s work often explores issues related to iconography, visibility, and representation related to her intersectional Chicanx and queer cultural identity. For more information, visit libbypaloma.com.

Ace Lehner is an interdisciplinary artist and arts and culture writer specializing in critical engagement with identity and representation in contemporary art and visual culture. Lehner’s artistic practice often embraces collaboration and primarily utilizes installation, performance, and photography to mine the complex relation between representations and the constitution of identities. For more information, visit ace-lehner.com.

VIRTUAL ALTAR

Manuel Rivera, Sr.

August 1,1931-April 13,2020
Died after a 13 day struggle with Covid-19. Manuel emigrated during the Great Migration of Puerto Rican’s to NYC in 1950. He was, as today, an essential worker contributing to the economy through work in the health care and food industries (nursing home attendant, delicatessen worker, and waiter). He and his wife, Ana Maria Rivera, would save up and become business people as beloved bodega owners in El Barrio.

Manuel Rivera, Jr.

June 27, 1954-September 4, 2020
Manny was born and raised in East Harlem. He died after a 4year struggle with cancer. He rests free from pain and suffering. We will always remember his fierce conga playing.

Barbara Williams

Victoria Yellow Wolf Tarrant

Possum

RIP
September 25, 2020

William Michael Beaton & Deborah Marie Greenidge Beaton

I would like to submit the names of William Michael Beaton, who passed away due to heart failure but more importantly of a broken heart because of his wife that had passed away 2 years earlier, Deborah Marie Greenidge Beaton. May they reunite on the other side.