VTMBH Article: Body
The revolution is back and this time
its cultural. The search for a new director for El Museo del Barrio has begun behind closed doors, excluding the community that gave it birth. Educators, activists and professionals in harmony with Community Board 11 are clamoring for representation in the selection process that has locked them out since the new board took over in 1986.
Sprung from the pain of Puerto Rican artists, activists and educators struggling for identity, history and expression 33 years ago, El Museo del Barrio today enjoys more funding, personnel, prestige and professionalism than any other Latino arts organization.
Yet, there are no Puerto Rican curators or educators employed at El Museo. A rehabbed firehouse at 104th between Lexington and Third, founded in 1979 as a community art school and once run by local El Museo artists, stands abandoned. The Three Kings Day parade, initiated as an East Harlem tradition in 1978, has not grown in funding, stature or pageantry since El Museos new board took over.
This is even more telling when no one board member was present for this historically racially diverse community parade, even as newly elected Mayor Michael Bloomberg made this event his first public appearance.
The bigger issue then becomes: how do we reconcile the needs of a still-marginalized community with the demands of the fine arts world? Without people of color and community artists on this elite and powerful board, that issue will remain unresolved. El Museo del Barrio will eventually follow the Museum of the City of New York to an improved location (code word for white) unless the city and politicians intervene.
Yet, El Barrio is growing so fast culturally that the nubohemian movement of the cultural corridor will pick up where El Museo leaves off. El Taller Boricua, ironically enough instituted in response to the white washing of another defunct institution (Friends of Puerto Rico, which also placed more value on the fine arts world than the community that conceived it), is leading the new movement of community arts organizations. Their collective mission mirrors El Museos original calling to educate, communicate and demonstrate a bond of solidarity that is Puerto Rican in focus and Latin American in scope. Here in the cultural corridor, art doesnt necessarily need to be in galleries as much as it needs to be directly connected with the everyday reality of the people.
Just last month an open door art and cultural showcase took place on 106th Street and Lexington Avenue that recalled the bohemian Village days of the 70s.
Led by young artists and poets of Mixta Gallery, El Taller brought the gallery outdoors to the street, and individual artists opened their studios to the public. Musicians and performers danced and played on the pavement from 105th to 107th Streets while community folks stopped, stared, inquired and participated in the mirth. Every Thursday, Taller Boricua hosts Julias Jam, a cultural smorgasbord of art, music, dance, poetry and literature at a formerly abandoned elementary school rescued from shelter status and salvaged as the Julia de Burgos Cultural Center, sporting art galleries, a theater in the round and artists residencies.
Sprung from the pain of Puerto Rican artists, activists and educators struggling for identity, history and expression 33 years ago, El Museo del Barrio today enjoys more funding, personnel, prestige and professionalism than any other Latino arts organization.
Yet, there are no Puerto Rican curators or educators employed at El Museo. A rehabbed firehouse at 104th between Lexington and Third, founded in 1979 as a community art school and once run by local El Museo artists, stands abandoned. The Three Kings Day parade, initiated as an East Harlem tradition in 1978, has not grown in funding, stature or pageantry since El Museos new board took over.
This is even more telling when no one board member was present for this historically racially diverse community parade, even as newly elected Mayor Michael Bloomberg made this event his first public appearance.
The bigger issue then becomes: how do we reconcile the needs of a still-marginalized community with the demands of the fine arts world? Without people of color and community artists on this elite and powerful board, that issue will remain unresolved. El Museo del Barrio will eventually follow the Museum of the City of New York to an improved location (code word for white) unless the city and politicians intervene.
Yet, El Barrio is growing so fast culturally that the nubohemian movement of the cultural corridor will pick up where El Museo leaves off. El Taller Boricua, ironically enough instituted in response to the white washing of another defunct institution (Friends of Puerto Rico, which also placed more value on the fine arts world than the community that conceived it), is leading the new movement of community arts organizations. Their collective mission mirrors El Museos original calling to educate, communicate and demonstrate a bond of solidarity that is Puerto Rican in focus and Latin American in scope. Here in the cultural corridor, art doesnt necessarily need to be in galleries as much as it needs to be directly connected with the everyday reality of the people.
Just last month an open door art and cultural showcase took place on 106th Street and Lexington Avenue that recalled the bohemian Village days of the 70s.
Led by young artists and poets of Mixta Gallery, El Taller brought the gallery outdoors to the street, and individual artists opened their studios to the public. Musicians and performers danced and played on the pavement from 105th to 107th Streets while community folks stopped, stared, inquired and participated in the mirth. Every Thursday, Taller Boricua hosts Julias Jam, a cultural smorgasbord of art, music, dance, poetry and literature at a formerly abandoned elementary school rescued from shelter status and salvaged as the Julia de Burgos Cultural Center, sporting art galleries, a theater in the round and artists residencies.