Latinos are taking up space in cultural institutions that have long ignored the growing demographics that make up almost 20% of the American population, according to the US Census Bureau.
While funding for Latino arts and culture has gradually increased in recent years, Latinos remain largely underrepresented in most museum collections, exhibitions, scholarships and programs, according to the American Alliance of Museums. Latinos across all sectors are aiming to change that.
New museums are in the works to honor and explore Latino identities, including the National Museum of the American Latino expected to open in the coming years in Washington, D.C., and the International Salsa Museum being established in New York.
Investments have also been made to include Latino curators, exhibitions, and artwork at art institutions such as the National Gallery of Art, El Museo del Barrio, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, and more.
This year, Advancing Latinx Art in Museums – a grantmaking initiative supported by Mellon, Ford, Getty and Terra Foundations – will award 10 grants of $500,000 to selected institutions to create permanent Latinx curatorial positions.
“We recognized that we needed to do more than work on diversity, but we needed to have longer-term strategies to change the system that had become very exclusive,” said Margaret Morton, director of creativity and freedom of expression at the Ford Foundation. , to ABC News.
Hiring curators who have broad knowledge of nuanced and complex Latino identities is essential to creating exhibitions that reflect the communities they aim to serve or explore, Morton said.
In February, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York named Marcela Guerrero the institution’s senior curator.
“In his new role, Guerrero will continue his pioneering work in acquiring and exhibiting contemporary and historical Latinx artists in the Whitney’s program and collection,” the museum’s press release states.
Making room for Latinos
When Carlos Tortolero first worked on building the National Museum of Mexican Art in the heart of Chicago, he said people told him it wouldn’t be possible to put an art museum in a neighborhood worker and make it free.
“Well, 36 years later, we’re still here. We’re still free,” Tortolero, the museum’s president and founder, told ABC News.
He continued: “Either the arts are for everyone or they are not… Every human being should have access to the arts. »
The museum is a recipient of the ALAM grant to hire a permanent Latino curator.
“Everyone needs to be part of the story,” Tortolero said. “Everyone needs to be part of the story. Every group needs to have curators who represent their community.”
Tortolero’s collection of approximately 20,000 pieces of Mexican art and history — and counting — resides in a city in which 1 in 5 Chicagoans identify as Mexican, according to US Census Data.
His work symbolizes how the representation of Latinos and by Latinos can be a successful and successful endeavor.
By keeping the museum accessible, community members from all backgrounds can continue to embrace and learn about the Mexican heritage that has thrived in the city, country and world, Tortolero said.
“We can boast about our culture,” Tortolero said. “Look at all the beautiful cultures we’ve created. It’s something we’re very proud of.”
Much like Tortolero, conductor Lina Gonzalez-Granados said she realized there was little representation of Latinos in classical music and wanted to pave the way for other Latino musical artists like her.
By helping to elevate voices within the vast diversity of the Latino community, she said she hopes to find mutual understanding across our diverse backgrounds.
As she rose through the ranks – performing at institutions like the Philadelphia Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, etc. – she aspired to explore the connection between the folk music of her Colombian roots and the Eurocentric classical music styles that dominated her industry.
She discovered that they were more alike than one might expect, with the sounds of the two being “intertwined.”
American-born opera performer Anthony León, of Colombian and Cuban origin, comes from a family of musicians. The sounds of Latin music were part of his upbringing.
León, a tenor with the Los Angeles Opera, told ABC News that performing Latino stories allows him to connect with his Latino culture through its sounds and language in a way that feels second nature.
“Few things make me as happy as being able to participate in creating art that is tied to our roots and my language and my culture,” he said.
He said Latin American representation in opera in the 1990s and 2000s continued to inspire him, as if he was “standing on the shoulders of giants.”
He will play a role in the Los Angeles Opera’s performance of “El último sueño de Frida y Diego,” a play about iconic Mexican painters Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera and their tumultuous relationship that opens Nov. 13 at the Pavilion Dorothy Chandler.
Telling Latino Stories
Storytelling — whether visual art, historical museum curation or musical performances — can tell stories and their messages can transcend cultural differences, artists say.
That’s what Gonzalez-Granados hopes to explore in Kahlo and Rivera’s story, as the conductor of “El último sueño de Frida y Diego.” The show will connect the tragic Greek legend of Orpheus and Eurydice to the Mexican holiday “Dia de los Muertos,” or Day of the Dead.
“It’s about building a bridge, creating experiences that bring people together and reach commonalities,” Gonzalez-Granados said.
She continued: “You can make history however you want. It’s not just for Mexico, and it’s not just for Colombia, and not just for the Cubans… It’s for everyone.”
When Gonzalez-Granados became a citizen of the United States, a country known for being a melting pot of cultures, she said the need to bridge that divide grew stronger.
“It seemed like a moral obligation to be able to also explore other aspects of what it means to be from the United States,” she said.
Alfredo Daza, a Mexican-born baritone who also performs at the Los Angeles Opera, said he feels more like a global citizen: He has traveled abroad for much of his life to learn , study and practice his profession.
Daza will take on the role of Rivera. Daza said that although Rivera is a visual artist, his story about creativity resonated with artists of all kinds.
“What we have in opera is this magic that we are all united through music,” Daza said.
Gonzalez-Granados calls artists “ambassadors” who explore other worlds, places where artists can explore their identity “with a sense of humility and a lot of responsibility.”
