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Whitney Curator Marcela Guerrero Leads the Way on Latino Art


“Transforming Spaces” is a series about women driving change in sometimes unexpected places.


Marcela Guerrero had just started as curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2017 when Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, where she was born and raised.

“I thought, ‘How can I help?’,” she recalled in a recent interview. “I have an important background. There’s something I can say.’”

The result is “there does not exist a world poshuracán: Puerto Rican art after Hurricane Maria,” opened November 23 at the museum, in New York, and billed itself as “the first academic exhibition focusing on Puerto Rican art to be held by a major U.S. museum in nearly half a century. century.”

Five years after becoming Whitney’s first curator specializing in Latin art, Guerrero has made a meaningful impact on the field as the nation’s Hispanic population continues to grow and museums try to reflect and appeal to a wider variety of audiences.

“As the first Puerto Rican curator at Whitney, she was in the right place at a time when Latinx art was emerging as a force to be reckoned with,” said Mari Carmen Ramírez, who in 2001 became the first curator of Latin American art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, when it established its Latin art department. “We all expect her to contribute to this transformation in a meaningful way.”

That transition is remarkable, although much of the attention around diversity has focused on Black and person in charge after the Black Lives Matter movement. For example, in a major milestone, Brazilian museum director Adriano Pedrosa in December has been named curator of the 2024 Venice Biennale, becoming the first Latin American to hold the world’s longest contemporary art exhibition.

In 2021, E. Carmen Ramos, formerly head of Latino art at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, is to name Curator and Conservation Director at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC

In 2020, Pilar Tompkins Rivas became chief curator and deputy director of curation and collections at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles. In 2019, Los Angeles County Museum of Art promote Rita Gonzalez became the head of contemporary art.

The Smithsonian is in the early stages of planning a National Museum of Hispanics for National Malla venue where members of the Spanish Congress Caucus had urge President Biden to support.

And in 2021, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Ford Foundation found Latinx Artist Scholarship, awarding 15 artists $50,000 each.

The changes Ms. Guerrero helped promote at the Whitney are evident throughout the museum – bilingual catalogs and texts on the walls; new marketing techniques to reach different audiences; Acquisition and integrated exhibition of Latino artists.

Last year, she was promote from assistant curator to deputy curator, a position of privilege.

Scott Rothkopf, senior vice president and chief curator of the museum, said: “She was a real visionary. “She has had a truly transformative impact on the museum in terms of programming, the way we think about the Latinx, about translations, about our audiences, about our partnerships, and about what we do. who we consider our community.”

Ms. Guerrero – 42 years old and holds a Ph. in art history from the University of Wisconsin, Madison – with Whitney from the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, where she participated in the 2017 exhibition as a curatorRadical Women: Latin American Art, 1960-1985.”

Prior to Hammer, Ms. Guerrero worked in the Latin American and Latin American art department at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, where she served as research coordinator for the International Center for the Arts of the Americas.

At Whitney, Miss Guerrero in 2020 helped organize”Vida Americana: Mexican muralists remake American art, 1925-1945.” She also curated the 2018 exhibition”Pacha, Llaqta, Wasichay: Indigenous Space, Modern Architecture, New Art,” featuring the work of seven emerging Latino artists.

While some might consider her a pioneer, Guerrero sees herself as part of a broader diversity effort underway at the Whitney and at museums around the country.

“It’s about rearranging the way we tell American art history,” she said. “We are collectively responsible for expanding our reach and addressing pieces of the collection that we have overlooked.”

Ms. Guerrero said she feels the support of curators at other institutions, such as Susanna V. Temkin at El Museo del Barrio, Carmen Hermo at the Brooklyn Museum and Vivian Crockett at the New Museum.

“I keep thinking of other people across America doing the same job, from small museum to big museum,” she said. “We all know each other and can trust each other.”

In contrast, other curators said they were inspired by Ms. Guerrero. Cecilia Fajardo-Hill, an art historian and curator of the “Radical Women” performance at Hammer, said Ms. Guerrero’s role “was one of serious study and commitment to the subject. Latin American and Latin American art fields.”

Dr Fajardo-Hill added: “Her contribution to ‘Radical Women’ was key, as we worked together to study Latina and Chicana artists, and she went it alone. Puerto Rican studies. “Her work at the Whitney to date has been critical in advancing the expanded concept of what Latinx art means today.”

At the same time, Ms. Guerrero acknowledged the burden many curators of color must share: turning business as usual in an entrenched operation. “That means asking all parts of an organization to do things they’ve never done before, understand what it means to market to a Latinx audience, not just do the things,” she says. Latinx show. “People in the Bronx also want to know about Edward Hopper or Andy Warhol.”

Ms. Guerrero said real change requires a “comprehensive approach,” including diversifying the board, adequately compensating predominantly Black and Brown security personnel, and mentoring those behind her. “How do we think about the distribution of power,” she said, “and the distribution of wealth?”

She added: “I don’t lose that, because I’m in the hierarchy right now, I should have empowered myself to talk about these things and I think I made it. “It comes from care and love for the organization.”

Guerrero has particularly warm memories of spending hours in the free Smithsonian as a young woman when she visited her sister who was working in Washington. “It’s a place where I can be safe as a woman, where I can reflect and think,” she said. “That’s my church.”

She wants to share the joy she’s had for a long time experiencing art with more people, to help those who might feel intimidated in front of museums feel welcome and welcome. appear on the walls.

“The goal for me is to unravel this world because it can be so exclusive and so mysterious,” she said.

To be sure, the road is not always easy. Ms. Guerrero noted that her recent promotion to associate curator was her first promotion in an organization. “I had to move from city to city to be able to grow,” she said. “I don’t want to forget my years as a curator, who didn’t have time in the day — the doors where you had to knock to create space and advocate for yourself.”

The tough days are worth it, Ms. Guerrero said, and she sees encouraging signs of progress, namely that nearly 25% of the work Whitney has in 2021 is by Latin artists.

She is also encouraged by the inclusion of a work by Freddy Rodrígueza Dominican immigrant, in a current exhibit in Whitney, “Balance: Between Painting and Sculpture, 1965-1985,” extended until March 5, 2023. Mr. Rodríguez died on October 10 at the age of 77 of ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, just nine days after the film opened.

“He said he had been on other Latinx shows, but had never been in a mainstream show,” Ms. Guerrero said, adding, “I would win – no matter how small. It’s my fuel.”

She’s also proud of the exhibition “does not exist un mundo poshuracán” – which takes its name from Puerto Rican poet Raquel Salas Rivera and runs until April 23 – showcasing the work of 20 artists. The program comes with an online video series that will help contextualize the artwork.

“There’s also plenty of anger and suffering, along with a lot of beauty,” said critic Holland Cotter. Written in The New York Times, “in a carefully structured and moving performance, this is also one of the first major surveys of contemporary Puerto Rican art at a leading American museum. period for nearly 50 years.”

Despite her successes so far, Ms. Guerrero doesn’t seem to feel nearly able to exhale.

“It was a lot of pressure,” she said. “The one thing I didn’t expect when I got to the Whitney was this magnifying glass looking at me.

“Some parts are tough, but I also see growth,” she added, “and there is hope in that.”

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