| Edification value |  |
|---|---|
| Entertainment value | |
| Should you go? | |
| Time spent | 50 minutes |
| Best thing I saw or learned | A haunting and beautiful photograph by Cecilia Paredes, a Peruvian artist. In her work, she has her body painted to match fancy floral wallpapers or fabrics, and then photographs herself in front of them. My photo is at the end of the post. |
El Museo del Barrio is currently the northernmost of the “Museum Mile” museums, occupying a stately building on Fifth Avenue, just across 104th Street from the Museum of the City of New York. According to its website, it started in the early 1970s as a cultural center focused on Puerto Rico. It has since expanded its focus to cover all Latin American and Caribbean art and artists. After bouncing around East Harlem a bit it found its current home in the Heckscher Building in 1977.
The building dates to 1921 when it was built as an orphanage, and includes a spectacularly beautiful theater, now run by El Museo and called Teatro Heckscher.
I was a little disappointed in El Museo. I was expecting a survey of that Latino experience in New York City, as told through art as well as other sorts of artifacts. The museum has a permanent collection of 8,000 objects, so I’m sure they could tell that story. In practice, though, El Museo is a small art museum, showing work by Latino-Caribbean artists. It’s in a large building, and I always assumed it was a rather large museum, so I was surprised to realize the exhibition space is confined to six rooms on the ground floor.
The main show when I visited was of video art by Beatriz Santiago Muñoz, as well as selections she chose from the museum’s permanent collection. I run hot and cold with video art. On the one hand, two of the best, most memorable works of art I’ve seen in the past two years were video pieces. On the other hand, I am bored to tears with the vast majority of it. Muñoz’s work, largely non-narrative, did little for me. I lacked the eye or knowledge to understand how her selections from the permanent collection clicked with what she’s trying to do.
The other show featured recent acquisitions, definitely a common and valid theme for a museum, although given the small space available, I didn’t find it very edifying as far as key current trends in Latin or Caribbean art. I liked some of the pieces, but I also thought much of the work on view wasn’t especially “Latin.”
It’s like my rhetorical question about the Leslie-Lohman‘s acquisition strategy: will they collect anything just because it happened to be made by someone LGBTQ? Or do the themes and topics and content of the art have to also reflect that world somehow?
Based on the recent acquisitions show, I’d tentatively say that El Museo opts for the broad approach: they’ll acquire anything by an artist with the right name or country of origin.
That’s a perfectly valid collection strategy. However, given their minuscule space it directly impacts the likelihood that a visitor to El Museo del Barrio actually learns something about el barrio. I’d therefore argue the museum needs to be clearer about its brand or purpose.
The museum also features Side Park Cafe, a large and decent looking bar/restaurant. Without at all wanting to seem stereotypical, I bet they make great margaritas. Apparently it’s fairly new: there aren’t enough reviews on Yelp to get an objective margarita quality metric.
Should you go to El Museo? I don’t really recommend it. If you have to choose between going there and extending your visit to the Museum of the City of New York, the latter is probably the better use of your limited museuming time. Naturally, as with many places I’ve visited, it comes down to your interest in the current exhibition. If you have a chance to go to the theater there, definitely seize the opportunity.
For Reference:
| Address | 1230 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan |
|---|---|
| Website | elmuseo.org |
| Cost | Suggested Donation: $9 |
| Other Relevant Links |
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If you aren’t a local, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the Brooklyn Museum is all about Brooklyn. There is 
The biggest show on currently is Georgia O’Keeffe: A Living Modern, portraying her more as icon than as artist. It blends some of her paintings with clothes from throughout her life, and photographs of her taken by everyone from Alfred Steiglitz to Cecil Beaton to Karsh to Richard Avedon. It’s fascinating to see how so many different photographers viewed one individual, and how easy it is to tell those with whom O’Keeffe clicked, and those with whom she didn’t. It’s also fascinating to see how carefully she controlled her own image from the start of her career. By her later years, you don’t even need to see her head. Gnarled hands holding an animal’s skull against a black, belted dress lit by harsh desert light communicate exactly whom you are looking at. This is the Brooklyn Museum doing something different, fresh, unexpected, and doing it well.
And its efforts have alienated at least some of its core audience –i.e., me. Prior to this visit, I hadn’t gone since a Takashi Murakami show in 2008. It hasn’t done anything to make me want to go. Should you go? Yes. But go knowing that some of the Brooklyn Museum’s efforts at being edgy, innovative, or populist are terrible, and therefore it isn’t as good as it could or should be.
Without a doubt the Onassis Center was good for my vocabulary (which is very good to begin with). I picked up six new-to-me words, at least five of which I am sure I will find opportunities to use in the near future.
All the front windows of the house have neat, scary terra cotta faces centered above them. This was apparently a Dutch thing to ward off bad spirits. Reproductions are available at the gift shop!
The Van Cortlandts in the early days were super-wealthy, and the house showed it. They were also super-Dutch, proud of their heritage as New Amsterdammers, and many of the details of the house (including a blue and orange color scheme for the china cabinets in the parlor) reflect that as well. Little that’s in the house today remains from the Van Cortlandts, but most of the publicly accessible rooms are filled with period furniture and knick-knacks that give a sense of what the lives of the earlier generations of the family might have been like.
When it opened as a museum, one room was redone to depict a modest city house, simulating how a much less successful Dutch family would have lived down in Manhattan. They’ve kept that to this day and while I would’ve liked the place to be as close as possible to how the family lived in it, the contrast is informative.
The Van Cortlandts lived a very different kind of life than the 
The Museum of the City of New York is an absolute treasure. It occupies a really lovely Georgian/Federal-style building at the northern end of Museum Mile on Fifth Avenue. The Museum started out its life in 
For all that it’s merely fake old, it’s got one of the best staircases of any museum in the city, a super-elegant curve leading up from the ground floor. Nowadays complemented by a terrific light sculpture. 
on a rotating basis. Interact with a character and you get more, potentially much more, about them and their contribution. And it’s not just human characters, you can find out about players like beavers and oysters, too. I’m often skeptical of the value of these kinds of things. Too often they are more sizzle than steak. But this impressed me a lot.
And finally, as I do wherever I can, I will mention Alexander Hamilton, who is present, larger than life size, on the facade.
The National Lighthouse Museum is a museum in its infancy. Located a short stroll from the ferry terminal in St. George, Staten Island, the museum describes the history, technology, and design of lighthouses. 
The building’s stained glass is a treasure of nautical and celestial themes.
This incredible 1872 punch bowl and goblets, 36 pieces and 800 ounces worth (that’s 50 pounds! 22.68kg!) of sterling silver. A gift to Isaac Newton Marks, president of the New Orleans Fireman’s Charitable Association. It’s hard to see in the picture but the stem of each goblet is a fire fighter.
The Fire Museum is like the attic of the New York City Fire Department. It’s where all the old interesting stuff is, and exploring it is very much like sifting through a collection of fire-related artifacts that someone at some point considered worth keeping.