An Emphasis on Resistance

El Museo del Barrio is pleased to present An Emphasis on Resistance, an exhibition showcasing the awardees of the 2019 Grants & Commissions Program from the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO). Now in its 17th edition, and for the first time on display in New York City, the exhibition brings together the work of nine artists recognized in three categories:

• Emerging Artists: Susana Pilar Delahante, María José Machado, Claudia Martínez Garay, and Oscar Abraham Pabón

• Mid-Career Artists: Leyla Cárdenas, Ana Linnemann, Yucef Merhi, and Nicolás Paris

• Achievement Award recipient: Cecilia Vicuña

A catalyst for new works and a meaningful platform for advanced research on Latinx and Latin American art, this collaboration between CIFO and El Museo del Barrio explores the concept of identity through the lens of resistance, both in Latin America and within its diaspora.

Titled An Emphasis on Resistance, the exhibition reflects multiple forms of resistance embedded in the region’s art. It challenges any simplistic categorization of Latin American identity, proposing instead a nuanced and dynamic interplay of cultural processes. In his 2010 essay Against Latin American Art, Cuban critic and curator Gerardo Mosquera argues that “Latin American art has ceased to be so, and has instead become art from Latin America.” He elaborates: “From, and not so much of, in, or here, is the keyword today in the rearticulation of increasingly permeable polarities: local/international, contextual/global, centers/peripheries, and West/non-West.”

The artists featured in this exhibition navigate this cultural landscape, expressing the diversity of artistic practices from countries such as Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Peru, Venezuela, and the United States. In this context, Latin American art not only refers to art created within the region but also to works produced in the diaspora, further complicating notions of identity.

Resistance serves as a core theme throughout the exhibition, taking on different meanings across the artists' practices. For Cecilia Vicuña, this year’s Achievement Award recipient, resistance manifests through her site-specific project at El Museo del Barrio: a monumental quipu sculpture. This work symbolizes the disappearance of Andean glaciers due to climate change and critiques policies favoring mining at the expense of water resources and indigenous cultures. Vicuña positions her indigenous identity as an act of resistance against both historical and contemporary colonization. As the artist explains, “Quipus were burnt, but the vision of interconnectivity—a poetic resistance—endures underground.”

The notion of resistance also extends to the broader political landscape of the hemisphere, where the rise of right-wing populism continues to shrink democratic spaces. In this context, reclaiming the museum as a platform for the “experimental exercise of freedom,” as described by Brazilian art critic Mario Pedrosa, is not only necessary but vital to both individual and collective creativity. In times like these, an emphasis on resistance seems like the most effective interim strategy.

El Museo del Barrio’s connection to Latin America stretches back to its founding 50 years ago by the Puerto Rican community in response to the cultural marginalization of Latinx and Latin American communities in New York and across the United States. During the 1970s, the museum showcased many artists from Latin America who were largely overlooked by the mainstream art world. Today, El Museo continues this legacy, presenting works that engage with identity, community, and social justice, further expanding the cultural dialogue between the region and its diasporic communities.

Rodrigo Moura
Chief Curator
El Museo del Barrio

1. Mosquera, Gerardo. “Against      Latin American Art.” In Contemporary      Art in Latin America. London: Black Dog Publishing, 2010, p. 12.

2. Vicuña, Cecilia. “Notes      on the Works.” In Read Thread:      The Story of the Red Thread. Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2017, p. 135.