Out & About
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
At El Museo del Barrio’s Young International Circle gala on Friday night, guests spoke of the museum’s success since Julián Zugazagoitia arrived four years ago as director. His anniversary is on November 18th.
“It’s not just a museum for the neighborhood,” a co-chairwoman of the circle, Jana Pasquel, said, referring to the museum’s name and location in Spanish East Harlem at Fifth Avenue and 104th Street. “It’s at the start of Museum Mile.”
That position gives the museum a broader responsibility to educate the public about Latin American culture. “With the national debate about immigration right now, there needs to be more understanding,” Ms. Pasquel said.
On the balcony, a few friends talked about the museum’s collection. “A lot of people associate the museum with the art of Puerto Rico,” Florencia Masri, an Argentine, said. “They don’t realize that the museum is for artists of Latin America,” as well as the Caribbean.
These comments demonstrate Mr. Zugazagoitia’s achievements in the past four years, including broadening the definition of art shown and redefining the museum’s audience. Exhibits, including a show of paintings on loan from the Museum of Modern Art, have won critical praise and attracted record numbers of visitors.
The most exciting transformation will be evident in 2008, when a glass and steel structure over the courtyard will adorn the 80-year-old red-brick building (a former orphanage) and a reconfiguration of the first floor will enhance the galleries, at a cost of $12 million.
“The museum is an unbelievable institution undergoing a great revival and renovation,” Ms. Pasquel said.
It’s no accident that the Young International Circle started when Mr. Zugazagoitia arrived. A board member, Yaz Hernandez, launched the group knowing that the museum was on the verge of big developments that would capture the attention of people in their 20s and 30s.
She guessed correctly. The first Young International Circle event was at the museum and drew about 50 people. More than 400 people gathered this year at a rented party space, the Angel Orensanz Foundation, on the Lower East Side.
“I have little to do with the group now; they don’t need me,” Ms. Hernandez said.
The museum’s momentum was not the only attraction for Ms. Pasquel, who was raised in Mexico City and has lived in New York for three years. “It’s important to keep alive Latin traditions,” Ms. Pasquel said, pointing to the decorations for the party, which had a Dia de Los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, theme.
Guests at the party included a co-chairwoman of the circle, Samantha Thompson; the Cuban-American fashion designer Alvin Valley; the Mexican artist Victor Rodriguez, who lives in Brooklyn and whose work will be exhibited at Art Basel Miami Beach in December; the head of Latin American art at Christie’s New York, Virgilio Garza; Greek composer Pericles Kanaris, whose solo piano composition, “Project Innocence,” will be performed at Carnegie Hall in May; the director of Galeria Ramis Barquet, Federica Simon, and the co-chief executive of Art Nexus, a publication targeting Latin American art collectors, Susanne Birbragher. The museum’s chairman, artist Tony Bechara, and board member Estrellita Brodsky also attended.
