A major fixture of the Long Beach art community officially returned Sunday when the Museum of Latin American Art (MoLAA) reopened to the public with a celebration complete with live traditional music and dancing, countless art workshop areas for the kids and a pair of traditional mojiganga puppet figures in front of the museum ready to greet visitors.
It was the kind of day in which the atmosphere was as vibrant and colorful as the exterior of the newly remodeled museum, the smell of freshly cooked carne asada tacos and other wonderful foods filled the air, and even the little ones seemed to enjoy the mojigangas even though they are 12-foot-tall dancing figures that wouldn’t be out of place in someone’s nightmares.
In addition to the renovated building, which was designed by prominent Mexican architect Manuel Rosen, MoLAA now has over 4,000 extra square feet of gallery space, an 850-square-foot educational art studio and a film-screening room, and a research library is set to open in the near-future.
“There’s not too many other places you can go to find out about contemporary Latin American art in this country,” said Susan Golden, director of public relations and marketing for MoLAA. “There are few sources of information, and that’s one of the things that this museum wants to do, is be a source of information.”
The reopening of MoLAA also marked the unveiling of two new exhibits, “Bridge to the Americas” and “La Presencia: The Presence of Latin American Art in California Collections.” “Bridge to the Americas” is a presentation of the museum’s permanent collection, while “La Presencia” (which runs through Aug. 25) consists of Latin American works from 1950 through the present that were gathered from private and public collectors.
“Bridge to the Americas” includes over 80 works of art that are presented both geographically and thematically in two galleries. The first gallery presents about 25 works and features at least one piece from each of the 19 Spanish/Portuguese-speaking countries in the regions of Mexico, Central America, South America and the Caribbean.
The second gallery includes about 60 works presented in three thematic movements: metaphorical landscapes, the mestizaje, or blending, of identity and political history.
Among the notable pieces included in “Bridge to the Americas” is Mexican artist Laura Hernandez’s “El Hombre Elemento Agua (The Human Water Element),” a giant multi-colored head sculpture made up of representations of sea life such as a frog that serves as the head’s nose.
“La Presencia” features works from a number of different artistic movements, including representational art, pop art, conceptual art and the use of newer forms such as organic sculpture and video art.
Although “La Presencia” includes works from more well-known artists such as Rufino Tamayo, it features notable pieces from artists who are not quite as renowned. Brazilian artist Tunga’s “Seeing Mermaids” is a series of black-and-white photographs featuring a man carrying a long-haired mannequin head along a beach, while Mexican artist Fernanda Brunet’s “Volcano” is a lumpy, pink-hued sculpture made of fiberglass, wood, metal, flowers and bread dough.
It is also notable that a number of works in the pop art section of the exhibit prominently and bizarrely feature Disney characters as a representation of American mass culture and its influence on the rest of the world. For instance, Mexican artist Enrique Chagoya’s charcoal sketch “Barbarie/Civil-izacion (Barbaric Acts/Civilization)” features Donald Duck in a scene with two decapitated and bloodied bodies that have snakes coming out of their necks, while Colombian artist Nadin Ospina’s “Goofy” presents Goofy in a Buddha-like bronze statue.
According to the MoLAA Web site, the museum’s mission is to “educate the public about contemporary fine art (by artists who have lived and worked in Latin America since WWII) through the presentation of a significant permanent collection, dynamic exhibitions and related cultural and educational programs.”
“It’s especially important in this part of the country because there is so little representation either in Los Angeles or San Francisco for contemporary Latin American artists,” Golden said. “This museum fills a very important role.”
MoLAA is located at 628 Alamitos Ave. (near the intersection of Alamitos and Seventh Street), and it is open Tuesday through Friday from 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m., Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tickets are $7.50 for adults and $5 for students. For more information, visit www.molaa.org.
