Four Texas Artists Included in El Museo del Barrio’s 2024 Triennial

by Jessica Fuentes June 6, 2024

El Museo del Barrio, a New York City-based museum focusing on Caribbean and Latin American art and culture, has announced the 33 artists, including four from Texas, who will be included in its 2024 Triennial.

A photograph of curators Susana V. Temkin, Rodrigo Moura, and María Elena Ortiz.

Susana V. Temkin, Rodrigo Moura, and María Elena Ortiz. Photo by Casey Kelbaugh.

Flow States – LA TRIENAL 2024 is the museum’s second survey of Latinx contemporary art. The exhibition is organized by the El Museo’s Chief Curator, Rodrigo Moura, and Curator, Susanna V. Temkin, along with guest curator María Elena Ortiz. Ms. Ortiz, a Curator at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, had previously worked at the Pérez Art Museum Miami. 

According to El Museo’s website, the title of the triennial is a nod to “the fluidity of geographic boundaries and cultural exchanges, reflected in the selection of artists who are based in the Americas, the Caribbean, Europe, and Asia.” Themes in the exhibition include dispersion, transformation, landscape and the built environment, spirituality, collective memory, hybrid belongings, and material exchanges. The exhibition will be accompanied by a bilingual publication.

Ms. Ortiz told Glasstire, “Focusing on diaspora, national, and international cultural exchanges, this show celebrates artists at different moments in their careers through a Latinx perspective. There are exceptional artists working in Texas — a center of the Latinx history in this country. It has been a pleasure to learn more about their works, along with my fantastic colleagues at El Museo.”

Artists with Texas ties included in Flow States are Lance De Los Reyes, Verónica Gaona, Mark Menjívar, and Sarita Westrup. Mr. De Los Reyes (who produced work under the pseudonym Rambo) was born in Houston, studied at the San Francisco Art Institute, and was a well-established artist and graffiti artist in New York. He died at age 44, in 2021. Ms. Gaona was born in Brownsville and currently lives and works in Houston. She was awarded the Latinx Fellowship Award (2023) and the Chispa Award (2022), by The U.S. Latinx Art Forum, and was a recipient of a $10,000 Artadia Award (2021). 

Ms. Gaona told Glasstire, “I’m very happy to be among the selected artists in this specific exhibition. I think there are parallels between the curatorial focus, which is to break away from the nationalist view of Latinx in the United States, and my creative practice of not being confined into a particular label and being expected to create visual work in a particular way.”

Mr. Menjívar is an Associate Professor in the School of Art and Design at Texas State University and is based in San Antonio. Recently, his George Bush Intercontinental Airport installation Looking Up (Voices from Jack Yates High School) was commissioned as part of the FotoFest Biennial Critical Geography

Born in Edinburg, Ms. Westrup currently splits her time between Dallas and Penland, North Carolina. In 2022, she was Arts Fort Worth’s inaugural Emerging Artist Resident and in 2023 she was selected to present a solo exhibition at Cluley Projects in Dallas, through its annual open call for exhibition proposals. 

Flow States – LA TRIENAL 2024 will be on view at El Museo del Barrio from October 10, 2024, through February 9, 2025. See the full list of participating artists and learn more about the exhibition at the museum’s website.

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