The Museum of Modern art (MoMA) is one of the world’s great modern art, contemporary art, and film collections; with many iconic works.
The Cisneros Institute (Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Research Institute for the Study of Art from Latin America, 2016) makes MoMA one of the world’s great contemporary Latin American art collections too. (moma.org)
MoMA Film screens films daily and hosts the Doc Fortnight and New Directors/New Films film festivals.
MoMA PS1; in Long Island City, Queens; is MoMA’s experimental art space.
Thank you MoMA for sponsoring New York Latin Culture Magazine.
Latin Art at the Museum of Modern Art
MARCH 2026
Mexican Modern Art
Frida and Diego: The Last Dream, shows works by Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera in an installation designed by Jon Bausor, the set and costume designer for the Metropolitan Opera’s new production “El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego” (May-June 2026). It’s at the Museum of Modern Art in Midtown, Manhattan; from March 21 to September 12, 2026. 🇲🇽
The story of “El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego” is that they wanted to be together even after death. In the story, the aging Diego calls Frida back to him on Day of the Dead, a day when we tend family graves. In Mexican Día de Muertos tradition, we make ofrendas (home altars) to invite deceased family members to visit us. We fill the altar with the family member’s personal possessions or symbols of things they loved in life. Frida and Diego fought like cats and dogs, but had a great love story.
Another bit of context for this exhibit is the Whitney Museum of American Art’s statement that the main influence on American art, wasn’t the Europeans. It was the Mexican muralists, of whom Diego Rivera is the most famous.
Guatemalan Contemporary Art
Naufus Ramírez Figueroa: Lugar de Consuelo (Place of Solace) is an installation of costumes, props, sketches, and a performance film of the artist’s reconstruction of the revolutionary play “El Corazón del espantapájaros (Heart of the Scarecrow) by Hugo Carillo, 1962. A student production was violently ended by the Guatemalan government during the Guatemalan Civil War (1960-1966). The artist got his source information from an uncle who was an actor in the play. It’s at the Museum of Modern Art in Midtown, Manhattan; from March 28 to July 5, 2026. 🇬🇹
The American Revolution (1765-1783) was so long ago, that its trauma is largely forgotten, yet the American Civil War (1861-1865) still devils American politics and our day-to-day lives. Civil wars usually last a decade and it takes two or three generations for society to recover. This installation is part of Guatemala’s recovery.
FEBRUARY 2026
Documentary Film
The 25th Doc Fortnight 2026 documentary film festival is at MoMA, the Museum of Modern Art, in Midtown, Manhattan; from February 26 to March 12, 2026. 🇲🇽 🇵🇹 🇺🇸 🇺🇾
NOVEMBER 2025
Afro-Cuban Modern Art
Wilfredo Lam: When I Don’t Sleep, I Dream is a full-career retrospective of the iconic Afro-Chinese Cuban artist whose exile in 1930s Europe (where he was mentored by Picasso), prepared him to express Afro-Cuban spiritual traditions in a very Cubist / Surrealist way. It’s at MoMA, the Museum of Modern Art in Midtown, Manhattan; from November 10, 2025 to April 11, 2026. 🇨🇺
Cuba, Cubism, Surrealism, and Afro-Cuban faiths go together perfectly. Caribbean life is surreal. Saints, orishas, lwa, or misterios are very present in the lives of working people. If you notice them in your own life, you may have this puzzled moment because you are experiencing something that you can’t quite explain. Looking at a Lam painting gives you the exact same feeling. And Indigenous traditions, art isn’t decorative like in Europe. Indigenous art is a container for spiritual energy.
The exhibition title is quite intuitive. In the Caribbean, we often describe spiritual experiences as dreams, so people don’t freak out because you’re talking with spirits. And in order to have these types of experiences, you have to be fully awake in your life. Don’t sleep.
PAST LATIN FEATURES
More Museum of Modern Art
New MoMA
In 2019, “New MoMA” refocused its exhibitions on the permanent collection and made them more inclusive of time, place and gender. Art didn’t only happen in Prewar Europe. MoMA gets it. ¡Bravo!
The Galleries
MoMA galleries are organized as a walk through art history. That came from the recognition that as much as we like to peg art movements to specific places, art is influenced by people and events around the world.
We encourage you to preview the galleries online before you go. You will find things you want to see in person during your visit.
Collection 1880s-1940s covers the Modern Art period on Floor 5. Paris, France was the center of the art world. Art movements include Impressionism, Fauvism, Expressionism, Cubism, Futurism, Surrealism, Harlem Renaissance, Abstract Expressionism, Outsider art, and many others. World War II put an end to all that. moma.org
Collection 1950s-1970s covers the Post-War Art period and beginning of the Contemporary Art period on Floor 4. The center of the art world moved to New York City with more Abstract Expressionism, plus Pop Art, Conceptual Art, Graffiti, Performance Art, Photorealism, and other movements. moma.org
Collection 1980s-Present covers the Contemporary Art period on Floor 2. New York City was still the center of the art world, although the energy moved first to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and then Berlin, Germany. The rise of affordable international travel and the internet pretty much ended the time of art movements. Today, it’s everything, all-the-time, and anything goes. Have we reached the end of art? moma.org
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