Although Latinx Heritage Month comes to a close tomorrow, celebrating Latin people and their various cultures should not end.

From October 27, 2022 to March 26, 2023, El Museo del Barrio will be presenting Juan Francisco Elso: Por America. Examining Latinx culture, including that of his native Cuba, Elso gained international recognition in the early 1980’s before his untimely passing in 1988.

Created mostly using natural, organic materials, his sculptural practice examines the complex forms of contemporary Cuban, Caribbean, and Latin American identities, as inflected by the cultural influences of Indigenous traditions, Afro-Caribbean religious beliefs, as well as the traumas of colonial oppression. Elso’s commitment to such histories – which relate to El Museo del Barrio’s own foundational ethos – presage current post- and decolonial perspectives. The exhibition examines such legacies and parallels by placing Elso’s prescient work alongside a multigenerational group of artists active in the Caribbean, and throughout North, South, and Central America.

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