DePaul Art Museum LatinXAmerican shines light on LatinX artists

Designed to increase the visibility of Latinx artists and voices in museums, DePaul Art Museum “LatinXAmerican” exhibition has compiled an intergenerational group show featuring 38 Latinx artists from Chicago and beyond. The exhibition opens, along with the Museum following its COVID-19 closure, on May 14 and will run through Aug. 15.

“LatinXAmerican” assesses the presence and absence of Latinx artists in DePaul Art Museum’s permanent collection, and reflects efforts to build towards equity and lasting transformation, according to Laura-Caroline de Lara, interim director of the museum. The exhibition is part of the museum’s ongoing Latinx initiative, which aims for greater Latinx representation and participation in museum exhibitions, collections and public programs, she noted. This Latinx initiative is a multi-year research inquiry focused on artists of Latinx heritage living and working in the United States.

“As we consider the future of the museum field and our relevance to our city and university communities, our hope is that museum initiatives like ours at DePaul Art Museum will become commonplace, rather than newsworthy, as we all continue to adopt steps and principles around inclusion and equity that should have been the driving forces behind each of our organizations, all along,” said de Lara.

“LatinXAmerican” will occupy all of the museum’s galleries, and will include photographs, paintings, works on paper, sculptures, textiles, videos and installations primarily drawn from the museum’s collection, including several recent acquisitions, and new works from artists living throughout the United States and Puerto Rico.

Latinx artists changing art history

“The goal of the initiative is to change art history, to make sure that the range of artists and experiences in the United States in 2021 are adequately represented in our collection and exhibitions,” Julie Rodrigues Widholm, former director and chief curator of DePaul Art Museum and current director of UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, said. “Museums want to expand not just representation, but participation so that everyone feels empowered to be a contributor to contemporary culture.”

Public programs in conjunction with the exhibition include a 10-episode podcast hosted and produced by Ivan Lozano from Archives and Futures, which features artists from “LatinXAmerican.” The first episode was released Dec. 4 and can be found at https://www.archivesandfutures.net/podcast/ as well as on Spotify, Sound Cloud, Apple Podcast and DePaul Art Museum’s website.

DePaul Art Museum is located at 935 W. Fullerton Ave. on DePaul University’s Lincoln Park Campus. Future in-person visits are by appointment only with the reservation system to be announced soon on the museum’s website. Admission is free. Additional information is online at http://artmuseum.depaul.edu or by calling 773-325-7506.