Class Blog

For this weeks blog post I decided to go to El Museo del Barrio located on East Harlem in Manhattan, this museum focus is to preserve the art and culture of Puerto Ricans and all Latin Americans in the United Stated. The museum was founded by Raphael Montanez Ortiz and many others. I chose to visit this museum because I am a latina and I have never been to a museum that it mainly based on latin culture and art alone in New York City. I saw many different things in the museum and there was an exhibit being displayed which I found very interesting called " Playing with Fire" it is an exhibit based on the radical activism in the 60's.

The sculpture pictured above is called "Bronx Floors", made by an artist named Abigail DeVille. The materials used to make the art piece were plywood and found object. The artist made this sculpture by collecting objects she inherited from her grandmother who spent forty years living in the bronx. I think the art work represents the struggles of the people living in New York City at the time for example the chains and bullet holes in the structure represents the living environment in the crime plagued city during the 70's and 80's. The sculpture also shows many beer bottles, old records and cassettes, a coffee cup, flowers, an old tv and a handbag which I think represents a sense of their heritage from back home and the way they brought their culture to the United States.