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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC and good news procrastinators up until now in our series on must-see but about-to-close art shows around town. You've only had until Sunday to get to the Whitney to see the Hopper's show or the Met for a Carpo recast, or the Queens Museum for the two shows there. Today, we're talking about El Museo del Barrio, where they have three shows including one that New York Times critic Colin Cotter called the best exhibition of 2022, and they don't close until later in the month, March 26th.

No excuses, we have four weekends to make it up to Fifth Avenue or down to Fifth Avenue, or across to Fifth Avenue and 104th Street. Joining us to talk about what's on for now is Susana Temkin, the curator at El Museo del Barrio. Welcome back to WNYC, Susana. Hi.

Susana Temkin: Thank you, Brian. So thrilled to be here. [chuckles]

Brian Lehrer: I said there were three shows, but it's more like two shows plus one digital work that traces the migration of a monarch butterfly's path across the borders of North America with the help of some special goggles. It's conceptually quite interesting with the points it makes about borders and migration, and climate change, all through the path of a creature we love. Tell us more about it.

Susana Temkin: Yes. Well, the work that you're referring to is by the artist, the Cuban artist, Reynier Leyva Novo, and it's a commission that is in relation to one of the other shows we'll talk about in a minute, the Juan Francisco Elso show. As you mentioned, using holographic goggles, viewers can experience the migration of the Methuselah monarch butterfly. I'll also add it's available online and via an app at methuselahmonarch.com, for those of you who can't make it uptown or downtown, or across town, as you noted.

Brian Lehrer: [chuckles] Right. Let's dig in a little on the two group shows that bring together multiple works, Domesticanx, great name and Juan Francisco Elso: Por América. First, Domesticanx, you want to just decode the title for people?

Susana Temkin: Sure, yes. Domesticanx, well, it's a seven artist group exhibition, and it takes its title from an essay written by one of the artists in the show, Amalia Mesa-Bains, about this idea of Domesticana, which relates to the domestic, the home, self-fashioning, spirituality and care, and it really takes this idea that was an originally a feminist Chicano, Mexican-American idea and reinscribes it within ideas of Latin X. Hence, the Domesticana plus Latin X equals Domesticanx.

Brian Lehrer: It was a women's response to the male-dominated Chicano art movement called Rasquachismo?

Susana Temkin: Yes, so Domesticana originally was a reclaiming of this male-dominated rasquache term, which has to do with an inventiveness, a self-expression, a underdog mentality reinscribed through women's expression. For this show, with Amalia Mesa-Bains' permission, I explored that theme not only through the lens of women moving away from binaries between men and women, but also bringing in artistic expressions related to queerness, trans expressions, and in general, just a much more fluid approach to what this term could potentially represent.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. I'm all for the gender-neutral acts in general, but I am curious is there tension around using the X in this case when the a, if it was Domesticana, would be a deliberate feminist response to the male-dominated Rasquachismo movement.

Susana Temkin: No, in fact, when I first came up with this idea, my first order of business was to go to Amalia herself and to ask for permission. She was thrilled. Of course, when she originally came up with this title, it was a different moment. I'm very grateful that she agrees that expanding it, making it more fluid, making it more queer is actually a fulfillment of her original thought process.

Brian Lehrer: Cool. The other show also closing March 26th is Juan Francisco Elso: Por América. It takes its name from that particular work by Cuban artist Juan Francisco Elso. Can you give just a thumbnail sketch of him and his place in art history for people who don't know?

Susana Temkin: Sure. Well, probably most people don't know because Juan Francisco Elso is a bit of an iconic, if extremely, under-recognized figure. He was a Cuban artist who really came to prominence in the 1980s but sadly passed away at the age of 32. For those people who are able to encounter his work at places like the Venice Biennale, the Havana Biennale, he really changed what contemporary Cuban art was and was also interested in ideas around decolonization, around Afro diasporic spiritualities, around indigenous traditions and heritages that we're finding so resonant today in the contemporary art world. He was really a prescient figure.

Brian Lehrer: For Black History Month, we had a series of conversations on the show on Afro Latino identity. We talked a few times about music but never about visual art as part of that, but this particular show also addresses that identity and mix of cultures, doesn't it?

Susana Temkin: Definitely, as I mentioned, Elso himself was extremely interested in exploring Cubanidad and all of its references, including the African diaspora. For this exhibition, we're showcasing not only his work, but the work of other Cuban artists, artists from throughout the Americas, from Mexico, Central America and also African American artists who don't necessarily have a Latino background, but who are, again, speaking to some of the same thematic concepts as Elso was interested in.

Brian Lehrer: I see that particular work, Por América, borrows from Santeria itself an amalgamation of Yoruba religious traditions and Catholicism. This is the show that Holland Carter in the time set in December went to the top of his list of the best exhibitions of 2022, so that must have been very gratifying. Why don't we wrap up with you telling us that not only is there a little more time to see these shows through March 26th, but on the 16th, there's a virtual book launch party for the monograph that accompanies the Elso show?

Susana Temkin: Yes, on the 16th, please check our website for the RSVP info, but we'll be bringing the curator of the exhibition, Olga Viso, alongside Jean Moreno one of the co-publishers, Erika Moya James and Javier Teyes, who is an artist who really looks to Elso. This book is going to be the first bilingual monograph on Juan Francisco Elso. It's a really important scholarly.

Brian Lehrer: We put a few images from the shows at El Museo del Barrio on our webpage, listeners, if you want a little preview. We have to leave it there with Susana Temkin, curator at El Museo del Barrio. Thank you very much. That was really great.

Susana Temkin: Thank you, Brian. [unintelligible 00:08:07]

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Brian Lehrer: Tune in tomorrow at this time for one more at Catch It While You Can art exhibition.

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