Founded in 1981 in Mexico City, the Museo Rufino Tamayo has since then become an important referent in the art world of Mexico. To coincide with the 113th anniversary of the birth of the painter born in Oaxaca, the museum reopened its doors after having been closed for ten months in order to undergo extensive renovations. The museum reopens with the purpose of becoming the most important museum in Latin America.
Headed by David Cohen, the Fundación Olga y Rufino Tamayo A.C. is immersed in the mission of directing the ambitious project of expansion of the building originally designed by architects Abraham Zabludovsky and Teodoro González de León; the is latter now in charge of the revamping. It is a project that was achieved with great success because of the joint financial support of the INBA, CONACULTA, and the Fundación Rufino Tamayo. Together, the three institutions were able to generate a budget of 84 million Mexican pesos (6.38 million US dollars) for the revamping and the expansion. For its part, the Fundación and its patronage gave an additional 4 million Mexican pesos to provide equipment for the storage area, the Documentation Center, and the offices. Likewise, they reached an agreement with the Mexican House of Representatives, in which the House agreed to put another 4 million Mexican pesos toward the expansion and architectural adaptation of an education hall and documentation center.
The participation in the board of businessmen that collaborated in the completion of the project, and who have committed to the indefinite maintenance of the exhibition halls—in exchange for the halls being named after some of them, has caused great controversy in the public and in the cultural world, as most would prefer that this iconic institution could remain independent from private interference and the politics behind it. Nonetheless, the injection of private and corporate capital into public projects has been a common practice at both the national and international levels, as governments allocated budgets to the cultural sector that cannot possibly support their current infrastructures.
With this project the museum increases its real state by 30 percent, thus achieving a total area of 6,842 m2 (73,646 ft2), with new spaces accessible to the entire public; with almost 2,000 m2 (21,527 ft2) of exhibition spaces and areas like a completely renovated auditorium—with a capacity for 180 persons—as well as a restaurant with terrace and a store-bookshop; all spaces are created with state-of-the-art design that is seamlessly integrated into the original architecture of the museum and the context that surrounds it.
For the reopening of the museum, the curatorial team headed by Venezuelan Julieta González—former head of acquisitions of Latin American art at Tate Modern, in London—and Willy Kautz—art critic and curator who has collaborated with institutions like the Casa del Lago and Casa Vecina—has conceived and produced a curatorship centered on the resignification of the important collection of works housed in the museum. With a wide repertoire of offerings, the initial projects in this new period of the museum consist of seven curatorial proposals. Standing out among these are the retrospective entitled Tamayo/Trajectory, an exhibition with more than 40 works that showcase the various ways in which Tamayo approached throughout his artistic career classical themes from the history of art.
All the exhibitions will offer guided visits, workshops, and a series of parallel activities that will be part of the rich program of cultural events in the revamped museum.
According to Carmen Cuenca, director of the museum since 2011, the renovation of the museum represents a tribute to the great painter from Oaxaca, as it also fuels ...