One month before the Walters Art Museum was scheduled to unveil its first permanent installation of Latin American art — a project that has been in the works for eight years — executive director Kate Burgin learned that a major federal grant had been revoked.
On Saturday, the new exhibit will open anyway.
“There was never a question that we would not continue with this project,” Burgin said, adding that the last-minute notice meant that the museum had little opportunity to raise extra money to replace the $70,000 it lost, or 6% of the $1,160,000 installation cost.
“These galleries are too essential to our effort to expand the stories we tell,” Burgin said. “Instead, we rolled up our sleeves and trimmed our budget. That is what we do in the arts.”
“Latin American Art/Arte Latinoamericano” sprawls across four galleries and the museum’s sculpture garden.
It includes 200 objects from 40 cultures that span 4,000 years. That makes the exhibition the largest permanent display of paintings, sculptures, ceramics and jewelry from Central and South America on public view in Maryland. And it is a far cry from the museum’s 1934 opening, when the Latin American art collection was small enough to fit inside a single drawer located in — of all places — the Asian wing.
Walters’ leaders were notified in early April that its $249,961 grant from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services was being rescinded — part of a nationwide series of pullbacks ordered by President Donald Trump’s administration in an attempt to reframe American culture. In particular, the president has targeted diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives that he has said are illegal.
Museum leaders said that the Walters’ commitment to collecting Latin American art predates recent politics. On view in the new installation is a small, silver drinking vessel from Peru purchased by museum founder Henry Walters in 1897.
“The values guiding the Walters to create meaningful experiences for a diverse audience in Baltimore and Maryland are not changing,” Burgin said. “Those are the values that have always guided the museum and that will continue to guide it.”
Because planning for the new installation was so far advanced, museum leaders had already spent $180,000 of the IMLS grant, Burgin said. They later learned that the Walters also lost other federal grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities, but that money is targeted for different projects.
“Our goal was to minimize the cuts in a way that impacted audiences the least and allowed us to celebrate this extraordinary installation,” Burgin said.
So, what had been planned as a weekend-long, free public celebration of the new installation with food trucks, an artisans’ market, live performances and special tours shrank to one day: Saturday. The museum trimmed its budgets for marketing and for a study on the installation’s impact on audiences.
“We are hoping that some of these initiatives are merely postponed,” Burgin said. “We will continue robust fundraising throughout the year.”
But there are no signs of cost-cutting within the new galleries.
The exhibit blends ancient art with paintings and sculptures by 10 modern artists (including Baltimoreans Jessy DeSantis, Edgar Reyes, and René Trevińo) to tell a story about a rich, sophisticated and mythic culture — a culture that believed that a goddess created human beings from a mixture of stardust, corn and the cacao beans used to make chocolate.
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On view is a tiny Mexican triptych of a 16th century artwork called “Saint Jerome in Penance and the Four Evangelists.”
Just 3 inches tall and 4 inches wide, it is made of boxwood and hummingbird feathers, a material believed to be imbued with “tonalli” or soul, according to exhibit curators Ellen Hoobler and Patricia Lagarde.
The triptych is located on an adjoining wall to “Cintli, Corn, Maíz, a 2020 painting by DeSantis.
The artist said at Tuesday’s preview that she drew on her Nicaraguan heritage in fashioning the work, a subtle creation myth in which the leaves of an ear of corn gradually transform into the long tail feathers of the Quetzal bird.
“Our creation stories continue to be part of who we are today,” DeSantis said.
On view is a massive throne, a U-shaped seat created by the Manteño tribe in the Andes between 500 and 1500 A.D. that is fashioned from a single block of stone.
Ancient rulers conducted court business while seated on these chairs, which literally rest on the stone backs of a human or animal. The seat in the Walters exhibit has the figure of a man crouched on his hands and knees. His eyes are open, and his mouth is a single straight line, perhaps implying stoic endurance.
There is a Mayan goal ring on view in the Sculpture Court. Fashioned from a block of granite that weighs almost 900 pounds, it is the remnant of a sacred and bloody ballgame similar to basketball that originated 3,000 years ago in Mesoamerica.
Unlike the modern sport, the “hoop” was positioned vertically, not horizontally, and was attached to a stone wall elevated as much as 20 feet above the ground. Players used their hips or shoulders to propel the ball through the hoop.
Their prize? The victors — usually — avoided being sacrificed.
The goal ring at the Walters is accompanied by a video of contemporary players demonstrating how the ballgame is played today, though happily minus the ritual execution.
Like many museum exhibits, “Latin American Art/Arte Latinoamericano” is full of ghosts. The K’ichi’ Maya, for instance, believed that death began a transition in which beloved ancestors become spirits who help guide the living.
The Walters staff said they can feel the traces of one presence in particular in every corner of the exhibit: Burgin’s predecessor, Julia Alexander, who died unexpectedly May 4 of a heart attack at age 57.
“This installation originated under Julia’s visionary leadership,” Burgin said, and then she pointed out some specifics: Alexander’s commitment to the museum’s original architecture, which caused the rugs to be removed from the terrazzo floors. Her determination to champion living artists.
“As you walk through these galleries,” Burgin said, “you will see Julia everywhere.”
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