The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York has created its first permanent curatorial post devoted to Latin American art and has set up a committee to raise funds for Latin American acquisitions.
The post is being funded by an endowment from the New York philanthropist Estrellita Brodsky. Luis Perez-Oramas, the adjunct curator of drawings at the museum since 2003, has been appointed to the position. Mr Perez-Oramas was previously the curator of the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection in Caracas, and it is Ms Cisneros, the Venezuelan collector of Latin American art, who chairs the new 16-member committee whose annual membership fees will provide around $400,000 for Latin American art acquisitions.
Mr Perez-Oramas says MoMA has around 3,000 works of Latin American art, mostly paintings and sculptures with some books and drawings.
o The first US retrospective of the Venezuelan modernist Armando Reverón will open at MoMA on 11 February. The museum is also planning an exhibition from the 468 Latin American and Caribbean works acquired in the past ten years, to open in late 2007 or early 2008.
Originally appeared in The Art Newspaper as 'MoMA looks to Latin America'