Artful Diplomacy: Art as Latin America's Ambassador in ton, D.C.

Date
Jan 2008
This exhibition gathers a number of artworks belonging to a diverse group of Latin American embassies and diplomats and their delegations and organizations in Washington, D.C. For a city that boasts such a wealth of artistic institutions on the National Mall, representing art from all corners of the world (the National Museum of African Art, the Freer and Sackler Galleries for Asian arts, and the National Gallery of Art with its impressive collection of European art from the Middle Ages to the present, to name a few), the absence - for whatever reason- of a major institution in the nation¿s capital representing the arts of Latin America is, in itself, a rather negative statement of sorts. This fact, combined with the proclivity of the press to report on the usually not-so-positive aspects of the social, political, and economic realities of the region, tends to indiscriminately put the prestige of Latin American countries at risk, and creates an unappreciative feeling among the public toward a region that, despite its inconsistencies, has excelled culturally for centuries.