The Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection donates more than 200 works of contemporary Latin American art to six museums in the Americas and Europe.

Encompassing 91 artists from 22 countries, the gift is part of a long-term global initiative supported by Gustavo and Patricia Cisneros and their children to advance scholarship and promote a greater appreciation of the diversity, sophistication, and range of art from Latin America. The six beneficiaries, with whom the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros has developed enduring relationships, are: The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York; The Museo National Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; the Museo de Arte Moderno Buenos Aires; the Museo de Arte de Lima (MALI), Peru; the Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York; and the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas, Austin.

“My husband Gustavo—always a proponent of a global outlook—and I have made the integration of culture from Latin America into the wider narrative of art history the goal of the CPPC from its inception,” said Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, Founder of the CPPC. “With our children, we want to communicate our pride in our shared cultural heritage and raise awareness about Latin American culture’s crucial contributions to the history of art. To that end, over the past four decades we have lent works, supported and organized exhibitions, provided opportunities for education and for international scholarly exchange, published books and catalogues, and built a comprehensive web site about art and ideas from Latin America. The donation of contemporary artworks continues to further this overall goal. As with past donations, we have collaborated with each institution to choose works that are relevant to their missions and expand their collections in ways that will allow them to develop a nuanced presentation of contemporary Latin American art for their audiences.”

The six institutions were selected for their established interest in studying and featuring contemporary art from Latin America; the regional influence of their art collections, exhibitions, and programs; and for serving as important references for an international artistic community. The artworks that have been selected for each museum are the result of a collaborative process designed to strengthen and expand each museum’s holdings.

The Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires collaborated with the CPPC to select works by living Argentinian artists that strengthen the dialogue between local and global art practices. The selection of works donated to the Moderno are diverse in artistic language, and include Secure Paradise (2007), a video by artist Judi Werthein; Poema Volcánico (2014), an installation piece by Eduardo Navarro; and Garimpo (2009), a monumental drawing by Matías Duville.

The Museo de Arte de Lima (MALI) is receiving works by Ecuadorian artists Oswaldo Terreros and Adrián Balseca, Mexican artist Laura Anderson Barbata, and Peruvian artist Elena Damiani that amplify the regional emphasis of its collection. These and other artists are being brought into MALI´s collection for the first time, joining one of the most diverse and complex collections of contemporary art in the Andean region. The works in this donation range from video and room-sized installations to tapestries.

The Museum of Modern Art in New York will receive a group of works in media and performance, photography, painting, sculpture, prints, and drawings that will add to the Museum’s already significant Latin American art collection. Among the artists entering MoMA’s collection for the first time are Regina José Galindo (Guatemala), Héctor Fuenmayor (Venezuela) and Amalia Pica (Argentina), representing a broad range of artistic practices and concerns. This gift is in addition to the nearly 150 works of modern art from Latin America that the CPPC has donated to MoMA in the past, including a major gift in 2016 of over 100 works. The contemporary donation reinforces the CPPC’s enduring relationship with the Museum and recognizes MoMA’s commitment to collecting and exhibiting art from Latin America.

The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía has been committed to studying cultural movements of the Global South and, in doing so, it has consistently featured artistic, curatorial, and philosophical proposals conceived in and about Latin America. Among the works entering the Reina Sofía’s collection with this gift are To and From (MoMA, Oxford) (1991), an early sculpture by Brazilian artist Jac Leirner; Immensely Blue (1991) by Paraguayan artist Feliciano Centurión; and ///////)))_lo))) (2014) by the Argentinian performance artist Osias Yanov. Each of these artists are new to the Reina Sofía’s collection. This gift builds on the partnership agreement between the CPPC and the Reina Sofía signed in 2012.

The Bronx Museum of the Arts in New York, which since its founding has consistently organized exhibitions by both established and emerging Latin American and Latino artists, has selected works that build on its mission to present new ideas and voices in a global context for a diverse audience. Three videos by US-based Nicaraguan-born artist Jessica Lagunas are among the works that will join the Museum´s permanent collection. Other artworks in this donation include paintings by Dulce Gómez (Venezuela), and Melanie Smith (UK/Mexico).

The Blanton Museum of Art of the University of Texas in Austin, one of the country’s foremost university art museums, will receive a group of works that will build on their commitment to reflect and study the rich diversity of the artistic traditions in Latin America. Several mixed-media works by Brazilian artist Leda Catunda, a sculpture by Colombian artist Mateo López, and a series of photographs and related paintings by Mexican artist Pia Camil, among others, will now be part of one of the most comprehensive collections of Latin American art in the United States.

The Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection (CPPC) was founded in the 1970s by Patricia Phelps de Cisneros and Gustavo A. Cisneros and is one of the main cultural and educational initiatives of the Cisneros Foundation. Adriana Cisneros de Griffin is the President of the Cisneros Foundation, and Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro is the Director and Chief Curator of the CPPC. Based in Caracas and New York, the mission of the CPPC is to promote a greater appreciation of the diversity, sophistication and variety of Latin American art, as well as the study of Latin American art. The CPPC achieves these objectives through the preservation, presentation and study of the material culture of Ibero-America, from the ethnographic to the contemporary. The activities of the CPPC include exhibitions, public programs, publications, scholarships for academic research and artistic production. The collection's website (www.coleccioncisneros.org) was created to offer a platform for debate on the contributions of Latin America to the world of art and culture; his inspiration and starting point is the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection, but his goal is discovery and his mission to build a multilingual virtual network of people and ideas.