Malba turns five having received more than 1,600,000 visitors
Malba Colección Costantini
Avda. Figueroa Alcorta 3415
C1425CLA Buenos Aires, Argentina
T 54 (11) 4808 6500
F 54 (11) 4808 6598/99
info [at] malba.org.ar
Last September 21, Malba celebrated its fifth birthday, having received more than 1,633,780 visitors. Since it opened its doors on September 21, 2001, more than 130,000 school students have explored the museum; 250,000 people have attended the cinema and almost 30,000 have taken part in literature and education courses.
The museum has a permanent collection of Latin American art; the collection includes a wide range of pieces, spanning from 20th century avant-garde movements to contemporary art. It has 335 works by 134 artists from Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Mexico, Ecuador, Cuba, Colombia, Venezuela and Chile such as Frida Kahlo, Roberto Matta, Diego Rivera, Joaquín Torres-García, Tarsila do Amaral, Helio Oiticica, Liliana Porter, Guillermo Kuitca, Pablo Siquier and others.
In the short term, it is expected that the Buenos Aires city government will approve a project to expand the museum building. The aim of this project is to create new exhibition rooms and spaces to carry out more educational programs. Indeed, the plan is to increase the museums surface area to make it possible to exhibit new works obtained through the Acquisition Plan and contain the national film archive together with INCAA (Instituto Nacional de Cine y Artes Audiovisuales) and APROCINAIN (Asociación de Apoyo al Patrimonio Audiovisual).
Exhibitions
Of the shows held to date, Antonio Berni y sus contemporáneos. Correlatos (March 11 / May 23, 2005) received the greatest number of visitors: 110,681 people. It was followed by Dada y surrealismo en la colección de Vera y Arturo Schwarz, Museo de Israel, Jerusalén (March 12 / May 25, 2004), with 98,120 visitors.
Year after year, the museum has grown in terms of its cultural activities as well as the number of visitors:
– 2002: 201,739 visitors
– 2003: 309,188 visitors
– 2004: 332,806 visitors
– 2005: 428,386 visitors
Fifty-four temporary shows have been held, including eighteen editions of the Contemporary program, dedicated to current, local and regional art. Starting in 2002, the collection’s patrimony has grown thanks to the incorporation of artists from the younger generations through donations and loans, and, in 2004, the launching of the Acquisition Program.
Crucial to the museums growth and development, starting in 2005 several of the exhibitions produced by Malba have been shown at other museums around the world, reinforcing Malbas presence on the world art scene:
– Xul Solar. Visiones y revelaciones was shown at Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, Brazil; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City.
– Víctor Grippo. Una retrospectiva. Obras 1971-2001 was shown at Miami Art Central (MAC).
It is important to emphasize that, from the beginning, Malba has placed great importance on education. In addition to the regular programs of guided tours of the permanent collection and temporary exhibitions for a wide range of publics (children, youth, families, senior citizens, the blind and visually impaired), in 2006 the museum created new projects for people with mental disabilities, the deaf and the hearing impaired.
Malba.cine
Over the last two years, malba.cine has become a key alternative for a demanding public eager to see films not included on the commercial circuit. The number of viewers has grown 40% since 2004. Every month new programs are organized, including a major cycle that consists of tributes and films on a given theme (approximately twelve per year), new copies of classics and restored films.
In 2006, there have been outstanding international pre-debuts including La pesadilla de Darwin, by Hubert Sauper; The World, by Jia Zhang-ke; Mondovino, by Jonathan Nossiter; Five (dedicated to Ozu), by Abbas Kiarostami and Triple agente, by Eric Rohmer.
Malba is the seat of the Buenos Aires Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente (BAFICI). Since 2004, as part of the festival, the museum has organized an exhibition of a director as well as a retrospective of his or her films: Glauber Rocha (April-May, 2004); Chantal Akerman. (April-May, 2005) and Abbas Kiarostami (April-June 2006).
Malba.literature
Thanks to its weekly activities, almost 20,000 people have participated in the malba.literatura activities, which are mostly free of charge. Through conferences, roundtables, courses, book presentations and interviews with writers, in 2006 the public to attend these events was considerably larger than in previous years.
Since its creation, outstanding international figures have accepted the invitation from malba.literatura to give seminars and conferences. The museum has hosted personalities such as Paul Auster, José Saramago, Slavoj Zizek, David Lodge, Hanif Kureishi, Siri Husvedt, Alejandro Jodorowsky and others.
Press contact: Elizabeth Imas / Guadalupe Requena. T 54 (11) 4808 6507/6520 | F 54 (11) 4808 6599 | eimas@malba.org.ar | prensa@malba.org.ar
