NEW YORK, NY.- El Museo del Barrio announced the launch of its Spring 2026 season, along with extended museum hours, new performing arts series, and the debut of a bold new visual identity created in collaboration with Pentagram—initiatives that reflect El Museo’s enduring mission to champion Puerto Rican, Latine, and Latin American voices. The Spring 2026 season brings together groundbreaking exhibitions and programs that celebrate the richness and diversity of the Latine diaspora while inviting broader audiences to experience El Museo’s dynamic role in shaping the cultural landscape of the country and beyond.

“El Museo is the product of Puerto Rican and Latine New Yorkers who built it, demanded it, and keep it alive,” said Patrick Charpenel, Executive Director of El Museo del Barrio. “This spring, that commitment continues to take tangible form. From Sophie Rivera’s long-overdue museum survey to Perspectivas—our Thursday evening conversations exploring power, memory, and the politics of looking—we’re deepening our engagement with our communities. We’re also celebrating Nuyorican life with Super Sábado, a vibrant family festival. By expanding our hours, filling our galleries with living histories, and activating our theater with music, dance, and debate, we’re opening El Museo as a shared civic space where artists, neighbors, students, and families can see themselves, exchange ideas, and shape what comes next.”

Opening this Spring

SOPHIE RIVERA: Double Exposures
April 23 – August 2, 2026

The first museum survey devoted to groundbreaking photographer Sophie Rivera offers a long-overdue reassessment of her contributions to photography and Nuyorican visual culture. The presentation also honors her deep connection to El Museo del Barrio, where her first solo show was presented in the 1980s and where she later organized exhibitions. Rivera’s work reflects the complexity of her intersectional identity as a feminist Puerto Rican artist in New York during the 1970s–1990s, challenging and expanding traditional narratives of portraiture and representation. The title references both the photographic technique of layering multiple images and Rivera’s exploration of multiplicity and identity.

The show is accompanied by the first comprehensive monograph on the artist, co-published with Aperture, featuring over 125 plates, selections from Rivera’s writings, and newly commissioned scholarship.

Closing Soon!
COCO FUSCO: Tomorrow, I Will Become an Island
Extended through March 1, 2026

Due to overwhelming critical acclaim, Coco Fusco’s first U.S. survey—spanning more than three decades of her career—has been extended through March 1, 2026. Featuring more than twenty works across video, performance, installation, photography, and writing—including a new photographic series debuting at El Museo del Barrio—the exhibition has resonated widely for its urgent examination of politics and power through the groundbreaking work of the Cuban-American interdisciplinary artist and writer.

On View
JANGUEANDO: Recent Acquisitions, 2021–2025
Through July 5, 2026

Featuring nearly 40 newly acquired works by artists whose works engage with themes of kinship, identity, and social connection, the exhibition offers a powerful reflection on collective presence and cultural resilience in the face of adversity. The Spanglish title—meaning “hanging out”—evokes both casual gathering and artistic assembly, highlighting spaces of community, joy, and resistance.

NEW VISUAL IDENTITY

El Museo del Barrio launched a new visual identity that underscores its commitment to elevate Puerto Rican, Latine, and Latin American voices. This next chapter builds on the Museum’s 56-year legacy of cultural leadership, affirming its role as a vital platform for artists, communities, and histories that continue to shape the nation’s cultural fabric. This rebrand stands as a declaration of presence—celebrating the creativity and resilience of Puerto Rican, Latine, and Latin American communities.

Developed in collaboration with the internationally acclaimed design firm Pentagram, the new identity—created by Partner Andrea Trabucco-Campos and his team—introduces a custom typeface, visual system, and redesigned website that reflect El Museo’s evolution as a vibrant, community-centered institution committed to equity and cultural transformation.

“The new identity reflects who we are today—bold, contemporary, and unapologetically rooted in our community’s cultural legacy,” said Pamela Hower, Director of Marketing and Communications of El Museo del Barrio. “Pentagram built a visual system that is expansive and expressive. It honors where we come from, meets the urgency of the moment, and sets the tone for the future we’re shaping together.”

A Unicase Typeface

At the heart of the rebrand is Amigues del Barrio, a custom unicase typeface that deliberately rejects the hierarchy between uppercase and lowercase letters. Both a formal and conceptual statement, the font dissolves colonial structures embedded in language and design. Its letter forms draw from diverse geometric rhythms—embracing multiplicity, eccentricity, and play.

As Trabucco-Campos explains, “The unique role of our custom typeface is to be an invitation that carries a strong point of view: ‘Amigues del Barrio’ is able to modulate from informal to formal, from playful to straightforward, always with a unique Latine spirit.”

The new identity is built around three foundational elements:

Unicase custom typography that reflects El Museo’s tradition of challenging institutional norms and amplifying marginalized narratives.

A vibrant color palette which heroes a Sand color that evokes the timeless materials of making, amplified by a diverse and eclectic color palette that playfully connects with the wide array of audiences El Museo engages.

A digital-first, bilingual framework that adapts fluidly across platforms—from exhibition graphics and signage to merchandise and social media.

Every design choice reflects El Museo’s mission—disrupting systems of exclusion while creating space for new voices and forms of belonging. The identity is both maximal and minimal, unapologetic in its expression. The result is an identity that moves fluidly between dualities: artist and activist, high culture and everyday life, legacy and emergence.

A Platform for Connection

Launching alongside the rebrand is El Museo’s new website, offering an intuitive, multilingual, and mobile-optimized experience. The site deepens access to the Museum’s exhibitions, public programs, and Permanent Collection, while expanding storytelling for local and international audiences. This redesign affirms El Museo del Barrio’s enduring mission to serve as a cultural bridge—connecting generations, communities, and creative voices through art, history, and education.