It wasn't until 1978 when Frida Kahlo starred in her first individual exhibition in the United States. Until then, her works had been shown in collective exhibitions or as an appendix to those of Diego Rivera. It had been 24 years since Frida's ashes rested in her Blue House in Mexico City, but she was not yet the icon she is today. The seminal anthology that catapulted Frida Kahlo's figure as we know her today was held at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago (MCA), opened in 1967. It was one of the first major milestones of the MCA, one of the flagship museums of the United States, which has been betting for years on a different canon - more Hispanic, more feminine - telling the other stories of art.
Neither Los Angeles nor Miami: the most proudly Latin museum in the United States is in Chicago. "In the USA, we have very few 100% bilingual museums," admits its director Madeleine Grynsztejn, who since taking the reins of the center in 2008 has embarked on a true revolution. "Demographically, Chicago will be Latino in a few years. We are already around 30% of the population. It is absurd not to be bilingual and not to serve our community," she emphasizes. According to some census projections, the Hispanic population of Chicago - the third-largest city in the USA behind New York and Los Angeles - could reach and even exceed 50% by 2050.
Although at first glance, no one would say that Grynsztejn is Latina, her nomadic biography illustrates and explains her museum project. The daughter of a Jewish family that fled Europe in the face of Hitler's threat, Grynzstejn was born in Lima but raised in Caracas until the age of 12. "My father was an engineer at Shell, and we traveled a lot: we moved to London, Amsterdam, back to Venezuela, to France...," she recalls. She studied at Tulane University in New Orleans, and then Art History at Columbia, New York. She began her career at the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego, where in the late 80s she already promoted the project Two Cities/Dos Ciudades, a series of exhibitions and exchanges with Tijuana, just 30 kilometers away, to address border issues.
"I believe that my personal experience of living my childhood in Latin America and spending my adolescence in several countries where I did not speak any language has led me to bet on total bilingualism in the museum. And that does not simply mean putting labels in Spanish and English!" admits Grynsztejn. At the MCA, a large part of the management and curatorial team speaks Spanish (in addition, its Communication Director, Manuel Venegas, is from Madrid), activities are carried out in both languages (Family Day has almost doubled attendance since it is held in Spanish), and the museum has even left its building in Midtown to go to the southern neighborhoods, specifically to La Villita, known as the Mexico of the Midwest, and hold a day of artistic workshops at Saucedo Elementary School. "We are having very good results. Sometimes we cannot expect people to come to the museum, which is why we focus on neighborhoods with social issues. The bilingualism strategy allows us to expand our area of influence and reach different communities," explains Grynsztejn.
Madeleine Grynsztejn, director of the MCA in Chicago, under the winter garden plants.
Contact with these communities has also led to exhibitions such as the acclaimed Between Horizons: Art and Activism between Chicago and Puerto Rico, which closed its doors last May after almost a year. Its curator Carla Acevedo-Yates, born in Puerto Rico, spent months working with the local community and not only confronted artistic production on the shores of Lake Michigan and the Caribbean but also delved into social movements, the historic riots of the 60s and 70s (known as the Division Street and Humboldt Park rebellions), or the demonstrations for the liberation of Puerto Rican political prisoners.
The museum's first fully bilingual exhibition, also led by a young and energetic Acevedo-Yates (one of the most interesting and promising curators in the USA), was the one dedicated in 2022 to Art in the Caribbean Diaspora from the 90s to today. "It was the first major collective exhibition in the country that focused on the perspective of the Caribbean diaspora, crucial due to the influence it has had on contemporary art," highlights Grynsztejn.
That exhibition practically coincided with another major bet on this side of the Atlantic, that of the Tate in London, which for the first time claimed Caribbean art in Life Between Islands Caribbean-British Art 1950's - Now. This rediscovery of art bathed by the Greater and Lesser Antilles and the Bahamas has also reached Spain within the framework of this year's ARCO fair, with the exquisite exhibition The Shore, the Tide, the Current: an Oceanic Caribbean, curated by Acevedo-Yates alongside Sara Hermann, former director of the Museum of Modern Art in Santo Domingo.
From Chicago, Acevedo-Yates is already preparing one of the exhibitions that will generate the most international buzz in 2026: "It will be a very important exhibition on the influence of reggaeton, from Bob Marley to Bad Bunny. Because there is an intersection between art and music, a line that we have been exploring in the museum for some time. The last time was with David Bowie and it was very well received," Grynsztejn anticipates.
Caribbean, reggae, and Chicago? At first glance, it is surprising. "In Spain, you always associate Latin culture with Miami or Los Angeles," Grynsztejn laughs. "The Latin population in Chicago is more mixed and is more complex to understand. Miami is mostly Cuban; Los Angeles, Mexican. Although here Mexican culture predominates, there is also a large Puerto Rican and Colombian community...".
The acclaimed exhibition 'Art in the Caribbean Diaspora, 1990-today,' the first to focus on Caribbean creation.
In the midst of the forest of skyscrapers in downtown Chicago, the MCA is almost a horizontal breath among the ultra-modern glass blocks. In front, Lake Shore Park stretches out, with its basketball court and running track; beyond that, Highway 41 crosses the city and the immense Lake Michigan. After its iconic entrance stairs and a spacious lobby, the museum unfolds a unique winter garden: 221 plant-lamps hanging from the ceiling that provide a feeling of warmth, of nature. It is the Commons space, a kind of living room designed by the Mexican duo Pedro & Juana: "Everyone is happy in a park, but with the weather in Chicago...," explain the artists, who brought the park inside the building. Mentally, it is as if Chicago had palm trees amidst the snow and ice of its harsh winters.
This almost living room atmosphere responds to the idea of the third place, in the definition of the American sociologist Ray Oldenburg. In the late 80s, Oldenburg developed the theory of the need for a social interaction space different from the domestic or work environment, which was free and informal, like a library or a café. These are not just meeting places: they are modern agoras that reinforce democracy.
"We want people to meet here instead of going to Starbucks, Apple Store, or the lobby of the Ace Hotel, which are commercial spaces. Citizens do not usually use museums as a place to be, to dialogue, to disagree, to relax, or simply to spend the afternoon with their computer," explains Grynsztejn, who in 2017 led a profound renovation of the building to make the museum that third place. It is part of the MCA's social belonging strategy. "The museum has to be a sensual physical space that embraces the visitor from the moment they enter," adds the director.