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The Medellín Museum of Modern Art (Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellín), or MAMM for short, is located in an industrial area of the El Poblado district.
History of the Medellín Museum of Modern Art
MAMM was founded by nine artists in 1978. It opened to the public in its first location in the Carlos E. Restrepo neighborhood on April 22, 1980. The museum’s permanent collection contains several works by prominent Colombian artists. It has grown over the years, with a significant donation by Débora Arango (1907-2005) and acquisition of works by Enrique Grau (1920-2004) and Beatriz González, among others.
In 2006, the city of Medellín donated a historic building in the Ciudad del Río neighborhood to the museum. The building, constructed in 1938 by Siderúrgica de Medellín S.A. (Simesa) as a steel and metal foundry, was restored between 2007 and 2009. It opened to the public on November 4, 2009. The museum expanded in 2015 with the grand re-opening on September 2 of that year.
Visiting the Medellín Museum of Modern Art
The Medellín Modern Art Museum is open daily except Mondays starting at 11am. Admission is COP$20,000 for foreigners (as of May 2023). If you’re taking public transportation, the nearest metro station is Industriales. There are food carts and a restaurant on site.
Fifth Floor
After purchasing tickets, the attendant at the front desk recommended I start from the fifth floor and work my way down. I took the elevator up to the top and visited the rooftop terrace. There was nothing else to see up there other than an empty reception hall.
Fourth Floor
On the fourth floor is a terrace that contained Fragmented Geometries by Ivan Hurtado. It was commissioned by the Medellín Museum of Modern Art and installed in 2019.
The fourth floor galleries house the museum’s permanent collection. There are three galleries in all, and the collection rotates periodically. The first gallery contained a few sculptures and paintings while the second gallery had a few audio-visual works and photographs.
The third gallery was the most interesting of the three. On display was a large sculpture with deer heads on each end as well as several excellent paintings. Many were pieces by American-born artist Ethel Gilmour (1940-2008) that touched on political and social issues.
Another painting was a comic strip style work, Memories of Kosta Azul by Jorge Alonso Zapata, depicting a former drug den in Medellín that drug dealers, addicts, and prostitutes frequented. The building was converted to a tenement after 2017.
First Floor
Walking downstairs, I passed the third and second floors, where there are offices, classrooms, and workshops, and continued on to the first floor. The first floor is made up of one large central gallery with smaller galleries on either side. The central gallery once housed the smelting plant of the foundry.
During my visit, the first floor contained an excellent exhibit titled Medellín, Pulse of the City (Medellín, Pulso de la Ciudad). It explored the cultural and artistic relationship of the city’s residents, attempting to shed light on the current situation and the challenges that lie ahead. The central gallery contained an overview of the exhibit with maps, statistics, and graphs as well as a timeline of the city’s history.
First Floor – Left Gallery
The side galleries were filled with interesting and provocative works of art. In the left gallery were more paintings by Jorge Alonso Zapata and a video presentation.
One end of the gallery contained S.O.S. Medellín, which covers the protests that broke out in Colombia on April 28, 2021, against increased taxes, health care reform, and corruption. Curated by Juan David Quintero, it’s a collaboration of works by different artists using street art to express discontent.
On the other end of the gallery was a room with furniture from a former bar popular with prostitutes. The walls were filled with paintings and photographs of the participants in the sexual underworld. Some of the photos humanized the sex workers while others shed light on the dangers and struggles they face.
First Floor – Right Gallery
The gallery on the right side contained more interesting works, starting with Don’t Stop by 4Eskuela-Crew Peligrosos. This installation was made with graffiti, tennis shoes, video, and sound. It promotes the power of expression through Latin American hip-hop.
Further down were a set of illustrations by Draison Murillo. He spent 15 years in prison where he developed his drawing skills. The selection of drawings on display depict scenes of life in prison.
In the next section was Beyond Myself, a collection of 23 posters made by prison inmates highlighting issues they feel are important. An interpretive panel on the wall included background information from each artist on their poster.
The final work on display was Detour El Poblado by Camila Echeverría Martínez. It’s a collection of archives she accumulated over several years as part of her doctoral research. Detour El Poblado explores El Poblado’s transformation over the years and is divided into four chapters: its origin, urbanization, drugs, and the neighborhood today.
