The Smithsonian American Art Museum exhibition, Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art, explores the varied contributions of Latino artists in the United States. The exhibition features works from 72 leading modern and contemporary artists, drawn from the museum's collection of Latino art.
The exhibition includes works in all media, spanning styles such as abstract expressionism, activist art, conceptual art, performance art, and classic genres like landscape and portraiture. According to the museum, the works reflect the diverse experiences of artists of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, and Dominican descent, as well as other Latin American groups with deep roots in the United States.
Many artists featured in the exhibition were influenced by the civil rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s. The exhibition presents a view of an evolving national culture that challenges traditional expectations of what it means to be American or Latino. Of the 92 artworks in the exhibition, 63 have been acquired by the museum since 2011.
The exhibition is organized by E. Carmen Ramos, the curator of Latino art at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The exhibition has previously traveled to locations including the Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum, the Crocker Art Museum, the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, the Delaware Art Museum, and the Allentown Art Museum.
