For its grand re-opening, El Museo del Barrio, New York's leading Latino cultural institution, turned to C&G Partners, in Manhattan, to design its two main art exhibits: "Voces y Visiones," a permanent exhibit; and "Nexus New York," a show of Latino and Latin American art in the early 20th century in New York City. The museum, which recently reopened to the public, is celebrating its 40th anniversary.

To enhance gallery visitors' experience of the exhibits and fulfill its mission to educate, celebrate and promote Latino culture, C&G Partners created multi-media exhibits, both artistically and technologically. The pieces are mixed media. Audio-visual displays are integrated into the environments that augment and interpret the exhibits.

"The exhibit design is a balance: not just art but creating a journey for gallery visitors. These galleries include interpretive media such as text, large-scale quotes and images to establish context," says C&G Partners founding partner, Jonathan Alger, who led the design team.

"Voces y Visiones: Four Decades Through El Museo's Permanent Collection," takes viewers through a timeline of El Museo's history in relation to the history of Latin American and Caribbean art in New York, the United States and internationally. It is a comprehensive survey of the museums' 6500 piece collection, from folklore to political work to conceptual pieces. On a rotating basis, the galleries will showcase highlights from one of the oldest and most important collections of Caribbean, Latino, and Latin American art in the United States, along with related events and educational programs.

"We sought to express the Puerto Rican and Latino voice as a chorus by bringing together many different styles and mediums. The collective effort is achieved with the use of wall graphics, articulated dimensional labels and video presentation that places the art in its historical and social context," says Mariano Desmaras, senior designer, C&G Partners.

C&G Partners also designed the gallery for "Nexus New York: Latin/American Artists in the Modern Metropolis," the inaugural exhibition. The exhibit explores the interactions between Caribbean and U.S.- and European-born artists working in New York in the early 20th century, who together fomented many of that era's most important avant-garde art movements. Nexus New York is the first exhibition to explore the profound way these artistic exchanges between Latino and non-Latino artists had an impact on art and art movements in this city and throughout the world for years to come.

"As the exhibit designers, our challenge was the strike a balance between the works of art, many of which are masterpieces, and weaving the story of the people and the historical context behind them. We kept all of the interpretive displays on the horizontal plane, such as with table-top graphics, so as not to impede with the art works displayed on the walls," notes Desmaras.