Fifth Avenue at 104th, the Heckscher building's courtyard with its fountain and the bandstand, the galleries behind their arches, the parade of camels and kings passing on the avenue, the works in colour.
Raphael Montanez Ortiz founded El Museo del Barrio in 1969 in East Harlem to show Puerto Rican and Latino art. Since 1977 it has occupied part of the Heckscher Building at 1230 Fifth Avenue at 104th Street, and it began its Three Kings Day parade the same year. The parade brings camels and giant puppets through East Harlem each January.
Source · El Museo del Barrio ↗
The red brick and limestone building with its arcaded ground floor, the courtyard with a fountain and palms, the ornate theater doors, the Three Kings Day parade with puppets, camels and the paper crowns, the park across the avenue. Mood: three kings day. Everything is procedural geometry with painted surfaces; nothing is a scan or a photograph. The room is an interpretation, and it hangs the New Yorkers the census recorded at this place first.