Marcela Guerrero, the organizer of an acclaimed survey of Puerto Rican art since Hurricane Maria, has been promoted to curator at the Whitney Museum in New York. Alongside her new appointment came news that Jennie Goldstein, an assistant curator at the museum, will be associate curator of the collection.
Guerrero, who is currently assistant curator at the Whitney, will now be the DeMartini Family Curator, a post formerly held by David Breslin, a co-curator of the 2022 Whitney Biennial who recently left for the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Among the shows that Guerrero has done for the Whitney is the current exhibition “no existe un mundo poshuracán: Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria.” Billed as the first survey devoted to Puerto Rican art at a major U.S. museum in half a century, the show has been received as a groundbreaker, with New York Times critic Holland Cotter writing that it is “a thing of serious tenderness, and of many individual beauties.”
She also organized 2018’s “Pacha, Llaqta, Wasichay: Indigenous Space, Modern Architecture,” featuring a select group of emerging Latinx artists, and a 2020 exhibition about Mexican muralism. She has also helped acquire works by Laura Aguilar, Freddy Rodríguez, and others for the collection.
In her new position at the Whitney, which she takes up on Friday, Guerrero will continue to focus on reaching Latinx audiences, acquiring Latinx art, and organizing associated shows.
Scott Rothkopf, senior deputy director and chief curator of the Whitney, said in a statement, “Marcela is a visionary curator who has truly transformed the field of Latinx art not just at the Whitney but internationally through her passionate advocacy for living artists, brilliant scholarship, groundbreaking exhibitions, and care for our audiences.”
Goldstein has worked on several collection shows at the Whitney, including ones devoted to protest and craft. She most recently organized “In the Balance: Between Painting and Sculpture, 1965–1985,” which is now on view at the museum.
In a statement, Rothkopf called Goldstein “an extraordinary champion of the Whitney’s collection.”