The Whitney Museum Announces the Closing Celebration for No Existe Un Mundo Poshuracán on April 20

Image credit: Opening Reception for no existe un mundo poshuracán: Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, November 23, 2022–April 23, 2023), December 7, 2022. Gamaliel Rodríguez, Collapsed Soul, 2020–21. Photograph by Matthew Carasella

A night of Puerto Rican arts and culture, presented with WNYC and Futuro Studios podcast “La Brega: Stories of the Puerto Rican Experience,” which will feature music by DJ Bembona, dancing, drinks, and a performance by artist Ana Macho

The Whitney Museum of American Art is hosting a closing celebration for landmark exhibition no existe un mundo poshuracán: Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria from 7:30–10 pm on Thursday, April 20.

The night of Puerto Rican arts and culture will include full access to the renowned exhibition—the first survey of Puerto Rican art by a major U.S. art museum in 50 years, which runs through April 23—as well as dancing, a cash bar, music by DJ Bembona, and a performance and Q&A with one of Puerto Rico’s leading performers, Ana Macho.

Tickets to the event are available at whitney.org. Note for capacity reasons, Ana Macho’s Q&A and performance will require separate performance tickets. Ana Macho’s performance will also be live streamed.

The evening is being presented with the acclaimed WNYC and Futuro Studios podcast “La Brega: Stories of the Puerto Rican Experience.” The podcast’s second season explores the culture, history and soul of Puerto Rico through the stories behind some of the island’s most iconic songs. On April 11, WNYC and Futuro Studios are releasing La Brega: El Álbum, in which the songs explored in the podcast are reimagined by six contemporary recording artists from Puerto Rico and the Diaspora. Ana Macho covers Willie Colón’s classic salsa “El Gran Varón” on the album and plans to perform the song for the first time at the Whitney’s closing party. The Q&A with Ana Macho will be conducted by La Brega editor Mark Pagán.

To date, thousands of visitors have explored no existe un mundo poshuracán: Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria, which opened on November 23, 2022, and is curated by Whitney DeMartini Family Curator Marcela Guerrero. The exhibition brings together an intergenerational group of twenty artists from Puerto Rico and the diaspora whose work responds to the transformative five years since Hurricane Maria—a high-end category-four storm that hit Puerto Rico on September 20, 2017. Through over 50 works, these artists address the larger devastation exacerbated by historic events that preceded and followed this defining moment.

To see the exhibition in its final weeks, visitors can get tickets at whitney.org. In celebration of the exhibition and Earth Day, the Whitney has made tickets on Saturday, April 22 free. In addition to the free day, kids and teens are always free at the Whitney, and Members enjoy any time admission when they show their membership cards. The Museum also offers a suite of free and discounted ticket offerings, including pay-what-you-wish Friday evenings.

The Whitney is the world’s preeminent institution devoted to the art of the United States, with a special focus on living artists. All year round, the Whitney offers free art programming for kids and teens on weekends and a robust slate of public programs and events for visitors of all ages.

About the Whitney

The Whitney Museum of American Art, founded in 1930 by the artist and philanthropist Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), houses the foremost collection of American art from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Mrs. Whitney, an early and ardent supporter of modern American art, nurtured groundbreaking artists when audiences were still largely preoccupied with the Old Masters. From her vision arose the Whitney Museum of American Art, which has been championing the most innovative art of the United States for ninety years. The core of the Whitney’s mission is to collect, preserve, interpret, and exhibit American art of our time and serve a wide variety of audiences in celebration of the complexity and diversity of art and culture in the United States. Through this mission and a steadfast commitment to artists, the Whitney has long been a powerful force in support of modern and contemporary art and continues to help define what is innovative and influential in American art today.

About WNYC Studios

WNYC Studios is the premier producer of on-demand and broadcast audio, and home to some of the industry’s most critically acclaimed and popular podcasts, including Radiolab, On the Media, La Brega, The New Yorker Radio Hour, Death, Sex & Money, and Notes from America with Kai Wright. WNYC Studios is leading the new golden age in audio with podcasts and national radio programs that inform, inspire, and delight millions of curious and highly engaged listeners across digital, mobile, and broadcast platforms. Programs include personal narratives, deep journalism, revealing interviews, and smart entertainment as varied and intimate as the human voice itself. For more information, visit wnycstudios.org.

About Futuro Studios

Futuro Studios is the podcast and original programming division of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Futuro Media Group, an independent nonprofit organization producing multimedia journalism that explores and gives a critical voice to the diversity of the American experience. Based in Harlem and founded in 2010 by award-winning journalist Maria Hinojosa, Futuro Media is committed to telling stories often overlooked by mainstream media. Since 2019, Futuro Studios has developed a slate of critically acclaimed podcast series, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Suave with PRX, La Brega with WNYC Studios, Anything For Selena with WBUR, Norco 80 for LAist Studios, LOUD: The History of Reggaeton with Spotify Studios, The Battle of 187, a co-production with the Los Angeles Times, Radical Imagination hosted by Angela Glover Backwell in partnership with PolicyLink, and Con Todo: Brown Love in collaboration with Netflix. Futuro Media also produces the Peabody Award-winning show Latino USA, the In The Thickpolitical podcast, the pioneering digital news outlet Latino Rebels, and Hinojosa’s newest investigative journalism and special projects unit. More at futurostudios.org.

SUPPORT

Leadership support for no existe un mundo poshuracán: Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria is provided by David Cancel and the Mellon Foundation.

The exhibition is part of the Whitney’s emerging artists program, sponsored by Nordstrom.

Generous support is provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Judy Hart Angelo, the Elaine Graham Weitzen Foundation for Fine Arts, and the Whitney’s National Committee.

Significant support is provided by Further Forward Foundation, the Kapadia Equity Fund, and The Keith Haring Foundation Exhibition Fund.

Additional support is provided by Furthermore: a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund.

Curatorial research and travel for this exhibition were funded by an endowment established by Rosina Lee Yue and Bert A. Lies, Jr., MD.

The second season of La Brega was made possible by the Mellon Foundation. “La Brega: El Álbum” is sponsored by the Marguerite Casey Foundation.

VISITOR INFORMATION

The Whitney Museum of American Art is located at 99 Gansevoort Street between Washington and West Streets, New York City. Public hours are: Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday, 10:30 am–6 pm; Friday, 10:30 am–10 pm; and Saturday and Sunday, 10:30 am–6 pm. Closed Tuesday. Visitors eighteen years and under and Whitney members: FREE. Admission is pay-what-you-wish on Fridays, 7–10 pm. COVID-19 vaccination and face coverings are not required but strongly recommended. We encourage all visitors to wear face coverings that cover the nose and mouth throughout their visit.