Image: Doris Salcedo. Sin título, 1998. Photo: Sergio Araujo
Malba in Buenos Aires expands its 25th-anniversary collection display "Latinoamérica en expansión" on 19 September, adding three new núcleos and around 30 works from its holdings — a body of material that, the museum says, took on new significance with the recent incorporation of the Colección Daros Latinamerica. The presentation draws on both the museum's collection and the private collection of its founder, Eduardo F. Costantini, and is curated by María Amalia García, Alejandra Aguado and Nancy Rojas.
Malba lists the display as a permanent exhibition on Nivel 1, with its event dates running from 1 May 2026 to 31 December 2028. The three additional sections are inaugurated on Saturday 19 September at 19.00. Guided tours run on Wednesdays and Saturdays at 16.00.
"Latinoamérica en expansión" brings together around 150 pieces made between 1900 and the 1970s, across eleven núcleos tracing the itineraries of modernism that formed the collection: the Latin American avant-gardes; socially committed art; surrealist poetics and the crisis of reason in the interwar years; and South American constructivisms. Artists include Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Antonio Berni, Maria Martins, Emilio Pettoruti, Leonora Carrington, Xul Solar, Wifredo Lam, Remedios Varo, Joaquín Torres-García, Candido Portinari, Roberto Matta and Rafael Barradas.
The September addition brings in Luis F. Benedit, Fernando Botero, Tania Bruguera, Luis Camnitzer, Jorge de la Vega, Antônio Dias, Eugenio Dittborn, Jorge Eielson, Marisol Escobar, León Ferrari, Víctor Grippo, Guillermo Kuitca, Nelson Leirner, María Martorell, Ana Mendieta, César Paternosto, Aldo Paparella, Alejandro Puente, Wanda Pimentel, Liliana Porter, Doris Salcedo, Zilia Sánchez, Eduardo Terrazas and Cecilia Vicuña.
The curatorial frame returns to Oswald de Andrade's concept of anthropophagy, which Malba uses to approach the originality of Latin American art through the critical assimilation of Western modern art and the recognition of the identities that shape the region — underlining artists' shared inquiries while amplifying the diversity of practice.
On the same day, Malba Puertos in Escobar, Buenos Aires Province, opens "HOLA, ¿ESTÁS? Arte argentino entre los 90 y los 2000 (y algunas interferencias históricas) a partir de la Colección Malba—Costantini", which the museum presents as part of "Latinoamérica en expansión". It runs from 19 September 2026 to 28 February 2027, with a free inauguration at 11.00. Curated by Alejandra Aguado, it gathers around 60 paintings, sculptures and videos by artists including Diana Aisenberg, Diego Bianchi, Roberto Jacoby, Guillermo Kuitca, Jorge Macchi, Liliana Maresca, Mariela Scafati and Pablo Zicarello, in dialogue with earlier work by Roberto Aizenberg, Antonio Berni, Margarita Paksa, Anita Payró, Federico Manuel Peralta Ramos and Pablo Suárez. Most works come from the Malba and Costantini collections, with loans from artists and private collections. In the Salas del Bosque, Mariano Ullúa shows an installation of his wire sculptures made for the museum.
Malba is also issuing "Arte Latinoamericano: Colección Malba—Costantini", an internationally distributed catalogue marking the anniversary. It covers the 125 years from 1900 to 2025 in five chronological chapters, with an introduction by Rodrigo Moura, former artistic director of Malba and the volume's co-editor, eighteen commissioned essays and images of some 200 works from the two collections.
