IDB Launches its First Virtual Art Exhibition

• “Legacy” highlights the cultural richness and diversity of Latin America and the Caribbean through the works of 17 established and emergent artists.

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), is launching Legacy: Recent Acquisitions of the IDB Art Collection, its first entirely virtual exhibition, which focuses on climate change and sustainability, gender equality, and economic recovery. These works, in a variety of media by artists from a dozen countries, encapsulate the true ethos of our collection: that art is one of the most powerful tools for transformation.

By recreating the IDB Cultural Center, the Bank is making it available to a broader audience in every corner of the planet. The art, the talent, and the creativity of 17 artists from Latin America and the Caribbean, and the United Kingdom as well, will reach new spaces telling the story of our communities and the challenges that we accept to take on as a development institution working to improve lives.  

“Legacy reinforces the IDB’s commitment to invest in the future of Latin America and the Caribbean to build a more prosperous, inclusive and sustainable region. This exhibition presents the works of 17 artists recently acquired for our art collection. Thanks to a renewed acquisition policy that supports emergent talent and focuses on women, diversity, and inclusion, we can present works that reflect the stories of artists of indigenous and African descent, as well as artists from the young and thriving LGBTQ community in the region. In a constant effort to achieve this objective, the Collection has increased the representation of female creators from 13% to 21% in the past 5 years”, says Trinidad Zaldivar, Chief of the IDB Creativity and Culture Unit.

Legacy includes the works of established artists from IDB member countries, as well as emerging artists, such as Mandy Barker (United Kingdom), Mercedes De Haay (Venezuela), Fabián Díaz (Colombia), Alejandro Durán (Mexico), Alfredo Esparza Cárdenas (Mexico), Paulette Franceríes Galo (Nicaragua), Darwin Fuentes (Ecuador), María Fernanda Lairet (Venezuela), Lyann Leguisamo (Panama), Ramón Lineros Picón (Colombia), Tessa Mars (Haiti), Mayara Nardo (Brazil), Cecilia Paredes (Peru),  Katherinne Sánchez Gómez (Colombia), Nicolás Shi (El Salvador), Andrés Felipe Soto (Colombia) and Simón Zarama Pombo (Colombia).

Established in 1992, the IDB art collection represents the artistic and intellectual vitality of the Bank’s 48 member countries and contributes to the understanding of the region’s creative diversity.

Legacy, Recent Acquisitions of the IDB Art Collection was curated by Julieta Maroni, Registrar of the art collection.