ACHTUNG KUNST - The Museum of Modern Art in Cuenca

Cuenca has a small but fine art museum, the Municipal Museum of Modern Art (MMAM), which is charmingly housed in a spacious colonial building on the edge of the old town, at Parque San Sebastián. The windowless exhibition rooms are grouped around several courtyards and accessed through tall, slender doors. The walls are plastered with lime and the rooms are kept in earthy colors. The presentation of the few works is very tastefully designed.

There is a selection of local modern art as well as a few international works, most of them from the South American region.

Some works, like the still lifes on display, may initially remind you of works by van Gogh that have been put through the Latin American meat grinder. In fact, the works by Luis Crespo Ordoñez (EC) are very stimulating and executed with great colors. From time to time, there is also a local reference (like a llama or something...).

Other works are not quite as lighthearted and innocent. For example, the work 'Rojo Negro' by Oswaldo Viteri (EC) reminds in a brutal and very direct way of a dark part of the history of the American continent.

Don't worry, not all works are presented here, it's best to stop by and see for yourself. However, one installation deserves special mention. It is the combination of two installations as a deliberate contrast to each other, black and white. Half of the room is painted black and hardly illuminated, in the middle of which stands - as if laid out on an altar - an oil barrel made of oil ('1972-1982', María José Argenzio, EC). However, the other half is painted white and fully illuminated. Unevenly distributed in the room are the structural components made of pine wood of the installation 'Instructivo' by Damián Sinchi Q (EC). There are few greater contrasts. Darkness and light, unconditional worship and freedom, artificiality and naturalness. It's really fun to walk back and forth between these opposites and to engage with the tension in this narrow colonial space.

There are only a few works in the large house, but many of them are really enjoyable and/or thought-provoking. Admission to the wonderful museum is free.