ISLAA was founded in 2011 by Ariel Aisiks to meet the need for a New York–based institution dedicated to expanding narratives on Latin American art. ISLAA’s founding was centered on partnerships with New York University and Columbia University. These collaborations have since been core to ISLAA’s work, encouraging scholarship and cultivating intellectual exchange through access to our extensive art and archival collections and supporting research, exhibitions, and publications.
Over the past decade, ISLAA’s partnerships with educational and arts institutions have grown steadily to engage researchers, curators, and the public through programs such as the ISLAA Forum, a series of graduate student workshops; and the Artist Seminar Initiative, which supports coursework and on-campus exhibitions at universities including the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College.
In 2017, ISLAA moved into a ground-level storefront on East 78th Street. In addition to housing the ISLAA Library and Archives, this space hosted our in-house publication program and a series of exhibitions featuring works from the ISLAA collection. ISLAA continues to expand these collections to incorporate movements and geographies of modern and contemporary art and visual culture from Latin America, the Caribbean, and the diaspora.
To date, ISLAA has gifted or loaned more than five hundred works to small and large museums and institutions nationwide, complementing the works in their collections and making Latin American art accessible to larger audiences.
In 2022, ISLAA partnered with the New Museum to fund a curatorial fellowship, creating opportunities for emerging curators to organize exhibitions and programming on Latin American and Latinx art. In 2023, ISLAA began a long term collaboration with Dia Art Foundation to present ambitious projects by Latin American artists and thinkers, spanning exhibitions, publications, and public programs.
The opening of our Franklin Street space in the fall of 2023 significantly enhanced our capacity for in-house engagement and new dialogues. 142 Franklin Street features multiple gallery spaces that host free public programming and exhibitions, our Research Center, which is home to the ISLAA Library and Archives, and a bookshop that offers publications from our publishing imprint.
