© Jaime Permuth, 2026
It gives me great pleasure to announce that El Museo del Barrio has acquired four images from my series, The Street Becomes for its Permanent Collection. The series had its debut exhibition at El Museo in 2017 as part of "nasty women / bad hombres" and the first Uptown Triennial organized by Columbia University.
I have a long history of collaborating with El Museo and enjoying their richly stimulatiing programs and community. I am truly honored to be a part of their Collection.
Benefit Fundraiser for Puerto Rico
I'm donating a print to El Museo del Barrio's fundraiser to help Puerto Rico recover from the devastation of Hurricane Maria.
There are many other beautiful works available. All of them are small and priced to sell. Get there early, go home with beautiful art and help people in need.
Today, Saturday, starting at 2:30PM.
I have nothing but respect and admiration for Curator Rocío Aranda Alvarado and her talented staff at El Museo del Barrio who have gathered a remarkable group of artists in the exhibition "nasty women / bad hombres". It is a thoughtful and timely exhibition, which offers some deeply felt responses to a political/cultural moment fraught with anxiety.
Yesterday, as I moved through the galleries, I felt that each artist project amplified and extended the ones around it.
A case in point, Nari Ward's installation of a swing made from an automobile tire, but suspended from a noose and crusted with fragments of broken shoes is an inspired counterpart to my own work, which is installed directly adjacent to his. With its sense of rupture and transformation the sculpture moves from idyllic childhood pastime to personal trauma. As such, it overlaps with themes and concerns which are central to my work.
And so on, the exhibition flows beautifully from one artist to the next.
It came as no surprise to me that the exhibition made it to artnet's list of must-see Museum shows in New York City. And I am particularly gratified that one of my images from The Street Becomes illustrates the feature.
In the Summer of 2014, I spent two months in residence as a Smithsonian Artist Fellow. During my time in DC, I researched, gathered and secured permissions for all the source materials I required for creating a new book and exhibition project entitled The Street Becomes. The project is interested in the changing character of the urban street in times of war and peace.
The Street Becomes is entirely based on archival images by other photographers. One part of the images come from the private archives of local Washington DC photographers who documented the Latino Festival during the 70s and 80s. The second part comes from the US Marine Corps archives and documents the American military occupation of Central America and the Caribbean in the early 20th Century. My artistic intervention and repurposing of these source images suggests new meanings for the street and examines the kind of contests that are predicated on overtaking and controlling public spaces. The Street Becomes is a metaphorical construct whose extension maps the interrelation of war; displacement; immigration; assimilation and cultural resistance.
Twelve works from The Street Becomes are featured at El Museo del Barrio as part of an exhibition titled "nasty women / bad hombres", which opens June 13th at 7PM.
My latest project "The Street Becomes" gets its debut exhibition at El Museo del Barrio opening June 13th.
The project is a meditation on how the urban street is transformed in times of war and peace.
Twelve images from the series are featured in the exhibition "nasty women / bad hombres" curated by Rocío Aranda-Alvarado.
Would love to see you there!
