The Municipal Museum is housed in the City of Cusco Town Hall and houses the contemporary art collection. It is also known as the Museum of Contemporary Art. The museum showcases the work of national, Latin American and international artists. On the ground floor there are two large rooms with paintings on display. Room one and two on the ground floor are home to temporary exhibitions that last approximately 15 days. Upstairs the visitor will find a further collection of art work on the surrounding balcony and one additional exhibition room. The building is a large building with many offices other than the exhibitions of the Municipal Museum.
Room one is to the right as you walk in the main entrance of the Municipal Museum and hosts two collections of art both from the same artist. There are roughly about 30 paintings on display, temporarily. The first group of paintings range from scenes of cities in Europe to paintings of clergy. These paintings have some information listed; the title of the painting and the technique used by the artist. The technique used is known as gouache sobre cartulina. This is a method using opaque pigments ground in water and thickened with glue-like substances and then painted onto a type of cardboard. The second assembly is a whole wall dedicated to a display of colourful masked faces. The artist has signed all of these paintings but there is no information shown separately about the artist. If you are able to make out the name on the work maybe you can find out some more in your own time, but unfortunately we don’t know who the artist is, where the artist is from, or any detail about them.
Paintings of Masked Faces on display in Room 1 of Municipal Museum
Room two, on the left, has an interesting and colourful selection of art on show. Some of the work is really beautiful depicting scenes of Machu Picchu, local men and women, scenes from Cusco and some quite obscure modern art. Again there is no information for the visitor to read or no artists names displayed. From the images portrayed my guess is that they are by local and national artists.
Painting of Machu Picchu on display
As you go move upstairs in the Municipal Museum, you will encounter the offices of the mayor of Cusco but along the surrounding walls there is permanent artwork on display. This work varies greatly from images of Incas, animals, breast feeding women, old faces to water scenes and landscapes. Information on the artist is displayed for each. There is also a room dedicated solely to the portraits of Cusco’s former mayors.
In the courtyard of the building there are glass cases with ceramics and pottery on show from different schools in Cusco and different artists including some work from the famous Hilario Mendivil. The Mendivil family are famous family from the San Blas barrio of Cusco. They are famed for their depictions of religious idols with long llama like necks. There are separate galleries in San Blas that the tourist can visit.
Author’s Thoughts
Both galleries on the ground floor had some interesting and nice paintings. But I found it very frustrating that there was no information about any artist on display. After trawling the internet afterwards I was still unable to find out the names of any of the artists. Very disappointing. The museum was empty apart from me, the men at the front desk and the workers setting up a room with chairs for an upcoming exhibition show. The man working at the front desk was deighted to greet me, as I must have been the only person in Cusco to visit that day. Overall, the Municipal Museum, Cusco is poor. It would not be on my to do list in Cusco. There are so many more things to see and do in Cusco before visiting the Mucipal Museum.
Getting There
The Municipal Museum is located in Plaza Regocij, in Cusco Town Hall.
Even though the museum is not clearly signed it is easy to spot as it takes up one whole side of Plaza Regocij.
Entrance
Tourists can only enter the Municipal Museum with a Cusco Tourist Ticket. Nationals enter for free.
Mon-Sat 9am to 6pm, Sundays 9am-1pm
