They offer an opportunity for students and adults to leave their environment, ask questions about what art is, how it was made, why it is valued and in a museum. The great museums of the United States were founded in the late 19th and 20th centuries based on the concept that museums should be educational resources. The buildings were to impose dignity and align themselves to the origin of democratic thought, a way of sharing imperial and aristocratic treasures of the past with a broad public. In a slightly different way, museums of the 21st century enhance our sense of self and create the possibility for a shared consciousness. They have become institutions that reach out and embrace diverse ideas and communities.
Museums continue to be vital to our intellectual and cultural life.
As the mix in America's heritage changes, museums have actually become dynamic places where the exchange of ideas and understanding takes place as well as the housing of art. The Taino exhibition functioned in that way, reaching out to schoolchildren, community members, and even presidents. A political, economic and religious society of great richness, it developed an artistic production of great quality. Its quick disappearance, after the Spanish invasion, was no less dramatic. Estrellita Brodsky is the vice chairman of the board of trustees of El Museo del Barrio in New York City.