| Mexican Museum | |
| Map Type: | USA California |
| Former Name: | El Museo Mexicano |
| Location: | 706 Mission Street, San Francisco, California, U.S. |
| Type: | Art museum |
| Founder: | Peter Rodríguez |
The Mexican Museum (or El Museo Mexicano) is a museum created to exhibit the aesthetic expression of the Latino, Chicano, Mexican, and Mexican-American people, located in San Francisco, California, United States. As of 2022, their exhibition space was permanently closed at Fort Mason Center; and they are still in the process of moving to a new space at 706 Mission Street in Yerba Buena Gardens.[1]
The Mexican Museum of San Francisco was founded by San Francisco artist Peter Rodríguez in 1975.[2] [3] [4] He was inspired to create this museum in order to fill a void in the public's access to Mexican and Chicano art. The museum was originally located in San Francisco's Mission District on Folsom Street in 1975.[5]
The museum's new location was planned starting in 2015 to be built at 706 Mission Street across from Yerba Buena Gardens, as part the 53-story Yerba Buena Tower project, which will consist mostly of luxury condominiums.[6] The entire relocation project was envisaged to cost $500 million ($30 million of which was for the museum), and was scheduled to open in 2020, however this was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and a lack of funds.[7] The city of San Francisco has granted the Mexican Museum a 66-year lease for its future use of the site, renewable for 33 years.[8]
The museum holds a permanent collection of over 16,000 objects including Pre-Hispanic, Colonial, Popular, Mexican and Latino Modern, and Mexican, Latino, and Chicano Contemporary art.[9] It has one of the largest collection of Mexican, Chicano and Latino art in the United States.[10] [11]
In 2017, archaeologist Dr. Eduardo Perez De Heredi wrote a report which stated that 96% of the museum's 2,000 pre-Columbian artifacts may not be authentic and could only be classed as "decorative"; thus only 83 pieces of 2,000, or just over four percent could be certified as “museum-quality.”[12]
Perez De Heredia, said the rest of the pieces are still being studied, and may turn out to be real or not. “This is just the process . . . We have two years to finish examining the collection,” said Dr. Perez De Heredi.[13] He points out that U.S. museums often receive high-end forgeries as donations and the authentication process is meant to sort those out.