As workers race against the 72-hour, so-called golden window to rescue survivors from collapsed buildings following Monday’s devastating 7.4 earthquake in northern Colombia, the region’s museums are also in serious jeopardy.
On Monday evening, Alejandro Garces, a curator at the Museo de Arte de Pereira, posted photos on Instagram of the damage sustained to the museum that is located about 220 miles west of Bogotá and is the principal art institution for the states of Caldas, Risaralda, and Quindío, which together form the “Zona Cafeteria” or the country’s coffee triangle.
The images show whole walls collapsed, leaving its interior with sweeping views of the city. Jagged X-shaped fissures ripped through galleries, exposing bricks and concrete and leaving paintings and framed prints clinging to teetering walls. An exterior wall of a building adjacent to the museum’s 300-seat theater fell on the roof causing it to cave in and leaving a gaping opening. Twisted lighting tracks and dangling electric cables pierce the blue summer sky.
In his post, Garces wrote, “70% of the cultural infrastructure of Risaralda is in ruins.”
Pereira, the largest city of the Risaralda Department with a population of approximately 500,000, is located just 35 miles from the epicenter of Monday’s earthquake. Registering a magnitude similar to the one in Venezuela this past June, Colombia was fortunate that much of the force was blunted by the 64-mile depth of the epicenter causing the seismic energy to weaken as it traveled to the surface. The Venezuela quake, by comparison, had a depth of about 12 miles.
A large-scale painting hangs from a cracked wall at the Museo de Arte de Pereira, Colombia.
Courtesy Alejandro Garces
The cities of Pereira and Manizales, located about 30 miles northeast, are among the most severely affected by the disaster and so far account for more than half of the current death toll. As rescue workers search for the missing and families grieve their departed, survivors are also grappling with the loss of homes, businesses, and sites that comprise cultural life.
“In the area affected by the earthquake, they have identified 14 museums that have been affected,” Libardo Díaz, director of the Museo Rayo in nearby Roldanillo, told ARTnews in a phone interview. Díaz’s institution has also experienced significant damage. “Of these, the one in very grave condition is the Museo de Arte de Pereira.”
Works hang on cracked walls at the Museo de Arte de Pereira, Colombia.
Courtesy Alejandro Garces
The Museo de Arte de Pereira is the largest contemporary art museum in the region. Initially founded in 1974 as the Center for Contemporary Art, it became a museum in 1996 after the passage of “la ley de la cultura” which established a fund for the promotion of art and culture. With those funds, the organization was able to expand and rebrand as a museum, opening a new building designed by Colombian architect Willy Drews Arango.
The museum’s 520-piece collection includes works from late 20th-century Colombian artists like Oscar Muñoz, Olga de Amaral, Beatriz González, who passed away this past January. The museum is “not only significant for Pereira—it’s quite significant for the much larger region,” said María Paz Gaviria Muñoz, who was director of Bogotá’s ArtBo fair from 2012 to 2024 and is from Pereira. “It’s been key to the decentralization of arts in the country, beyond Bogotá, Medellín, and Cali.”
A hole in one side of the building at the Museo de Arte de Pereira, Colombia.
Courtesy Alejandro Garces
Engineers’ inspection of the Museo de Arte de Pereira on August 11 determined that the damage from the quake was extensive “but not structural,” according to Rosa Ángel, a board member who is in charge of the institution’s emergency response. Even though the beams and columns of the museum are sound, many walls and roofs will have to be rebuilt, demanding a “reconstruction that is going to be very complex,” she said.
Given the extensive damage, the museum is closed to the public. How long the museum will remain closed, how much reconstruction will cost, and how the museum will pay for it is still unknown.
Though technically operating as an independent nonprofit, the museum is largely sustained with government funding from the city, state, and the Colombian Ministry of Culture. The damage from the quake comes as “reductions in already very limited national and [local] government funding have left the museum in a complex economic situation,” Gaviria Muñoz said. “So now, as we start talking about the need for reconstruction [we must also consider that] it will need very substantial funds to continue operating.”
Paintings lined up for their protection after the earthquake, at the Museo de Arte de Pereira, Colombia.
Courtesy Alejandro Garces
The far-right Espriella government is only days into its tenure. Elected based on an agenda to cut government spending by 40 percent, it’s unclear how—or even if—the Ministry of Culture will step in to support the Museo de Arte de Pereira, Museo Rayo, or any of the other 12 damaged museums. ARTnews has contacted the ministry for comment.
The scale and abruptness of natural disasters like Monday’s earthquake make for stark contrasts and difficult choices. “The city is trying to rescue people from the rubble. People are homeless, without things—it’s very, very difficult,” Ángel said, “but we also have to fight for our cultural infrastructure and do the work to protect it.”
But as the Zona Cafetera rebuilds, advocating for the museum to reopen is important, she said, because “culture is the cement that keeps us united as a society.”
Cracked walls at the Museo de Arte de Pereira, Colombia.
Courtesy Alejandro Garces
