MALBA – Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires
Leading museum of modern and contemporary Latin American art, including Frida Kahlo and Xul Solar.
MALBA, the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, is a private, non-profit museum on Avenida Figueroa Alcorta in the Palermo district. It opened in September 2001, created by the Argentine businessman and collector Eduardo Costantini, and is run by the Fundación Malba–Costantini. Its aim is to collect, preserve, study and share Latin American art from the early twentieth century to the present. The museum marked its 25th anniversary in September 2026, and a second venue, Malba Puertos, opened in Escobar in 2024.
The building resulted from an international competition held in 1997, which attracted around 450 proposals from 45 countries and was judged by a panel including Norman Foster, César Pelli and Mario Botta. It was won by three young architects from Córdoba, Gastón Atelman, Martín Fourcade and Alfredo Tapia, and construction began in 1998. The design juxtaposes angular volumes clad in limestone with tinted glass curtain walls, and escalators rise through a tall, light-filled atrium. Public areas were later remodelled by the Spanish practice estudio Herreros.
The Malba–Costantini Collection covers modern and contemporary Latin American art, with works by Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Tarsila do Amaral, Antonio Berni, Joaquín Torres-García, Xul Solar and Leonora Carrington. Among its best-known pieces are Tarsila do Amaral's Abaporu (1928) and Kahlo's Self-Portrait with Monkey and Parrot (1942). In December 2025 the museum acquired the Daros Latinamerica Collection of more than 1,200 works, considerably strengthening its post-war holdings. The museum also runs a cinema programme, courses, talks and a library.
Highlights
- Collection of modern and contemporary Latin American art founded by Eduardo Costantini
- Tarsila do Amaral's Abaporu, a founding image of Brazilian modernism
- Frida Kahlo's Self-Portrait with Monkey and Parrot (1942)
- Competition-winning building of limestone and glass with a tall escalator atrium
- Regular cinema programme, talks and courses in the museum auditorium
