MALBA, Buenos Aires’ Top Art Museum, Fills July With Two Nature Shows
Culture
Key Facts
—The pairing. MALBA runs two nature-themed shows together this July, one by Vivian Suter and one by Abel Rodríguez.
—Suter. Her site-specific installation of hanging canvases opens on 17 July on the museum’s triple-height lower level.
—Rodríguez. The Colombian Amazonian elder’s forest drawings, organized with São Paulo’s MASP, run until 23 August.
—The occasion. Both sit within MALBA’s programme marking its 25th anniversary in 2026.
—The place. MALBA sits in the Palermo district, walkable from the city’s parks and museums.
This month the MALBA nature shows turn Buenos Aires’s flagship art museum into a meditation on forests, pairing two very different artists around a single theme.
The better-known name is Vivian Suter. Her site-specific installation of loose, hanging canvases opens on 17 July on the museum’s dramatic triple-height lower level.
Running alongside it is a show by Abel Rodríguez. The two together read less as separate exhibitions than as a conversation about how art can hold the living world.
What the MALBA nature shows offer
Suter’s work resists easy labels. Since 1982 she has painted in an open-air studio beside Lake Atitlán in Guatemala, letting weather and landscape leave their marks on the unstretched cloth.
At MALBA the canvases hang at different heights through the space. Visitors walk among the paintings rather than past them, so the room becomes a kind of indoor forest.
Rodríguez comes at nature from another direction entirely. A Colombian Amazonian elder and knowledge-keeper, he drew the plants, trees and seasons of his rainforest home in precise, luminous detail.
His show was organized with São Paulo’s MASP, one of Latin America’s great museums. That partnership gives the Buenos Aires display a direct thread back to Brazil.
Why the MALBA nature shows are worth the trip
For a visitor from London or Munich, the appeal is twofold. It is a rare chance to see two acclaimed artists at once, both working far from the usual centres of the art world.
There is a homecoming in the mix, too. Suter was born in Buenos Aires in 1949, and this is the first time her work has been shown in the city of her birth.
The timing is deliberate. Both shows fall within the programme marking MALBA’s twenty-fifth anniversary, a year the museum is using to restate what Latin American art can mean.
The setting makes it an easy outing. The museum sits in leafy Palermo, close to the city’s parks, and folds neatly into an afternoon of walking and coffee.
Winter is the right season for it. July is the heart of the porteño winter and school holidays, when indoor cultural stops become the natural choice for locals and visitors alike.
The pairing also says something about the museum’s ambitions. By hanging a European-trained painter beside an Indigenous Amazonian artist, MALBA stretches what the label Latin American art can hold.
Suter’s late recognition is part of the draw. She spent decades outside the art world’s notice before a breakthrough at Documenta in Germany in 2017, after which major institutions rushed to show her.
Rodríguez carries a different kind of authority. His drawings are prized in both art and scientific circles for the environmental knowledge they preserve, passed down through generations of his people.
The MASP link matters for readers with a foot in Brazil. It shows how the region’s big museums increasingly pool artists and shows across borders rather than working alone.
Practical planning is simple. Both shows sit inside the same building, admission is modest by international standards, and a single visit comfortably takes in the pair.
There is a poignant note to Rodríguez’s presence. The artist died in 2025, so the Buenos Aires display doubles as a tribute to a figure who spent a lifetime translating the forest onto paper.
Taken together, the two shows make a quiet case. In a year of anniversaries, MALBA is arguing that the deepest subject in Latin American art may simply be the land itself.
What are the MALBA nature shows in July 2026?
They are two exhibitions built around nature: Vivian Suter’s site-specific installation of hanging canvases, opening 17 July, and Abel Rodríguez’s Amazonian forest drawings, running until 23 August. Both are part of MALBA’s twenty-fifth anniversary programme.
Who are Vivian Suter and Abel Rodríguez?
Suter is an Argentine-Swiss painter, born in Buenos Aires in 1949, who works beside Lake Atitlán in Guatemala. Rodríguez was a Colombian Amazonian elder and artist, celebrated for drawings that record deep knowledge of the rainforest.
Where is MALBA and why does the anniversary matter?
MALBA, the Museum of Latin American Art of Buenos Aires, sits in the Palermo district near the city’s parks. Its twenty-fifth anniversary in 2026 has prompted an unusually ambitious year of shows, making this a strong moment to visit.
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