Orlando Hernandez Ying: NOMA’s  First Lapis Curator of the Arts of the Americas

Versión en español: Orlando Hernandez Ying y el Arte de las Américas en NOMA

By AnaMaria Bech

Orlando Hernandez Ying, the newly appointed Lapis Curator of the Art of the Americas at the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA), brings a wealth of expertise to his role. Hailing from Panama, Hernandez embarked on his academic journey in the United States in 1999, earning an MA in Museum Studies from New York University and a doctorate in Art History & Criticism from the Graduate Center, City University of New York.

New Orleans is not a new place for him. Between 2010 and 2012, he worked in the Department of Art History at Tulane University. He was a guest curator at The Historic New Orleans Collection, where he organized the exhibition The Golden Legend in the New World: Colonial Art of the Spanish American Viceroyalties, which drew in part from NOMA’s Spanish viceregal collection. Due to technical issues related to his fellowship, Hernandez returned to Panama and became the head curator of the Museo Antropológico Reina Torres de Araúz (MARTA). As the National Coordinator of Museums in Panama, he coordinated a country-wide master plan of 18 museums. 

“Coming back via NOMA reminds me of a quote by St. Teresa of Avila: ‘Trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be,’” says Hernandez about his full circle back in New Orleans. His impressive resume includes projects with the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Dallas Art Museum; the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore; and teaching at New York University, City University of New York, Tulane University, and the National University of Panama.

 Hernandez is ready for NOMA’s big plans. His first major project will be the permanent installation of the museum’s Art of the Americas collection, which will take an expansive look at how museums define “American art” across time and culture. The new galleries will open over several years—beginning in 2025—and present Mesoamerican and indigenous art alongside painting and sculpture from the colonial era through the 21st century. A grant from the Terra Foundation for American Art supports this project. 

The museum proudly showcases a collection from a thousand years before Christ to the present, featuring pre-Columbian art from Peru, Ecuador, Mexico, and the southwestern United States. It boasts two reliefs of warriors and rulers from Cayo, Peten, and Copan. “NOMA houses one of the most important Mayan collections in the United States, as well as colonial art, particularly from the Cusco and Potosí schools. It also features Precolumbian gold from Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, and parts of Nicaragua,” Hernandez emphasizes, adding that the art of New Orleans has strong connections with the Caribbean and Veracruz, a fascinating history that the museum has to tell with artifacts made of wood such as mahogany from the Antillean Islands.

NOMA is committed to fostering a sense of connection and belonging among its visitors. Hernandez’s appointment is a powerful testament to NOMA’s unwavering dedication to inclusivity. As Lisa Rotondo-McCord, the Deputy Director at NOMA, says, it “offers an important opportunity to present and re-interpret these important areas of NOMA’s permanent collection to tell a more inclusive story that considers Precolumbian and Indigenous art as integral parts of American visual culture.”

“I would love to invite all members of the Hispanic community to visit in their free time so that they can get nourished, enjoy themselves, and know that here there is something of the roots of our people that we can feel proud of who we are and where we are from,” finalizes Hernandez adding that the New Orleans Museum of Art offers free public access every Wednesday.