April 25 – October 4, 2026
GALERAS, PANKEY & DREAM GALLERIES
The exhibition Life Is a Barranquilla Carnival brings a sample of Colombia’s largest cultural festival to South Florida. Declared a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO, in 2003, it was granted this significant proclamation for its cultural richness, centuries-old traditions, dances, and music, and for its role as a symbol of identity for the Colombian Caribbean.
The show features a collection of photographs by León Birbragher Vinkel (1940-2022) and acknowledges his contribution to documenting this valuable cultural repository. For more than 30 years, he photographed the main events and folkloric expressions of the Barranquilla Carnival, including dances, masquerades, and individual costumes. Through his lens, he captured the heart and soul of his fellow carnavaleros, with whom he shared the passion for the celebration. The show also features original costumes, videos, and music, providing a multisensory experience that offers a taste of this vibrant annual celebration rooted in ancestral customs and community identity, blending African, Indigenous, and European traditions.
Life Is a Barranquilla Carnival is conceived as a journey through the various Carnival events, beginning with the evening pre-Carnival parade, the Guacherna. Visitors stroll through the galleries learning about the main parades, including the Batalla de Flores (Battle of Flowers), in which traditional dances and groups such as Cumbias, Congos, and Garabatos participate. Likewise, they experience the Gran Parada de Comparsas (Great Masquerades’ Parade) through costumes and Carnival troupes. The celebration concludes with Joselito’s Burial, a satirical funeral procession that marks the end of Barranquilla Carnival’s festivities.
Organized by Carnaval de Barranquilla Miami-USA, a transnational celebration featuring the Gran Parada has taken place in Coral Gables since 2022. The exhibition recognizes the contribution of this diasporic cultural expression by including photographs and costumes that illustrate the continuity of Carnival’s festive folkloric expressions beyond the national borders.
Francine Birbragher-Rozencwaig, PhD
Curator
EXHIBITION CURATOR
Francine Birbragher-Rozencwaig, PhD
MUSIC CURATOR
Tato Marenco
VISUAL STRATEGIST
Nicole Kassin
León Birbragher Vinkel (1940-2022)
León Birbragher Vinkel was born in Cartagena, Colombia, and spent his childhood in Barranquilla. He received his bachelor’s degree from Boston University and a master’s degree in Industrial Planning at the University of Chicago. After graduating, he returned to his native Colombia, where he worked as an entrepreneur.
Birbragher Vinkel was a passionate photographer. He bought a Canon camera whose lenses could be interchanged while honeymooning in Panama with his wife, Celia, in 1963. He enjoyed documenting his travels and family events.
His passion for photography grew exponentially after his in-laws, León and Elsa Caridi, invited him to participate in the Barranquilla Carnival as a member of the Marimondas del Barrio Abajo. From the late 1990s until his passing in 2022, he remained an active member of Marimondas.
He photographed major Carnival events and folkloric manifestations, including dances, comparsas, and costumes.
Francine Birbragher-Rozencwaig, PhD
Francine Birbragher-Rozencwaig is an art historian, independent curator, and art critic. She received a Master’s in Art History and a Ph.D. in Latin American history, with an emphasis on cultural history, from the University of Miami. She is the Executive Director/Curator of the ArtNexus Space in North Miami, Florida, and the Artistic Director of the Fundación Paiz in Guatemala.
She is the author of From Popular Expression to Public Spectacle. History and Visual Testimonies of the Carnaval de Barranquilla in the XX and XXI Centuries (Scholar’s Press, 2016), and Essays on 20th-Century Latin American Art (Routledge, 2022). As an independent curator, she has organized over one hundred exhibitions in the United States and Latin America.
Tato Marenco
Tato Marenco is an artist, musician, composer, and producer from Barranquilla with over 25 years devoted to the traditional rhythms of the Colombian Caribbean. Trained between Barranquilla and Paris, where he deepened his studies in ethnomusicology and classical percussion, his vision bridges academic rigor with the soul of Caribbean folk music. A three-time Latin Grammy nominee, his career has taken him from collaborations with Totó La Momposina, Shakira, Carlos Vives, and Karol G to recording gaita and flauta de millo for Disney‘s Encanto.
It is precisely that journey, built on the deepest roots of Colombian folk music, that brings him to the Coral Gables Museum as music curator for this exhibition, guiding audiences through an experience that goes beyond the images, carried by the sounds that have given the Barranquilla Carnival its soul for generations.
