Carlos Tortolero has officemates. Seventeen of them, actually.
A former high school history teacher, Tortolero, 69, “love(s) ancient México.” If he’s not at the National Museum of Mexican Art, which he’s led since opening its doors in Pilsen in 1987, he’s probably in Mexico, bouncing around museums and archaeological sites. He keeps 17 fist-sized replicas of Olmec heads — huge, scowling basalt sculptures weighing several tons and averaging around 3,000 years old — behind his desk, one for each that has survived into the modern era.
Leaning behind them are photos of Tortolero next to the real things. He’s seen 15 so far; just two more to go. Maybe, finally, he’ll get around to seeing them. He retires from the museum he founded on Dec. 31.
“I’m a sports fan,” Tortolero says. (Former Dodgers pitcher Fernando Valenzuela grins from a Kellogg’s Corn Flakes box perched above the mini Olmec heads.) “It makes you mad, looking at the poor guy who can hardly walk on the field …. There’s a time, and it’s the perfect time to leave. We have a great board, a great staff. And the museum’s in the best financial state and programming shape in its history.” He pounds his desk twice, as if for good luck.
Tortolero would know, because he’s been with the museum before it was a museum. Born in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, Tortolero moved with his family to Chicago, on Taylor Street, when he was a toddler. He’s the middle of five children; his parents were accountants. After graduating from UIC, Tortolero became a disgruntled history teacher at Bowen High School in South Chicago, where the curriculum completely neglected Mexican and Mexican American history.
“I was always fighting with the principal. There were no materials to teach kids that were decent. It was horrible,” he says.
In 1982, he and five others — mostly Bowen colleagues — pooled $900 to start what was then called the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum. When deciding where to plant the museum, downtown was never in the running. Of Chicago’s Mexican neighborhoods, Pilsen was eventually picked for its social justice streak: Nonprofits like Mujeres Latinas en Acción, Alivio and El Valor were all nearby.
No one on the founding team was an art specialist, so that became Tortolero and founding president Helen Valdez’s first hire, in 1986. The following year, the founders secured a WPA-era field house in Harrison Park to house the museum, signing a lease with the Parks District.
Today, the National Museum of Mexican Art boasts 40 employees and a budget hovering around $8 million, with a significant boost in 2021 after philanthropist MacKenzie Scott donated $8 million to the museum. The humble field house was expanded rather than razed in 2001, creating the museum’s current footprint.
“There’s something very Méxicana about the way the building works. We were like the Mayans, the Aztecs — they built on top of things. And of the rules in the art world that don’t make any sense, my favorite is that the walls have to be white, off-white or cream.” Tortolero scoffs. “I mean, have you been to Mexico?”
In Tortolero’s view, the museum world is riddled with such nonsensical rules. So he breaks them, with relish. Why shouldn’t the National Museum of Mexican Art remain free? Offer COVID testing and mammograms? Help fund independent films? Host an annual Queer Prom, as it has since 2003?
“Too many people see these spaces as profit-making centers, instead of community centers,” Tortolero says. “I want to raise money; I’m not stupid. But let’s raise money from the people who can give it. Whenever I speak downtown, I say, ‘Oh, I see some real nice dresses and suits, but when this is over, I’m gonna chase you for money. Take those heels off and get a head start.'”
By the way, swatches from the gallery walls of the National Museum of Mexican Art, as of writing: Mint. Sunflower yellow. Vermillion. A strident fuchsia all but ripped from the “Barbie” movie.
Without Tortolero weaving between them, though? That will take some getting used to.
Hannah Edgar is a freelance writer.
