With most of New York's galleries on the verge of their annual August snooze, art world sizzle had just about vacated our town. That is, until El Museo del Barrio opened its 5th bienal on Wednesday night. Billed 007: The (S) Files, the show is designed to put the museum on the map for those unaware of the city's premier venue for Latino and Latin American culture. For those who know, it was business as usual, in high style.

In his opening remarks, Director Julian Zugazagoitia said that due to the building's limited space, a Pan American bienal has never been possible. Two years ago El Museo decided that instead, a guest country would be invited to participate. This year, it's Ecuador, with five artists selected by independent curator Rodolfo Kronfle Chambers, of Guyaquil, Ecuador.

Left to right: Apunte by Augusto Zanzela; gallery of landscape art from Ecuador; Andres Garcia-Pena, with CBS news team; William Villalongo, with The Snake Charmer's Tale. Photos: Peggy Roalf.

El Museo's entire ground floor space is given over to works in all media by 51 artists, selected from unsolicited proposals that came in during the last two years. One of the catalog essays describes the bienal of mostly emerging artists as a "post-identity moment," with number of common themes that relate to global issues about the environment, political destabilization and communications. The well-prepared wall texts, in Spanish and English, relate the artists' concerns and how they respond through their art.

The show starts with a visual bang, as visitors pass through an opening surrounded by a floor-to-ceiling black target by Augusto Zanzela (1967, Argentina, lives in NYC), which optically decomposes and reassembles on the three-dimensional surface.

Some of the highlights, with artist's comments from the catalog, include:
Revolution and Welcome to America by German Tagle (1976, Santiago, Chile, lives in NYC). "The act of transgressing a fabric associated with elegance and romance (toile de Jouay) twisting its meaning, its beauty and its use" by overpainting new imagery in heavily encrusted textures of molding clay and resin.

The Snake Charmer's Tale by William Villalongo (1975, Hollywood, FL, lives in NYC). "The snake charmer moves through different states of mutation, perpetually being re-born and destroyed as man, woman, snake, egg, and tree" in a series of 5 works on velvety black paper in which the figures are cut through; the white linework is rendered by the resulting negative spaces.

Tiwintza Mon Amour by Manuala Ribadeneira (1966, Quito, Ecuador, lives in England). "This mixed media piece on wheels is a scale model of one square kilometer of jungle given to Ecuador by Peru as property (not sovereignty) and a token of good faith," following the historic resolution in 1998 of a border conflict between the two countries that persisted for almost 60 years.

Regeneration: Franklin Garcia by Franklin Evans (1967, Reno, NV, lives in NYC). This site specific installation addresses "the impossibility of occupying a singular place of being." The mixed ethnicity artist presents the possibility that, like the double-figured Mesoamerican god that is repeated throughout the piece, that he "might be seen as one person with two or more identities, recombinant, fragile, decaying, transient."

The Better to Kiss You With by Jessica Lagunas (1971, Managua, Nicaragua, lives in NYC) is one of two videos in a series that questions "women's obsessions with their images and bodies...[here] I experiment with feminine beauty rituals, performing them in exaggerated ways to reflect pressures imposed by today's society."

Family by Andrea Nacach (1975, Buenos Aires, Argentina, lives in NYC). A cross-shaped section has been cut out, from front to back cover of this limited edition book of family photographs. The resulting two pieces "follow two paths: one of them leads inward, both personally and spatially...associated with autobiographical reflections and experiences, while the other leads outwards, and is made up o images that surround us in our daily environment."

Far Close Far by Pablo Cardoso (1965, Cenca, Ecuador) tells about the artist's journey from his own doorstep to the Bienal de Sao Paulo. It consists of 320 photographs "that were copied using a paintbrush; a slow process that, in contrast to the ephemeral nature of photographic images, introduces some themes I'm interested in especially in relation to time and the perception of reality."

The exhibition runs through January 6, 2008. Special funding from the MetLife Foundation enables free admission to the exhibition and its related programs. Please check the website for details about 007: The (S) Files and an extension show opening this fall at Instituto Cervantes.