Lima Art Museum (MALI) in the capital Lima holds a night event called “Noche MALI” (“MALI Night”) on the last Friday of the month for visitors to enjoy the museum after dark. Ever since arriving in Peru I have really wanted to go to a Noche MALI and had been looking for an opportunity, but not being in Lima on the night of the last Friday of the month meant I just hadn’t been able to go. But my wish came true, and I finally managed to go on Friday, March 31, so I would like to tell you about it in this article.
First, MALI opened in 1961 and is one of the most important art museums in Peru. Above all, the building of this art museum is superb. You can see artworks in a fabulous neo-renaissance-style building constructed to a design by an Italian architect in 1872. It has a permanent exhibition that lets visitors retrace Peru’s 3,000-year art history across 9 galleries. Isn’t it great to be able to see artworks by Peruvian artists from BCE to the present day in one go. Of course, the exhibition included Paracas cultural artifacts! They also frequently run art programs every day to provide art education for young people.
The MALI Night I attended started at the art museum’s closing time, 18:00, and ended at 22:00. You can participate in every possible program and see the artworks for an entry fee of just 9.9 soles (about 400 yen)! Usually, the entry fee for this art museum is 15 soles (600 yen), or 30 soles (1,200 yen) if you’re not Peruvian, so at any rate, it is cheaper to go to a MALI Night event!! An art museum at night is an extremely exciting prospect, and no matter what, it is an opportunity you can’t let pass. By the way, you can buy tickets in advance online. Tickets sell out several days before the night, so if you know you are going, you should buy tickets early.
Now, what sorts of programs did they offer?
(1) A hand-made accessory stall. They had lots of elaborately made accessories, and I bought one too.
(2) A VR experience called 3D Museum
(3) A workshop where you make a mask of your own ancestor
(4) Salsa and merengue dance contest! The winning prize was free participation in an art program at the museum. It has the appeal of a prize, right!
(5) A live concert! On the night I went, a musician called Plutonio gave a 1-hour mini-concert. Hearing that live voice from up close was wildly exciting. It was the conclusion to the best event.
Having different programs going on at the same time in different parts of the museum made it a pretty unusual sort of event for me and I didn’t get any time to slow down and look at the artworks, so I think I will have to try this event out again sometime.
Well, here’s where I say “Adios!” This has been Shoko Yamamoto from Paracas, Peru.
