Chile: art museum opens at Pinochet’s former torture site

This video from Chile is called Virtual Walk of The Salvador Allende Solidarity Museum.

From CBC in Canada:

Chilean modern art museum opens at former torture site

Thu, 20 Jul 2006

Chile has transformed a former secret police station, where dissidents were tortured under the Pinochet regime, into a vibrant modern art museum.

The Salvador Allende Solidarity Museum was inaugurated Tuesday evening, with local artist and politicians — including Chilean President Michelle Bachelet and Spanish Ambassador Jose Antonio Martinez — in attendance.

“One of my father’s dreams was that all people could have access to art,” said Isabel Allende, daughter of the late president, member of Chile’s Chamber of Deputies and cousin of the famed author by the same name [see also here and here].

The museum is housed in a two-storey, white house located in the downtown of the Chilean capital city, Santiago.

With a collection of about 2,800 pieces, the galleries are filled with works donated over the years by artists such as Pablo Picasso, Joan Miro, Frank Stella, Alexander Calder and Roberto Matta, said museum director and painter Jose Balmes.

According to Balmes, artists began donating their paintings, sculptures, engravings and other artworks to a collection Salvador Allende began during his brief reign in the early 1970s.