Founded in 1998, Galeria Namu had become a must-visit attraction for tourists visiting San Jose, as well as for many nationals, interested in seeing the gallery’s curated collection of authentic ethnographic and cultural arts of Costa Rica and then, on the 30th of December, 2024, Namu was suddenly forced to shutter the gallery indefinitely.
This article is for folks who, since December 2024 – right at the beginning of Costa Rica’s annual high tourist season – would have walked up, expectingly, to Galeria Namu’s entrance on the edge of Barrio Amon, right across from the Alianza Francesa (the French Alliance) on Avenida 7, just to be met with the sad sight of the permanently shuttered locale. The large billboard still up on the wall, with its distinctive Pre-Columbian-inspired logo, would have given pedestrians the sense that the gallery was still open for business.
With the change of the building’s ownership in 2024, the gallery, that September of the same year, was given notice that the new owners were not going to renew the lease in the new year as they had “other ideas” for the space (read: we want to increase rent for another business!).
With this unexpected closure of the gallery, so ended nearly three decades of a cultural “institution” that strove, under a fair-trade business practice, to offer to a discerning public, a marvelous catalogue of Costa Rica’s national cultural arts and authentic ethnographic material culture (a subject matter, that frankly, for a highly visited Central American nation, is somewhat undocumented even today).
The good news is that Galeria Namu still exists, albeit, for now, in a digital format, with the official website having been launched in March of this present year. Namu is still receiving new pieces all the time in the three arts categories that the gallery collection has always showcased:
1. Ethnographic material culture and artistic expression created by artisans from among the 8 indigenous groups of Costa Rica
2. Faithfully rendered, museum-quality reproductions of Pre-Columbian era objects, such as those seen in the exhibition halls of the national museums, featuring goldwork, authentic jade pieces, pottery and carved stone sculpture
3. Selected Costa Rican folk arts and artes populares created by artists from different milieu, such as Afro-Caribbean traditions, artisans from campesina communties, women’s art collectives, Criollo traditions, etc. – plus other individual folk artists that “fit the bill” who wonderfully depict, through their compositions, la tiquicia and the peculiarities of Costa Rican lifeways and ambience.
Aside from the primary focus on the cultures and lifeways of Costa Rica, Galeria Namu has always given a space for some examples of indigenous cultural expression from our neighbouring naciones hermanas of Panama (ie. the Wounaan tribe), Nicaragua (ie. the Miskitu people) and Honduras (ie. the indigenous Lenca).
Just as Galeria Namu has always done over the last three decades, purchased artwork can be securely packaged for international shipping and for clients who either reside in Costa Rica, or for visitors at their accommodations, the gallery is happy to get one’s purchases to one’s residence, or hotel, free of charge – or even rendez-vous in person to hand deliver purchased artwork to clients within the GAM.
