Argentina's muse(um). (Trade Talk).

There was the musical, then the movie. Now Eva Peron, Argentina's former first lady, has a museum. On the 50th anniversary of her death Museo Evita threw open its wrought-iron gates to visitors.

The most salient feature of the Museo Evita isn't its contents but, rather, that it opened at all. Other cultural projects have been paralyzed by Argentina's economic woes and security concerns. Earlier this year, for example, a much-touted exhibit of sculpture and paintings by pop artist Roy Lichtenstein was canceled at Malba, the Museum of Latin American Art in Buenos Aires. But Museo Evita, a five-year effort that saw half its funding evaporate in the recent banking freeze and devaluation, thinks it has a no-fail strategy: targeting affluent tourists.

Purists see kitsch when they view displays of Evita's Dior-designed dresses, but tourists love them. Surveys in Europe, the United States and Brazil found that 85% of prospective visitors to Buenos Aires--last year there were 3 million of them--would visit a museum dedicated to Evita. The museum's promoters say 93% of the survey takers recognized Eva's name, although most confessed to knowing her life story through the Andrew Lloyd Webber's Broadway musical or the Hollywood movie starring U.S. pop singer Madonna.

If Museo Evita succeeds, copycats may follow. "For a long time, Argentina hasn't been conscious of the gold mine it's sitting on," says Marcos Aguinis, a former culture minister and author of the recent bestseller The Atrocious Charm of Being Argentine.

Other famous Argentines, including soccer star Diego Maradona, revolutionary Che Guevara and writer Jorge Luis Borges, are reportedly being considered for eponymous museums.

Cristina Alvarez Rodriguez, director of the government-backed Eva Peron National Historical Research Institute and Evita's great niece, adds: "Everyone said we were crazy but, luckily, we had someone even crazier as our role model."