1960s

The following essay by art historian Talita Trizoli reveals the influence of a Catholic and spiritual pathos in the work of influential though relatively unknown Brazilian critic Maria Eugênia Franco. Taking as case studies Franco’s writings on artists such as Samson Flexor, Henri Michaux, and Mestre Nosa and artworks attributed to unrecognized Baroque artisans, Trizoli…

Jean-Michel Atlan (1913–1960)—who signed simply as Atlan in his works—is most often considered a representative of lyrical abstraction, an art movement that took root in Paris after World War II. Born in the Casbah of Constantine to a Jewish Berber family…

Jean-Michel Atlan (1913-1960) – qui signait simplement Atlan – est le plus souvent considéré comme l’un des représentants de l’abstraction lyrique, mouvement qui marqua la scène parisienne dans l’après-guerre. Né dans la casbah de Constantine, au sein d’une famille juive berbère, comme…

“In cosmic beauty, there is no place for degrees or locations in time and space: Cosmic beauty is infinite. Words like pretty, ugly, tragic, funny, and useful—the abiding limits in the brief race toward death—on the other hand, are part and parcel of sensual reactions.”1Manuel de la Cruz González, “El arte como integración cósmica” [1957],…

This essay examines the practice of architecture and the roles assigned to female architects in Latvia in the 1950s to the early 1990s through the life and work of Latvian architect Marta Staņa. My initial encounter with Marta Staņa (1913–1972) and her work in architecture occurred in 2002 when, as a young architecture journalist, I…

These presentations and panel discussion at MoMA brought together four filmmakers and artists who work in expanded documentary modes, using existing footage, archival research, interviews, and scripted narratives to produce imaginative accounts of transnational struggles, solidarities, and interventions. Using moving images, some of these practitioners interrogate the anti-colonial and anti-imperialist movements of the mid-late 20th…

This essay by feminist scholar and art curator Jana Kukaine explores the work of Latvian artist Daina Dagnija, who lived in exile in the United States after fleeing the Soviet occupation in 1944. While threading questions of migration and exile; memory, loss and belonging; and womanhood and mothering, Dagnija’s practice remains grounded in Baltic history,…

In this essay, Guillermo S. Arsuaga presents a critical examination of architectural modernism through the lens of one of the most renowned examples of modern architecture in Africa: La Pyramide designed by Italian architect Rinaldo Olivieri in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast). His meticulous study of Olivieri’s unique photographic record of the project, the focus…

In the etching Youth (1965; fig. 1), a contemplative figure sits atop a globe, head resting on a knee, legs twisted together, arms tucked protectively into the body. The figure’s head, which is turned inward, counterposes the frontal, downcast face in the lower left foreground. It is this face that the etching’s maker, Ugandan artist…

In the middle of debris and ruin, the Seville Oranges (naranj) were shining from behind dusty leaves. And again it was pickaxes that would come down on the rooftops, and the mud brick and dirt that would fall. —Ebrahim Golestan, From the Days Gone Narrate The wind is blowing through the street, the beginning of…

Curator Xenia Benivolski looks at the work of Zanis Waldheims (1909–1993), a self-taught Latvian artist who lived in exile in Canada and spent most of his life on a series of about six hundred geometrically abstract drawings. Benivolski considers the thinking behind Waldheims’s work and its meaning in terms of exile, diaspora, and art historical…

The work of Nigerian woman artist Clara Etso Ugbodaga-Ngu (1928–2003) offers a window into cultural representations of African men and women in postcolonial Nigeria. In what was a male-dominated art scene in the 1960s, Ugbodaga-Ngu stood out not only because of her visual production, but also because of her intellectual involvement as a faculty member…