The Americas

Twelve ink drawings by Hércules Barsotti explore a radical geometry and a systematic mode of working that, already in 1960, point to a new mode of working for the Brazilian artist.

Historian Mary Roldán speaks to 20th century Colombian social and political history and argues against imposing a false historical isolation on Colombia as well as addressing areas of scholarship that need further research.

Throughout 2016, the C-MAP Latin America Group focused on the study and research of Colombian modern and contemporary artistic practices. The group held more than twenty meetings where scholars, artists, and curators were invited to present their work and talk about the historical, political, and social conditions that have shaped modern and contemporary art scene…

Postwar: Art Between the Pacific and the Atlantic, 1945-65, an exhibition on view at Haus der Kunst in Munich from October 2016 – March 2017, presents the period and its art as already global, multi-faceted, and modern.

The very first scene of the video Centro Espacial Satelital de Colombia, by the art collective La Decanatura, depicts a mother cow slowly, even lovingly, stroking with her tongue a newborn calf.

Translated into English for the first time, this text by Latin American theorist Juan Acha was first presented at a conference at the Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellín in 1981 and later published as part of the conference proceedings.

Painting 9 by Hélio Oiticica was made in 1959, at a pivotal moment for a new and quintessentially Brazilian form of modernism.

Sarah Suzuki examines Schendel’s use of Japanese paper in the work at Objeto Gráfico (1967).

Art historian, theorist, critic, and museum activist Gustavo Buntinx, answers C-MAP’s 5 Questions, from a Peruvian and Latin American perspective, and challenges us to prevent the normalization of difference in the visual arts.

Curator Laura Hoptman comments on the importance of Raúl Lozza’s work Invention no. 150, which connects Concretism, Neo-Concretism, and Conceptual art movements.

Physichromie 21 by Venezuelan artist Carlos Cruz-Diez is another highlight of the Cisneros’ gift to the Museum. Anne Umland, traces this work back to the artist’s studio in Paris in the 1960s and explores the ways Cruz-Diez’s Physichromie series is dependent on active viewer participation and contingencies of lighting.

In 1973, critic and theorist Juan Acha published the text Por una nueva problemática artística en Latinoamérica in Artes Visuales. The critical essay is available here in the original Spanish as well as translated into English for the first time.