The Americas

Is Corn Feeding a Lie?

Showing up in food, cosmetics, fuel, and medicine—and, by consequence, in much of the air we breathe—corn is a ubiquitous presence in our lives. Inspired by the first episode of MoMA’s Broken Nature Podcast, this text investigates how one single crop travels through our contemporary food system.

Transversal Orientations

Hinged on the transversal as a means to engage with and envision new networks and ways of thinking about modern and contemporary art, the 2021 C-MAP seminar series offered an exploration and interrogation of the intertwining of multiple coeval life-worlds through concepts of “extending across.” Included here are abstracts and recordings of the four panels held on Zoom on June 2, 3, 9, and 10.

Yente’s Object (1946): Strange Presence

A trailblazing figure in the Southern Cone art scene of the middle decades of the 20th century, Yente (Eugenia Crenovich) has, until recently, received little recognition for her critical contributions to abstraction in Argentina. This essay discusses the context in which the artist realized one of her most unusual pieces, Object (1946), a work of art that defies clear alignment with either painting or sculpture.

Banana Craze: María José Argenzio and Oscar Figueroa Chaves on the Impact of the Banana Market in Ecuador and Costa Rica

Starting with an examination of the impact of the global banana market on Latin America, this text analyzes the work of María José Argenzio and Óscar Figueroa Chaves, two artists who expose how multinational corporations operating in Latin America have benefited from monoculture and extraction practices in the region.