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The Art of Solidarity
Visual and Performative Politics in Cold War Latin America
Edited by Jessica Stites Mor and Maria del Carmen Suescun Pozas
University of Texas Press, 2018

The Cold War claimed many lives and inflicted tremendous psychological pain throughout the Americas. The extreme polarization that resulted from pitting capitalism against communism held most of the creative and productive energy of the twentieth century captive. Many artists responded to Cold War struggles by engaging in activist art practice, using creative expression to mobilize social change. The Art of Solidarity examines how these creative practices in the arts and culture contributed to transnational solidarity campaigns that connected people across the Americas from the early twentieth century through the Cold War and its immediate aftermath.

This collection of original essays is divided into four chronological sections: cultural and artistic production in the pre–Cold War era that set the stage for transnational solidarity organizing; early artistic responses to the rise of Cold War polarization and state repression; the centrality of cultural and artistic production in social movements of solidarity; and solidarity activism beyond movements. Essay topics range widely across regions and social groups, from the work of lesbian activists in Mexico City in the late 1970s and 1980s, to the exchanges and transmissions of folk-music practices from Cuba to the United States, to the uses of Chilean arpilleras to oppose and protest the military dictatorship. While previous studies have focused on politically engaged artists or examined how artist communities have created solidarity movements, this book is one of the first to merge both perspectives.

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Baroque New Worlds
Representation, Transculturation, Counterconquest
Lois Parkinson Zamora and Monika Kaup, eds.
Duke University Press, 2010
Baroque New Worlds traces the changing nature of Baroque representation in Europe and the Americas across four centuries, from its seventeenth-century origins as a Catholic and monarchical aesthetic and ideology to its contemporary function as a postcolonial ideology aimed at disrupting entrenched power structures and perceptual categories. Baroque forms are exuberant, ample, dynamic, and porous, and in the regions colonized by Catholic Europe, the Baroque was itself eventually colonized. In the New World, its transplants immediately began to reflect the cultural perspectives and iconographies of the indigenous and African artisans who built and decorated Catholic structures, and Europe’s own cultural products were radically altered in turn. Today, under the rubric of the Neobaroque, this transculturated Baroque continues to impel artistic expression in literature, the visual arts, architecture, and popular entertainment worldwide.

Since Neobaroque reconstitutions necessarily reference the European Baroque, this volume begins with the reevaluation of the Baroque that evolved in Europe during the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth. Foundational essays by Friedrich Nietzsche, Heinrich Wölfflin, Walter Benjamin, Eugenio d’Ors, René Wellek, and Mario Praz recuperate and redefine the historical Baroque. Their essays lay the groundwork for the revisionist Latin American essays, many of which have not been translated into English until now. Authors including Alejo Carpentier, José Lezama Lima, Severo Sarduy, Édouard Glissant, Haroldo de Campos, and Carlos Fuentes understand the New World Baroque and Neobaroque as decolonizing strategies in Latin America and other postcolonial contexts. This collection moves between art history and literary criticism to provide a rich interdisciplinary discussion of the transcultural forms and functions of the Baroque.

Contributors. Dorothy Z. Baker, Walter Benjamin, Christine Buci-Glucksmann, José Pascual Buxó, Leo Cabranes-Grant, Haroldo de Campos, Alejo Carpentier, Irlemar Chiampi, William Childers, Gonzalo Celorio, Eugenio d’Ors, Jorge Ruedas de la Serna, Carlos Fuentes, Édouard Glissant, Roberto González Echevarría, Ángel Guido, Monika Kaup, José Lezama Lima, Friedrich Nietzsche, Mario Praz, Timothy J. Reiss, Alfonso Reyes, Severo Sarduy, Pedro Henríquez Ureña, Maarten van Delden, René Wellek, Christopher Winks, Heinrich Wölfflin, Lois Parkinson Zamora

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Channeling Knowledges
Water and Afro-Diasporic Spirits in Latinx and Caribbean Worlds
Rebeca L. Hey-Colón
University of Texas Press, 2023

How water enables Caribbean and Latinx writers to reconnect to their pasts, presents, and futures.

Water is often tasked with upholding division through the imposition of geopolitical borders. We see this in the construction of the Rio Grande/Río Bravo on the US-Mexico border, as well as in how the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean are used to delineate the limits of US territory. In stark contrast to this divisive view, Afro-diasporic religions conceive of water as a place of connection; it is where spiritual entities and ancestors reside, and where knowledge awaits.

Departing from the premise that water encourages confluence through the sustainment of contradiction, Channeling Knowledges fathoms water’s depth and breadth in the work of Latinx and Caribbean creators such as Mayra Santos-Febres, Rita Indiana, Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa, and the Border of Lights collective. Combining methodologies from literary studies, anthropology, history, and religious studies, Rebeca L. Hey-Colón’s interdisciplinary study traces how Latinx and Caribbean cultural production draws on systems of Afro-diasporic worship—Haitian Vodou, La 21 División (Dominican Vodou), and Santería/Regla de Ocha—to channel the power of water, both salty and sweet, in sustaining connections between past, present, and not-yet-imagined futures.

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Collective Situations
Readings in Contemporary Latin American Art, 1995–2010
Bill Kelley Jr. and Grant H. Kester, editors
Duke University Press, 2017
In Collective Situations scholars, artists, and art collectives present a range of socially engaged art practices that emerged in Latin America during the Pink Tide period, between 1995 and 2010. This volume's essays, interviews, and artist's statements—many of which are appearing in English for the first time—demonstrate the complex relationship between moments of political transformation and artistic production. Whether addressing human rights in Colombia, the politics of urban spaces in Brazil, the violent legacy of military dictatorships in the region, or art’s intersection with public policy, health, and the environment, the contributors outline the region’s long-standing tradition of challenging ideas about art and the social sphere through experimentation. Introducing English-language readers to some of the most dynamic and innovative contemporary art in Latin America, Collective Situations documents new possibilities for artistic practice, collaboration, and creativity in ways that have the capacity to foster vibrant forms of democratic citizenship.

Contributors
Gavin Adams, Mariola V. Alvarez, Gustavo Buntinx, María Fernanda Cartagena, David Gutiérrez Castañeda, Fabian Cereijido, Paloma Checa-Gismero, Kency Cornejo, Raquel de Anda, Bill Kelley Jr., Grant H. Kester, Suzanne Lacy, Ana Longoni, Rodrigo Martí, Elize Mazadiego, Annie Mendoza, Alberto Muenala, Prerana Reddy, Maria Reyes Franco, Pilar Riaño-Alcalá, Juan Carlos Rodríguez
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Crossing Waters
Undocumented Migration in Hispanophone Caribbean and Latinx Literature & Art
Marisel C. Moreno
University of Texas Press, 2022

2023 Honorable Mention, Isis Duarte Book Prize, Haiti/ Dominican Republic section (LASA)
2023 Winner, Gordon K. and Sybil Lewis Book Award, Caribbean Studies Association

An innovative study of the artistic representations of undocumented migration within the Hispanophone Caribbean


Debates over the undocumented migration of Latin Americans invariably focus on the southern US border, but most migrants never cross that arbitrary line. Instead, many travel, via water, among the Caribbean islands. The first study to examine literary and artistic representations of undocumented migration within the Hispanophone Caribbean, Crossing Waters relates a journey that remains silenced and largely unknown.

Analyzing works by novelists, short-story writers, poets, and visual artists replete with references to drowning and echoes of the Middle Passage, Marisel Moreno shines a spotlight on the plight that these migrants face. In some cases, Puerto Rico takes on a new role as a stepping-stone to the continental United States and the society migrants will join there. Meanwhile the land border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, the only terrestrial border in the Hispanophone Caribbean, emerges as a complex space within this cartography of borders. And while the Border Patrol occupies US headlines, the Coast Guard occupies the nightmares of refugees.

An untold story filled with beauty, possibility, and sorrow, Crossing Waters encourages us to rethink the geography and experience of undocumented migration and the role that the Caribbean archipelago plays as a border zone.

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Dimensions of the Americas
Art and Social Change in Latin America and the United States
Shifra M. Goldman
University of Chicago Press, 1994
Acclaimed art historian Shifra Goldman here provides the first overview of the social history of modern and contemporary Latin American and Latino art. Long needed in the field of art history, this collection of thirty-three essays focuses on Latin American artists throughout Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean, and the United States.

Goldman's extensive introduction provides an up-to-date chronology of modern Latin American art; a history of "social art history" in the United States; and synopses of recent theoretical and historical writings by major scholars from Mexico, Cuba, Brazil, Peru, Uruguay, Chile, and the United States. In her essays, Goldman discusses a vast array of topics including: the influence of the Mexican muralists on the American continent; the political and artistic significance of poster art and printmaking in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and among Chicanos; the role of women artists such as Guatemalan painter Isabel Ruiz; and the increasingly important role of politics and multinational businesses in the art world of the 1970s and 1980s. She explores the reception of Latin American and Latino art in the United States, focusing on major historical exhibits as well as on exhibits by artists such as Chilean Alfredo Jaar and Argentinian Leandro Katz. Finally, she examines the significance of nationalist and ethnic themes in Latin American and Latino art.

Written in a straightforward style equally accessible to specialists, students, and general audiences, this book will become essential reading for anyone interested in understanding the importance of Latin American art and the complex dynamic shaping it.
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Encounters in Video Art in Latin America
Elena Shtromberg
J. Paul Getty Trust, The, 2023
With insightful essays and interviews, this volume examines how artists have experimented with the medium of video across different regions of Latin America since the 1960s.
 
The emergence of video art in Latin America is marked by multiple points of development, across more than a dozen artistic centers, over a period of more than twenty-five years. When it was first introduced during the 1960s, video was seen as empowering: the portability of early equipment and the possibility of instant playback allowed artists to challenge and at times subvert the mainstream media. Video art in Latin America was—and still is—closely related to the desire for social change. Themes related to gender, ethnic, and racial identity as well as the consequences of social inequality and ecological disasters have been fundamental to many artists’ practices.
 
This compendium explores the history and current state of artistic experimentation with video throughout Latin America. Departing from the relatively small body of existing scholarship in English, much of which focuses on individual countries, this volume approaches the topic thematically, positioning video artworks from different periods and regions throughout Latin America in dialogue with each other. Organized in four broad sections—Encounters, Networks and Archives, Memory and Crisis, and Indigenous Perspectives—the book’s essays and interviews encourage readers to examine the medium of video across varied chronologies and geographies.
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The Inordinate Eye
New World Baroque and Latin American Fiction
Lois Parkinson Zamora
University of Chicago Press, 2006
The Inordinate Eye traces the relations of Latin American painting, sculpture, architecture, and literature—the stories they tell each other and the ways in which their creators saw the world and their place in it. Moving from pre-Columbian codices and sculpture through New World Baroque art and architecture to Neobaroque theory and contemporary Latin American fiction, Lois Parkinson Zamora argues for an integrated understanding of visual and verbal forms.
 
The New World Baroque combines indigenous, African, and European forms of expression, and, in the early decades of the twentieth century, Latin American writers began to recuperate its visual structures to construct an alternative account of modernity, using its hybrid forms for the purpose of creating a discourse of “counterconquest”—a postcolonial self-definition aimed at disrupting entrenched power structures, perceptual categories, and literary forms.   

Z
amora engages this process, discussing a wide range of visual forms—Baroque façades and altarpieces, portraits of saints and martyrs (including the self-portraits of Frida Kahlo), murals from indigenous artisans to Diego Rivera—to elucidate works of fiction by Borges, Carpentier, Lezama Lima, Sarduy, Garro, García Márquez, and Galeano, and also to establish a critical perspective external to their work. Because visual media are “other” to the verbal economy of modern fiction, they serve these writers (and their readers) as oblique means by which to position their fiction culturally, politically, and aesthetically.
 
The first study of its kind in scope and ambition, The Inordinate Eye departs radically from most studies of literature by demonstrating how transcultural conceptions of the visual image have conditioned present ways of seeing and reading in Latin America.
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Latinx Art
Artists, Markets, and Politics
Arlene Dávila
Duke University Press, 2020
In Latinx Art Arlene Dávila draws on numerous interviews with artists, dealers, and curators to explore the problem of visualizing Latinx art and artists. Providing an inside and critical look of the global contemporary art market, Dávila's book is at once an introduction to contemporary Latinx art and a call to decolonize the art worlds and practices that erase and whitewash Latinx artists. Dávila shows the importance of race, class, and nationalism in shaping contemporary art markets while providing a path for scrutinizing art and culture institutions and for diversifying the art world.
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New World Objects of Knowledge
A Cabinet of Curiosities
Edited by Mark Thurner and Juan Pimentel
University of London Press, 2021
A stunning, richly illustrated hardback cataloging key artifacts from across Latin American art, nature, and history.
 
From the late fifteenth century to the present day, countless explorers, conquerors, and other agents of empire have laid siege to the New World, plundering and pilfering its most precious artifacts and treasures. Today, these natural and cultural products—which are key to conceptualizing a history of Latin America—are scattered in museums around the world.

With contributions from a renowned set of scholars, New World Objects of Knowledge delves into the hidden histories of forty of the New World’s most iconic artifacts, from the Inca mummy to Darwin’s hummingbirds. This volume is richly illustrated with photos and sketches from the archives and museums hosting these objects. Each artifact is accompanied by a comprehensive essay covering its dynamic, often global, history and itinerary. This volume will be an indispensable catalog of New World objects and how they have helped shape our modern world.
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front cover of On Art, Artists, Latin America, and Other Utopias
On Art, Artists, Latin America, and Other Utopias
By Luis Camnitzer
University of Texas Press, 2009

Artist, educator, curator, and critic Luis Camnitzer has been writing about contemporary art ever since he left his native Uruguay in 1964 for a fellowship in New York City. As a transplant from the "periphery" to the "center," Camnitzer has had to confront fundamental questions about making art in the Americas, asking himself and others: What is "Latin American art"? How does it relate (if it does) to art created in the centers of New York and Europe? What is the role of the artist in exile? Writing about issues of such personal, cultural, and indeed political import has long been an integral part of Camnitzer's artistic project, a way of developing an idiosyncratic art history in which to work out his own place in the picture.

This volume gathers Camnitzer's most thought-provoking essays—"texts written to make something happen," in the words of volume editor Rachel Weiss. They elaborate themes that appear persistently throughout Camnitzer's work: art world systems versus an art of commitment; artistic genealogies and how they are consecrated; and, most insistently, the possibilities for artistic agency. The theme of "translation" informs the texts in the first part of the book, with Camnitzer asking such questions as "What is Latin America, and who asks the question? Who is the artist, there and here?" The texts in the second section are more historically than geographically oriented, exploring little-known moments, works, and events that compose the legacy that Camnitzer draws on and offers to his readers.

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Resilient Memories
Amerindian Cognitive Schemas in Latin American Art
Arij Ouweneel
The Ohio State University Press, 2018
Arij Ouweneel’s Resilient Memories: Amerindian Cognitive Schemas in Latin American Art takes a cognitive approach to the mediation of collective memory by works of art. In looking at cultural production of Amerindians—the transnational mnemonic community comprised of indígenasoriginariosmestizos, and cholos—Ouweneel argues that cultural memories and identity are not simply the sum total of individuals’ expressions of self, but that some cultural artifacts become privileged to inform the heart of the mnemonic community. Ouweneel seeks to identify a series of cognitive schemas as the foundation of an Amerindian Cognitive Unconsciousness as a viable alternative to the Freudian Dynamic Unconscious. Art, then, serves to trigger the cognitive schemas embedded within the Amerindian community and act as the mediator of collective memory. 
 
Exploring works ranging in popularity, from Alfonso Cuarón’s Y Tu Mamá También to the paintings of Peruvian artists Claudia Coca and Jorge Miyagui, and from Mexican Zapatistas to hip-hop, Ouweneel details the ways in which artists interact with the embodied memory of the community but also assert their own place within it as crucial, furthering their audiences’ understanding of and interaction with existing cultural schemas. In this way, Ouweneel shows that memories must serve the present or they will be forgotten.
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Rubens in Repeat
The Logic of the Copy in Colonial Latin America
Aaron M. Hyman
J. Paul Getty Trust, The, 2021
Winner of the Latin American Studies Association's 2022 Best Book in Colonial Latin American Studies.

This book examines the reception in Latin America of prints designed by the Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, showing how colonial artists used such designs to create all manner of artworks and, in the process, forged new frameworks for artistic creativity.

Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) never crossed the Atlantic himself, but his impact in colonial Latin America was profound. Prints made after the Flemish artist’s designs were routinely sent from Europe to the Spanish Americas, where artists used them to make all manner of objects.

Rubens in Repeat is the first comprehensive study of this transatlantic phenomenon, despite broad recognition that it was one of the most important forces to shape the artistic landscapes of the region. Copying, particularly in colonial contexts, has traditionally held negative implications that have discouraged its serious exploration. Yet analyzing the interpretation of printed sources and recontextualizing the resulting works within period discourse and their original spaces of display allow a new critical reassessment of this broad category of art produced in colonial Latin America—art that has all too easily been dismissed as derivative and thus unworthy of sustained interest and investigation. This book takes a new approach to the paradigms of artistic authorship that emerged alongside these complex creative responses, focusing on the viceroyalties of New Spain and Peru in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It argues that the use of European prints was an essential component of the very framework in which colonial artists forged ideas about what it meant to be a creator.
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Thirteen Ways of Looking at Latino Art
Ilan Stavans, Jorge J. E. Gracia
Duke University Press, 2014
The essayist and cultural commentator Ilan Stavans and the analytic philosopher Jorge J. E. Gracia share long-standing interests in the intersection of art and ideas. Here they take thirteen pieces of Latino art, each reproduced in color, as occasions for thematic discussions. Whether the work at the center of a particular conversation is a triptych created by the brothers Einar and Jamex de la Torre, Andres Serrano's controversial Piss Christ, a mural by the graffiti artist BEAR_TCK, or Above All Things, a photograph by María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Stavans and Gracia's exchanges inevitably open out to literature, history, ethics, politics, religion, and visual culture more broadly. Autobiographical details pepper Stavans and Gracia's conversations, as one or the other tells what he finds meaningful in a given work. Sparkling with insight, their exchanges allow the reader to eavesdrop on two celebrated intellectuals—worldly, erudite, and unafraid to disagree—as they reflect on the pleasures of seeing.
 
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