Les Sud‐américains de Paris: Latin American Artists and Cultural Resistance in Robho Magazine

Abstract

Edited in Paris between 1967 and 1971 by the art critic Jean Clay and the visual poet Julien Blaine, Robho magazine introduced an international view of art. The magazine aimed to shed light on institutional critique and cultural resistance to American‐style capitalist expansion. To this end Robho included a significant number of Latin American artists. With graphic design by Carlos Cruz‐Diez, many of the magazine’s central articles were devoted to Madi art, Jesús Rafael Soto, Julio Le Parc, Lygia Clark and the Argentine collective experience Tucumán Arde. If the aforementioned artists were neither political exiles nor guerrilla fighters it may be thought, though, that being Latin American carried particular connotations within the context of the crisis of French modernisation in the 1960s, related to the imaginary of the Third World. This article aims to analyse Robho magazine’s selection and interpretation of the work of Latin American artists during this period dominated by the events of May 1968 and the mistrust towards representativity.