Latin American Art Research Articles

Transpacific Exoticisms: Performing Asia Across the U.S. Southern Border

Transpacific Exoticisms:Performing Asia Across the U.S. Southern Border Rosanne A. Sia (bio) In 1951, Korean American soprano Florence Ahn stood center stage in an elegant gown at the Trocadero nightclub in Havana, Cuba (Figure 1). She gestured graciously toward the audience, soaking up their applause as she prepared to take her bow. Florence took her place among a group of Cuban rumba dancers costumed in polka-dot sleeves and long shiny dresses. An appreciative audience clad in firs and suits clapped from their seats at tables strewn with the remnants of drinks. The Cuban entertainment magazine Carteles wrote that Florence Ahn's arrival in Havana had been a triumph: "This Chinese girl came, saw, and conquered. She came to Cuba like a shining star."1 In the postwar period, Asian Americans traveled on nightclub circuits that took them across the southern border to perform amid the glitz and glamour of Cuban and Mexican cabaret culture. Many of them had first showcased their artistic talents and "oriental" beauty at famed Asian-themed nightclubs, such as the Forbidden City in San Francisco or the China Doll in New York City.2 They gained visibility during the early Cold War period when American policymakers, journalists, and cultural producers sought to demonstrate the promises of American racial democracy to audiences at home and abroad by promoting "desirable" images of race.3 This led to what Christina Klein has termed "Cold War Orientalism," a blossoming of American middlebrow entertainment about Asia, such as the musicals and films Flower Drum Song, South Pacific, and A Many Splendored Thing.4 As Klein has argued, this middlebrow [End Page 151] culture served the pedagogical function of teaching white Americans "correct" feelings of sympathy toward Asians and Asian Americans, but it also served to conceal war and violence across the Pacific. Along with films and musicals, American GIs brought home a taste for live Asian-themed nightclub shows. This led to the growth of lively audiences in the U.S. South at a time when the region was expanding with the postwar growth of the American military, industry, and tourism. Asian Americans took their shows on the road to entertainment hubs down south. Their travels show how the U.S. South served as what Tara McPherson has called a "hinge point between the Americas."5 Asian American entertainers boarded ferries and planes between Miami, Florida, and Havana, Cuba, or took the bus between the small border towns of McAllen, Texas, and Reynosa, Tamaulipas, before heading to Monterrey and Mexico City. In turn, they criss-crossed entertainers of Asian descent traveling in the opposite direction. Asian Cuban and Asian Mexican entertainers formed part of the stream of Caribbean and Latin American artists moving across the border to cater to the American craze for tropical rumba and dancing Mexican señoritas. They brought with them Cuban fantasies of the national symbol of the mulata, a figure that officially incorporated Blackness and whiteness, but also carried erased histories of racial mixing with the Chinese in Cuba.6 Others brought with them Mexican fantasies of Asia that had origins in the sixteenth century Manila galleon trade, intimate transpacific ties subsequently denied because of Mexico's orientation toward the transatlantic.7 This article draws on archival and oral history research to explore how four entertainers of Asian and mixed-Asian descent, Florence Ahn, Estela, Jadin Wong, and Su Muy Key, navigated the multiple racial and gendered imaginaries of the transpacific that circulated throughout the U.S. South, Mexico, and Cuba in the postwar era. They formed part of a much larger circulation of performers of Asian descent in this interconnected region. I argue that performers of Asian descent occupied culturally and racially ambiguous positions that allowed them to embody multiple transpacific fantasies in nightclub performances that experimented with cultural mixing. This included incorporating new genres global in scope, such as zarzuela, rumba, modern dance, and Mexican revista, developed through cross-cultural encounters during the entertainers' travels. In doing so, they disturbed the Black and white binary in the U.S. South as well as the erasure of the long-standing Asian presence within Latin America and the Caribbean; in some cases, they...

Muralist Art as an Exotic Source of Inspiration for Soviet-era Art and for Intelligence Officers: The Artists and the Explorers of Their Work

The article discusses some exotic sources of artistic inspiration in the Soviet Union, Soviet-era Lithuanian art, and the works inspired by them. It focuses on a non-European source of art – the work of Mexican muralist artists – three greats, los tres grandes, members of the “progressive”, Communist Party José Clemente Orozco (1883–1949), Diego Rivera (1886–1957), and David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896–1974). Even if only partially, taking advantage of the creative achievements of Mexican artists was one of the opportunities to realise some of the aspirations of modernisation during the Soviet era in the form of art, either through sincere admiration or under the guise of socially-engaged interest. The focus is on the mutual Latin-American- Soviet ideological, political, and cultural contexts at the time and the pre-Columbian art that inspired Mexican muralists. It touches on Cuba’s unique role in the socialistcamp as an important mediator between the USA, Western Europe, and the Soviet Union and on the enigmatic figure of Roger Garaudy, the French prophet of modernisation. It presents knowledge that has not come to the attention of scholars, which emerged after glasnost and perestroika or relatively recently, especially through the publication of memoirs of some declassified Soviet intelligence missions, residents, and stories related to these Latin American artists, especially to D. A. Siqueiros and to the researcher of his work, Iosif Grigulevich, an NKVD killer with origins in Lithuania. He had an incredible career as an intelligence officer: after World War II, he led the NKVD residencies in Latin America and did serious diplomatic work representing a foreign country, Costa Rica. His Karaite appearance and the legend he had created made him a Costa Rican citizen, the son of a millionaire, and led him to an incredible career in Costa Rican diplomatic service by becoming an envoy to three countries, Italy, the Vatican, and Yugoslavia. In 1952, Pope Pius XII awarded him with the Order of Malta, and the President of Venezuela with the Order of Francisco de Miranda; he received the highest state awards of Chile, Bolivia, and Uruguay. In 1953, Beria recalled him from Latin America in order to methodically “handle” the experienced Soviet intelligence officers. In the Soviet Union, Grigulevich was left without even a minimum pension, but he did not give up and started writing books, publishing some 20 biographical books about famous people in Latin America (Simon Bolivar, Salvador Allende, and others). In 1965, he defended his dissertation for the degree of candidate of sciences (the equivalent of the doctorate). Before the KGB declassified the information, he was only a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union (1979), a writer, a noted atheist and an art critic who published a book on Siqueiros. The intelligence officer was lucky: he died in his homeland, in bed at his home.

The Fame and Fortune of Gregorio Vásquez de Arce y Ceballos, Painter of Santafé, New Granada

The article addresses related issues surrounding the artistic biography and production of Gregorio Vásquez, the most important painter of colonial Colombia, active in the latter part of the seventeenth and the first decade of the eighteenth century. Vásquez is a unique figure in Latin American art historiography because local historians researched and wrote about his life and works since at least the nineteenth century. His vast catalogue consists of almost five hundred paintings and includes a unique corpus of over a hundred drawings. Based on published and unpublished primary sources and chronicles, and the analysis of his painterly style and drawing techniques, it is argued that the painter’s abundant production and fame were both the means and result of artistic strategies devised by Vásquez and his followers throughout the eighteenth century in order to capitalize on the painter’s regional success.

Review: Immanent Vitalities: Meaning and Materiality in Modern and Contemporary Art, by Kaira Marie Cabañas

Review: <i>Immanent Vitalities: Meaning and Materiality in Modern and Contemporary Art</i>, by Kaira Marie Cabañas

Computer Artist Manuel Felguerez: A Brief Interview on the Pioneering Origins of Geometry Painting

This interview cum memoir of Manuel Felguerez, by the author, describes the development of two projects in the words of the Mexican artist Manuel Felguerez himself. Felguerez speaks of his experience as a Latin American artist, his encounter with digital technology in the united states and the trajectory of art that his work takes during an intense and experimental period of creativity in the seventies. Felguerez’s explorations were embodied in two books, El espacio multiple (Paz 1988) and “The Aesthetic Machine” La máquina estética (Felguerez y Sasson 1983). The project involved the use of computers for the composition of incipient new media paintings, sculptures and engravings. After the project was concluded, the author avoided the use of computers again, and for different reasons. The value of this interview of a pioneering artist in contemporary America lies in the insider’s view of the situation in the art world, the artist’s first-person revealings and confessions and the deep personal life of the artist as an individual.

Inventing Latin America Under the Good Neighborhood Policy: The Case of the MoMA Collection, 1943

This article describes the strategies of the North American government to help establish a Latin American Collection in the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the role that Lincoln Kirstein had as a collector of the works that made up the collection. The dialogue that Kirstein had with various personalities of the culture in the tasks of exhibition and collection is analyzed. We emphasize how the fine arts were spaces of political weighting, and areas usable by Good Neighbor politics. Finally, it is explained what kind of Latin American art was collected to make up the collection in 1943, and what idea of Latin America was represented through that selection. The research uses primary sources collected from MoMA Archives, Rockefeller Personal Archives, New York Public Library and Lincoln Kirstein Archives. The comparative method in history was used to review the different cases analyzed.

Color intensity variations and art prices: An examination of Latin American art

Most existing literature has ignored the potential effects that color intensity may have on art prices (bearing a few recent exceptions). We examine 1627 paintings executed by the “Big five” Latin American artists (Rivera, Tamayo, Lam, Matta, and Botero), and sold at Sotheby’s and Christie’s between 2003 and 2017, to analyze this impact. We find strong evidence indicating that paintings that are more intense in color fetch higher prices, but only up to a certain degree (paintings whose color is “too intense”, “too vivid” or “too dark” actually fetch lower prices). To the best of our knowledge, these results are the first to confirm, for the case of the art market, early experimental evidence in the psychology literature pointing to the existence of an inverse “u” pattern on the preferences for color intensity. Our findings have implications for other areas such as psychology and consumer behavior.

Introduction to the Dialogues on Afterlives and Different Futures for Latin American Art

What theoretical and political exigencies framed the discussions of Latin American art in the 1970s, and what are the afterlives of those formations today? This Dialogues traces a constellation of curators and scholars that participated in the articulation of the field of modern and contemporary Latin American art, paying attention to experimentation and the ways coloniality haunt its development. Authors analyze episodes in the formation of the field, including a prominent international symposium, an audiovisual display as curatorial intervention, and the redefinition of popular art, as well as troubling the subordination of Black art. George Flaherty and Adele Nelson discuss the intensive questioning that constituted the Austin Symposium in 1975, drawing on the previously understudied audio recordings of the conference. Camila Maroja reconsiders the controversial audiovisual presentation by Ángel Kalenberg at the Tenth Paris Biennial (1977) with a view to the transnational cultural politics of the period. Karen Benezra offers that Ticio Escobar’s multidecade reconception of popular art grants space for art by communities historically excluded from both art and the mestizo nation, notably the Ishir Indigenous people of Paraguay. Eddie Chambers issues a challenge and reflects on the limited degree to which the contributions of African-descended artists have been recognized by historians of Latin American art, focusing on Brazil and Cuba. Together these texts propose that questioning and unresolvability can serve as both tools and reminders of the size and significance of the continued work required of the field of modern and contemporary Latin American art.

Accentuating Latin American Art’s African Dimensions

What theoretical and political exigencies framed the discussions of Latin American art in the 1970s, and what are the afterlives of those formations today? This Dialogues traces a constellation of curators and scholars that participated in the articulation of the field of modern and contemporary Latin American art, paying attention to experimentation and the ways coloniality haunt its development. Authors analyze episodes in the formation of the field, including a prominent international symposium, an audiovisual display as curatorial intervention, and the redefinition of popular art, as well as troubling the subordination of Black art. George Flaherty and Adele Nelson discuss the intensive questioning that constituted the Austin Symposium in 1975, drawing on the previously understudied audio recordings of the conference. Camila Maroja reconsiders the controversial audiovisual presentation by Ángel Kalenberg at the Tenth Paris Biennial (1977) with a view to the transnational cultural politics of the period. Karen Benezra offers that Ticio Escobar’s multidecade reconception of popular art grants space for art by communities historically excluded from both art and the mestizo nation, notably the Ishir Indigenous people of Paraguay. Eddie Chambers issues a challenge and reflects on the limited degree to which the contributions of African-descended artists have been recognized by historians of Latin American art, focusing on Brazil and Cuba. Together these texts propose that questioning and unresolvability can serve as both tools and reminders of the size and significance of the continued work required of the field of modern and contemporary Latin American art.

Latin American Art by and for Whom?

What theoretical and political exigencies framed the discussions of Latin American art in the 1970s, and what are the afterlives of those formations today? This Dialogues traces a constellation of curators and scholars that participated in the articulation of the field of modern and contemporary Latin American art, paying attention to experimentation and the ways coloniality haunt its development. Authors analyze episodes in the formation of the field, including a prominent international symposium, an audiovisual display as curatorial intervention, and the redefinition of popular art, as well as troubling the subordination of Black art. George Flaherty and Adele Nelson discuss the intensive questioning that constituted the Austin Symposium in 1975, drawing on the previously understudied audio recordings of the conference. Camila Maroja reconsiders the controversial audiovisual presentation by Ángel Kalenberg at the Tenth Paris Biennial (1977) with a view to the transnational cultural politics of the period. Karen Benezra offers that Ticio Escobar’s multidecade reconception of popular art grants space for art by communities historically excluded from both art and the mestizo nation, notably the Ishir Indigenous people of Paraguay. Eddie Chambers issues a challenge and reflects on the limited degree to which the contributions of African-descended artists have been recognized by historians of Latin American art, focusing on Brazil and Cuba. Together these texts propose that questioning and unresolvability can serve as both tools and reminders of the size and significance of the continued work required of the field of modern and contemporary Latin American art.

Projecting Latin America

What theoretical and political exigencies framed the discussions of Latin American art in the 1970s, and what are the afterlives of those formations today? This Dialogues traces a constellation of curators and scholars that participated in the articulation of the field of modern and contemporary Latin American art, paying attention to experimentation and the ways coloniality haunt its development. Authors analyze episodes in the formation of the field, including a prominent international symposium, an audiovisual display as curatorial intervention, and the redefinition of popular art, as well as troubling the subordination of Black art. George Flaherty and Adele Nelson discuss the intensive questioning that constituted the Austin Symposium in 1975, drawing on the previously understudied audio recordings of the conference. Camila Maroja reconsiders the controversial audiovisual presentation by Ángel Kalenberg at the Tenth Paris Biennial (1977) with a view to the transnational cultural politics of the period. Karen Benezra offers that Ticio Escobar’s multidecade reconception of popular art grants space for art by communities historically excluded from both art and the mestizo nation, notably the Ishir Indigenous people of Paraguay. Eddie Chambers issues a challenge and reflects on the limited degree to which the contributions of African-descended artists have been recognized by historians of Latin American art, focusing on Brazil and Cuba. Together these texts propose that questioning and unresolvability can serve as both tools and reminders of the size and significance of the continued work required of the field of modern and contemporary Latin American art.

Ticio Escobar

What theoretical and political exigencies framed the discussions of Latin American art in the 1970s, and what are the afterlives of those formations today? This Dialogues traces a constellation of curators and scholars that participated in the articulation of the field of modern and contemporary Latin American art, paying attention to experimentation and the ways coloniality haunt its development. Authors analyze episodes in the formation of the field, including a prominent international symposium, an audiovisual display as curatorial intervention, and the redefinition of popular art, as well as troubling the subordination of Black art. George Flaherty and Adele Nelson discuss the intensive questioning that constituted the Austin Symposium in 1975, drawing on the previously understudied audio recordings of the conference. Camila Maroja reconsiders the controversial audiovisual presentation by Ángel Kalenberg at the Tenth Paris Biennial (1977) with a view to the transnational cultural politics of the period. Karen Benezra offers that Ticio Escobar’s multidecade reconception of popular art grants space for art by communities historically excluded from both art and the mestizo nation, notably the Ishir Indigenous people of Paraguay. Eddie Chambers issues a challenge and reflects on the limited degree to which the contributions of African-descended artists have been recognized by historians of Latin American art, focusing on Brazil and Cuba. Together these texts propose that questioning and unresolvability can serve as both tools and reminders of the size and significance of the continued work required of the field of modern and contemporary Latin American art.

Review: Modernity for the Masses: Antonio Bonet’s Dreams for Buenos Aires, by Ana María León

Review: <i>Modernity for the Masses: Antonio Bonet’s Dreams for Buenos Aires</i>, by Ana María León

Editorial Introduction

Editorial Introduction

Review: Contesting Modernity: Informalism in Venezuela, 1955–1975, edited by Mari Carmen Ramírez and Tahía Rivero, and El Techo de la Ballena: Retro-Modernity in Venezuela, by María C. Gaztambide

Review: <i>Contesting Modernity: Informalism in Venezuela, 1955–1975</i>, edited by Mari Carmen Ramírez and Tahía Rivero, and <i>El Techo de la Ballena: Retro-Modernity in Venezuela</i>, by María C. Gaztambide

A tormented path; Latin American art in Italy, between "fortune" and clamorous silences

From a disciplinary point of view, the study of Latin American art in Italy is a recent event linked to a single university chair. From the point of view of critical interest, it has instead had a bumpy and discontinuous path, certainly due to the lack of institutional interest and to the Eurocentric -or at most Western- perspective of the system of the arts and the critics in Italy. The essay describes the historical-critical fortune/misfortune of a part of contemporary Latin American art -that which is undoubtedly more related to Western international art- in the almost total ignorance of other Latin American artistic phenomena. Following the exhibitions over the years, attention will be paid to the art of the Central and South American Continent, more functional to the sensibilices of the art market or ideological paths than to the development of culturally complex regions with a deep and wide historical setting.

Roma 1980: barroco local en contexto global

The Simposio Internazionale Sul Barroco Latinoamericano organized in Rome by the Italo-Latin American Institute in 1980 allows to confront the art and architecture specialists of Latin America and Europe who had built a debate that exceeded the taxonomies of the artistic styles, to install the discussion about Latin American cultural identity through its artistic expressions. Where the mestizo condition will be an autonomous expression of local cultural production in the context of the first formal global discourse in the history of Western art as was the Baroque. The participation of authors from all over America and Europe in an unprecedented dialogue of great diversity, turned this event into an inflection for the knowledge of the historiography of Latin American art in Italy, promoting its discussion and dissemination with an impact that was projected to the present.

Il Padiglione dell’Istituto Italo-Latino Americano alla Biennale di Venezia. Storia di un progetto d’identità culturale

In the area of interest about the perception of Latin American art in Italy, the article focuses on the role played by the Italo-Latin American Institute (IILA) for the promotion of Latin American art in Italy, in particular through its repeated participation in the Venice Biennale International Exhibition with its own pavilion.

Editorial Introduction

Editorial Introduction

Introduction to the Dialogues on Latin American Art(ists) from/in Canada

This Dialogues section seeks to contribute to the scholarship on Latin American art in Canada and “Latinx Canadian art.” We aim to broaden the historical and current narratives of art and artists from Latin America north of the United States, taking into account Canada’s history of migration and its official bilingual status (French-English), multilingual and multicultural reality, and relationship with Indigenous peoples. Adding to the urgency of studying the presence of Latin American art in Canada, there is also a need to focus on the work of artists and curators with a Latin American background. They are developing languages of expression, practices, and aesthetics that no longer conform to the “Latin American art” category. It is thus essential to highlight the multiple artistic initiatives that are allowing them to gain visibility and recognition within both the local and global artistic milieus. We posit that today it is almost impossible to overlook both the historical and the ongoing presence of Latin American art and artists in Canada and the recent emergence of a vibrant, ever-expanding contemporary Latinx Canadian art scene. This section proposes six groundbreaking contributions that, from coast to coast, offer further data and analysis, case studies, and investigations into museum archives: from Vancouver to Montréal, from pre-Columbian art and material culture to contemporary art, from the Chilean diaspora of the 1970s to more recent migration waves, from curatorial strategies to the classroom.