Readings in Latin American Modern Art

284 Pages·2005·1.25 MB·English

by  Patrick Frank

Readings in
Latin American
Modern Art

Readings in
Latin American
Modern Art
Edited by Patrick Frank
Yale University Press
New Haven and London
Copyright © 2004 by Yale University. Library of Congress
All rights reserved. Cataloging-in-Publication Data
This book may not be reproduced, in Readings in Latin American modern art /
whole or in part, including illustrations, edited by Patrick Frank.
in any form (beyond that copying permit- p. cm.
ted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Includes bibliographical references and
Copyright Law and except by reviewers index.
for the public press), without written per- isbn0-300-10255-0 (paperbound :
mission from the publishers. alk. paper)
1. Art, Latin American—20th century.
Designed &set in Galliard and Matrix i. Frank, Patrick, 1953– .
types by Chris Crochetière, BW&A n6502.5 .r43 2004
Books, Inc., Durham, NC 709'.8'0904—dc22
2003023857
Printed in the United States of America
by Vail Ballou Press, Binghamton, NY Acatalogue record for this book is avail-
able from the British Library.
The paper in this book meets the guide-
lines for permanence and durability of the
Committee on Production Guidelines for
Book Longevity of the Council on Library
Resources.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
The Cuban-Chinese Cook
Patrick Frank ix
1. Early Modern Currents
Saturnino Herrán: Regional Autonomy
“Our Gods”Mural Project Pedro Figari 17
Jacinto Quirarte 3
Emilio Pettoruti
Dr. Atl Xul Solar 19
MacKinley Helm 5
The Situation of the Modern Artist
Untitled Statements Emilio Pettoruti 22
Armando Reverón 10
Anthropophagite Manifesto
Manifesto of Martín Fierro 12 Oswald de Andrade 24
Don Pedro Figari Manifesto of the Grupo Minorista:
Ricardo Güiraldes 14 Havana, 7 May 1927 28
2. Figural Realist Styles
Manifesto of the Union of Mexican Francisco Goitia: Tata Jesucristo
Workers, Technicians, Painters, Hayden Herrera 51
and Sculptors 33
Los Tres Jircas (The Three Peaks)
Rockefellers Ban Lenin in RCA Enrique López Albújar 54
Mural and Dismiss Rivera 36
Latin America Faces the
Diego Rivera’s Mural Quincentenary: An Interview
in the Palace of Fine Arts with Oswaldo Guayasamín
Rafael Ángel Herrerías 43 Fred Murphy 61
Orozco “Explains”
José Clemente Orozco 48
3. Fantasy and Surrealism in the Mid-Twentieth Century
Haitian Art . . . How It Started Leonora Carrington
DeWitt Peters 67 Marie-Pierre Colle 81
AVisit with Hector Hyppolite Two Theories of Contemporary
Selden Rodman 73 Mexican Painting
Marta Traba 86
AWorld Created by Magic:
Excerpts from a Conversation Syncretism and Syntax
with André Pierre in the Art of Wifredo Lam
Edited by Donald Cosentino 76 Lowery S. Sims 91
Frida Kahlo’s Bus Accident
Martha Zamora 79
4. Major Architectural Projects
Aula Magna Hall Modernity in Mexico:
Paulina Villanueva 103 The Case of the Ciudad Universitaria
Celia Ester Arredando Zambrano 107
Olympic Stadium
Paulina Villanueva 105 Brasília Valerie Fraser 117
5. Non-Objective and Informalist Modes of Abstraction
The New Art of America An Interview with
Joaquín Torres-García 135 Fernando de Szyszlo
Álvaro Medina 148
Inventionist Manifesto 142
Alejandro Obregón
The Founding of Madí
Marta Traba 154
Gyula Kosice 144
Madí Manifesto
Gyula Kosice 146
6. Constructivist and Neo-Concrete Art
GRAVManifesto: Transforming the Neo-Concrete Manifesto
Current Situation in Plastic Art 161 Ferreira Gullar 172
Color and the History of Painting Beasts [Bichos] 1960
Carlos Cruz-Diez 164 Lygia Clark 176
Reflections on Color Tropicália: March 4, 1968
Carlos Cruz-Diez 166 Hélio Oiticica 177
Artist’s Statement “Tropicália”
Alejandro Otero 168 Caetano Veloso 180
Serialization Afro-Brazilian Symbolism
Jesús Rafael Soto 170 in the Art of Rubem Valentim
Henry John Drewal 182
Artist’s Statement
Jesús Rafael Soto 171
7. Postwar Figural Art
The Cactus Curtain The Death of a Mural Movement
José Luis Cuevas 187 Eva Cockcroft 209
Chaos as a Structure An Interview with
Luis Felipe Noé 194 Luis Cruz Azaceta
Friedhelm Mennekes 212
ALatin Answer to Pop
Jacqueline Barnitz 199 In the Studio: Miguel Von Dangel
Ricardo Pau-Llosa 218
The Perils of Popularity: An
Interview with Fernando Botero
Cristina Carrillo de Albornoz 203
vi Contents
8. As a New Century Turns
Cries from the Wilderness Miguel Ángel Ríos:
Lawrence Wechsler 223 Epics from the Earth
Frederick Ted Castle 237
Everyone Needs a Madonna:
AVisit with Gonzalo Díaz 227 Impossible Weavings
Cecilia Vicuña 242
The Catherwood Project
Leandro Katz 230 Nahum Zenil’s Con Todo Respeto
Eduardo de Jesús Douglas 247
Miami No Es
Los Estados Unidos Marks of the Journey: Roberto
Susan Valdés-Dapena 233 Merino and Eugenio Dittborn 250
Bibliography 257
Index 267
Credits 271
Contents vii

The Cuban-Chinese Cook
Patrick Frank
Latin American modern art still does not get its due. Even after two decades
V
of postmodernist deconstruction of grand narratives, e orts to institute
multicultural inclusiveness, and mostly business-oriented “globalization,”the
canon of modern art history is still heavily tilted toward the art of Europe
and North America. Students all across the United States still learn that most
of the important innovations in art prior to about 1940 took place in Europe,
and that after that date “the center of the art world shifted to New York,
preparing the ground on which the nascent New York School would almost
immediately seize the leadership of the avant-garde.”1I have created this book
in the hope that it will help to change that emphasis.
The criteria for inclusion in this canon of acceptable modern expressions
have been too narrow. As one African-born curator recently noted, “While
strong revolutionary claims have been made for the avant-garde within West-
ernism, its vision of modernity remains surprisingly conservative and for-
mal.”2In short, other modernities are possible.3Harold Rosenberg lamented
the loss of Paris to the Nazis in 1940, bewailing the decline of the birthplace
of modernism. Yet even he admitted that “despite the fall of Paris, the social,
economic, and cultural workings which define the modern epoch are active
everywhere.”4
The basic problem that gives rise to the neglect of Latin American modern
art is structural. The wealth and resources that support research and education
about art are concentrated in Europe and the United States, but the human
characteristics necessary for the creation of vital, compelling, and innovative
art are much more widely dispersed. The countries with the greatest critical
mass of infrastructure arrogate to themselves the rubric “mainstream,”and rel-
egate areas of lower strategic importance or thinner art culture to the “periph-
ery.” This imbalance of resources and creativity leads to strange lacunae. To
V
mention just a few examples, there are many books about Georgia O’Kee e,
as there probably should be, but there are far fewer about Tarsila do Amaral,
an equally passionate but probably more audacious artist. The dolls of Hans
Bellmer have been much studied and even imitated, but the contemporaneous
and equally multivalent dolls of Armando Reverón have received very little at-
tention. It is easy to find information about Dan Flavin and Frank Stella, in-
ix