Spring 2007

LAS 381 • Avant-garde art and politics in latin america 1920-present

Course Description

The course focuses on the debates about the politicization of art, and the connections between critical writing and art production in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Chile. It begins with the emerging avant-garde of the 1920s in Mexico, Argentina and Brazil, their differences and similarities, and the Berni/Siqueiros polemics in the 1930s. In the 1940s art shifted from representations of the worker to the adoption of abstraction first in Argentina under Perñn, then in Brazil following the First São Paulo Biennial (1951) leading to questions about its relevance in these societies. We ask what was the impact of institutional relationships on the art produced, how did violence and censorship under military governments in the 1970s and 1980s affect artists and what alternative practices did these conditions lead to? We will look at the artists? use of materials, installation, performance, media art, and of written text. A lecture in this section will be given by Dr. Andrea Giunta, visiting Harrington Research Fellow.

Texts

Books will be on reserve at the FAL and on e-reserves. These include statements by artists and writings by M. Traba, N. Richard, M. C. Ramirez, L. Lippard, A. Giunta, F. Gullar and others. Some reading knowledge of Spanish and/or Portuguese is helpful but not required.

back