“How to Look at Latin American Art”
Organized by Lynette M.F. Bosch, SUNY Distinguished Professor of Art History
Virtual exhibition:
https://artspaces.kunstmatrix.com/en/exhibition/11331946/how-to-look-at-latin-american-art
State University of New York at Geneseo Student Curators:
Autumn Bieber, Anthropology Major, Lingustics Minor, Archaeology Microcredential
Leah Knapton Rapp, Art History Major, Museum Studies Minor
Ashlee Kuzemchak, Psychology Major, Art History and Geological Sciences Minor
Heather Matela, History Major, Museum Studies Minor
Emily McMahon, Biology Major (Marine Biology), Science Communication Microcredential
Ruby Morris, Sociology and Sustainability Studies Double Major, President of Peace Action, Geneseo
Lora Odeh, Sociomedial Sciences and Anthropology Double Major
Ella Pearcy, English Major with Concentration in Creative Writing, Art History Minor, Managing Editor, The Lamron (Student Newspaper)
Ralph Velasquez, English Major, Communication Minor, Vice-President, Student Association and Chair, Student Senate (2022-2023)
This exhibition is made possible by the support of the Society for the Advancement of the Art Museum of the Americas (SAAMA)
“How to Look at Latin American Art”
In the early 1990s, when I started working on Latin American Art, I was often asked the question – “How do you look at Latin American Art?” My initial, somewhat defensive, reaction was to wonder if such a question reflected a bias that somehow Latin American art was not on par with other kinds of art and needed extra instruction to appreciate. But this response faded upon reflection. The question of how to look at art is asked about most of the history of art by everyone seeking to understand what art means because understanding how to look at art is a complex process that defies a one-size-fits-all solution. Learning how to look is key to understanding how art conveys meaning and connection.
This online exhibition, “How to Look at Latin American Art,” curated by students from the State University of New York at Geneseo, supplies a guide towards answering this important question. For those who want to learn more about Latin American Art, the selections made by the students from paintings in the collection of the Art Museum of the Americas provide a primer, which Autumn Bieber, Leah Knapton Rapp, Ashlee Kuzemchak, Heather Matela, Emily McMahon, Ruby Morris, Lora Odeh, Ella Pearcy, and Ralph Velasquez have developed.
The Art Museum of the Americas of the Organization of American States is unique in many ways and its collection, assembled initially by José Gómez Sicre, presents an international, cultural asset, berthed in Washington, D.C. The assembly of the original collection was enacted through purchases and gifts, the provenance of which can be traced, in most instances, to original owners and galleries that directly represented the artists whose work is at AMA. Such provenance represents solid attribution of the works possessing clear provenance and devoid of problematic acquisition practices. As such, AMA’s works of solid provenance represent a benchmark for the study of Latin American Art. At a time when so many museums are facing the return of works acquired in less-than-ideal ways, AMA is free of such a clouded past–a rare, if not unique place to hold among museums with historically significant collections.
The student curators, listed above, who also contributed to this introductory essay, selected works by Juan Downey (Chile); Dario Suro (Dominican Republic); César Menendez (El Salvador); Joseph Jean-Gilles (Haiti); Rufino Tamayo (Mexico); Zoma Baitler, Pedro Figari, Ignacio Iturria (Uruguay); and, Héctor Poleo (Venezuela). The works range in date from the 1930s to the 1990s. Works were selected based on individual, visual affinity with the styles and themes and from the emotional responses each Student Curator had to the works they chose. This exhibition is not intended to be a comprehensive catalogue of the art of Latin America. It is a small window into a much larger world, with an accidental emphasis on the art of Uruguay. In their essays, each student curator presented their research and their interpretation of their selected work from a contextual perspective, reflective of the social, cultural and political circumstances within which artists gave visual expression to their experience.
In reading the essays that comprise this online exhibition’s catalog, visitors to the site will learn ways of looking at Latin American Art that will help them see their world anew. They will also have the opportunity to engage personally in encounters with examples of the art of the Americas and the Caribbean. In these essays, the Student Curators have shared the result of their research, their perceptions and their perspectives, yielding a thoughtful exploration of the specific history of each artist and their countries. While the group of countries was not comprehensive, the included works are emblematic of specific and universal circumstances that resonate throughout Latin American and, indeed, globally.
As the exhibition developed, the combined work of the Student Curators generated a larger appreciation of how the personal and individual experiences of life correspond and connect across communities and cultures. Hope, sorrow, defeat, triumph, joy, scarcity, abundance and tradition are universal elements that tell the story of our world and storytelling is one aspect of what artists do as they record their world. Those stories form a matrix of human experience from which others can learn to connect across national boundaries. Each of the essays featured in this exhibition provides a path towards understanding the significance of creating and preserving an artistic record to pass from generation to generation so that the cultural and historical knowledge preserved in works of art is not lost.
As the first museum of Latin American Art in the United States, founded in the national capital, AMA is directly linked to the Organization of American States’ Mission of Cultural Diplomacy and to its Four Pillars. The Four Pillars the OAS employs to effectively implement its goals are: Democracy, Human Rights, Security and Development. To these can be added issues of Sustainability and responsible Ecological Management of resources. In their essays, each student curator linked the subjects and context of their selections to the Four Pillars and to the OAS’s goal of enacting Cultural Diplomacy through the Visual Arts. Placing each work within the Four Pillars amplified their message and meaning.
Additionally, I asked the Student Curators how they would define the role of a Cultural Ambassador and how Cultural Diplomacy can further international understanding. Their ideas about how art can forward Cultural Diplomacy and how the visual arts can activate engagement with the OAS Pillars are presented below.
When asked what Cultural Ambassadors can do and how Art can play a significant role in Cultural Diplomacy, the Student Curators responded:
“A cultural ambassador’s duty is to share their culture from their own perspective and their experience with it. The purpose of this is to share your experiences with others and relate your experience to what others have experienced in their culture. Such is not meant to be used as a way to group a particular community together, but rather to promote the spread of information and bonding over shared experiences, whether positive or negative. These ways of sharing can be used in relation to art because artwork shows individual perspectives based in culture, as a physical expression of emotions.
When discussing the socioeconomic changes within many Latin American countries during the time in which a much contemporary art was made, it can show the relation to what individual countries and groups were experiencing through the different styles artist use to create their artistic record and the subjects they choose to portray it.”
-Autumn Bieber
“Art can be used in ways that create good advertisement for countries and such use can effectively bring attention to groups that might slip below the radar. The art of individual cultures, groups and countries establishes a sense of collective history for these entities. From the perspective of audiences for works of art, those who learn visually will find that a world opens up to them that provides an accessible education that might not have been available otherwise, if cultural exchanges were limited to verbal or literary. “Art transcends language” and images are powerful and can transmit across cultures divided by language. Cultural Diplomacy through art can bridge gaps.”
-Leah Knapton Rapp
“Cultural ambassadors can represent their culture in an ideal manner, while honestly contending with histories that can be and often are problematic. In so doing, connections can be established between cultures with similar experiences, who can benefit from what has been learned as solutions to problems in paralle situation. Art can bridge divides through visual representation and transcend multiple barriers and works that represent universal, human experience can bring unity faster and more directly than a newspaper headline can.”
-Heather Matela
“Cultural Ambassadors should be knowledgeable about their own culture’s history and about how their histories impact society today in their own countries and in other countries with which they interact. They should also be open to learning about other cultures through all cultural manifestations and establishing connections by using their country’s artistic culture to best advantage to how connection and community. Art opens conversations in constructive ways, where similar elements of the human condition from positive to negative can be represented as a way to connect and discuss and find ways of solving problems.”
-Emily McMahon
“A cultural ambassador should be able to present a cohesive picture of their own culture and identity, while communicating. how their culture distinguishes itself from others. They should also communicate how their culture is beautifully unique. In so doing, the goal of Cultural Ambassadors could be to learn how to best showcase their national identity and their pride in its distinctive aspects, while also being able to acknowledge the beauty and cultural abundance of other countries.
Art is valuable on a national scale. Countries can be proud of the artists that represent their nations, even when in a critical and honest way. This can be used by Cultural Ambassadors to attain a true understanding of their culture, which can be communicated to other to promote understanding even in difficult circumstances.”
-Ruby Morris
“Cultural Ambassadors have the ability to represent their own culture alongside other cultures. Allowing for people to learn and understand how specific cultural histories have impacted their society in the present day. For Cultural Ambassadors, it is very important to be able to see the beauty in other cultures, in order to understand and appreciate their art and cultural past as part of cross-cultural education. Culture and art go hand and hand within a society and art alters the way in which people see the world through the eyes of artists.. The beauty art can create involves how it can communicate the voices, concerns, and traditions of different cultures so that all can surround and immerse themselves in other cultures through their art. This process of immersion within another culture enables an expansion of education that allows for the appreciation of art as heritage communication”
-Lora Odeh
“Cultural Ambassadorship is public outreach and a way of providing accessibility to cultural perspectives by one group to other groups. Cultural Ambassadors should be ready to demonstrate many perspectives about their cultures and countries to which different audiences can relate in different contexts. Experiencing art encourages people to be creative because art is a manifestation of creativity. As such, the absorption of art through engaging with works of art can engender other types of creativity in spectators and audiences. Such an absorption of creativity can function as a spur to other kinds of creativity in other endeavors thus creativity from art can be transferred to creative solutions to the problems faced in our world towards which the OAS is meant to provide solutions. With creativity as part of its cultural mission, transformation can occur from unexpected sources once the creative impulse is launched by the experience of looking at art and learning its meaning and significance. Thus, social politics can be helped by art’s example.”
-Ella Pearcy
“Cultural Ambassadors should be well-educated and knowledgeable about the history of the culture they’re representing in all of its manifestations. They should also take care to represent all the voices of their countries and cultures - both past and present – without imposing their personal opinions. They should let their people speak in diversity in all aspects of human cultural outcomes.
Visual Art is an authentic representation of an individual’s perspective on the culture that engendered them. The cultural experiences of artists form and influence the works they create and such bodies of work are a historical record that can be used in Cultural Ambassadorship to inform others about the struggles and goals of different countries.”
-Ralph Velasquez
I and SUNY Geneseo’s Student Curators: Autumn Bieber, Leah Knapton Rapp, Ashlee Kuzemchak, Heather Matela, Emily McMahon, Ruby Morris, Lora Odeh, Ella Pearcy and Ralph Velasquez thank the Art Museum of the Americas and the Organization of American States for giving us the opportunity for this online exhibition, which enables the presentation of the research and ideas this group had about – “How To Look At Latin American Art.”
We hope that everyone who reads these essays comes away with a renewed commitment to the kind of communication and connection that are endemic to the visual arts and to all artistic manifestations so that we can all become Cultural Ambassadors for the Art of Latin America.
This project has been made possible thanks to the support of the Society for the Advancement of the Art Museum of the Americas.
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