ARTH 40.03 Twentieth Century Art from Latin America
This course is an introductory survey of art produced by artists living in Latin and Latin@ America during the 20th century. We will approach this topic through case studies of the major figures and movements in the cosmopolitan centers of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico, Uruguay, and the U. S. We will treat Latin America as a geopolitical construct rather than an essential unity. Throughout the course we will be attentive to the distinctive character of the different national histories, populations, and cultural traditions that have shaped artistic production in this region while still acknowledging points of convergence, influence, and shared conviction among them. We will examine how national identity, racial formation, class difference, gender inequality, political struggle, and state violence have been addressed by artists from the region and in diaspora. Students will learn about the major figures, movements, and genres of Latin and Latin@ American art: such as, modernismo, muralism, social realism, surrealism, geometric abstraction, kinetecism, and neo-concretismo, Latin American pop and conceptual art, installation, performance, and exhibition practices. They will develop an appreciation for the racialized modernisms of many Latin American countries and an ability to compare and contrast different iterations of hybridity from Mexican Indigenismo, to afro-Cubanismo, to Brazilian Anthropophagism (cannibalism), among others. They will develop an appreciation for how artists from Latin America have intervened in international avant-garde discourses by developing “ex-centric” strategies or ethics of avant-gardism. And they will explore the critical and reciprocal relationship between Latin American modernisms and state modernization and authoritarianism. This course has no pre-requisites and is accessible to both majors and non-majors. Students need no prior knowledge about Art History or Latin American art and history.
Instructor
Coffey
Cross Listed Courses
LACS 78