years,t his field has grow n expo nent ially as a result of com plex polit ical and eco nomic force s that have altere d the percept ion and stat us of Latin Amer ican art both inside and outs ide th e United States. Thanks to t he activities of bot h private and institut ional collectors, t his art has become a favorite com modity in internationa l markets.Yet, I would caution against the t riumphant "here we are . .. we have arrived" attitu de promot ed by dealers , art ists, and collectors assoc iated with t hese deve lopments . Latin Amer ican art is a very complex field made up of mor e t han 20 countr ies and t ho usands of artists.Ther e is still a lot of research and prom otion to be don e to do justice to these art ists. Wh ile t here is mo re widespread circulation of informat ion about t hese art ists th an perhaps ever before,
Moreover, Latin American artists are still largely absent from general textbooks of 20t h centu ry art written in t he United States and minimallymentioned in the leading magazines devoted to modern and contemporary art.With the exception of field specialists,the vast major ity of curators and other visual arts professionals either continue to ignore or blatantly refuse to acknowledge the legitimate contributions of these artists to Modernism, Post-Modernism, and other contemporary art trends.
IRREVERSIBLE - You said early on in your career, institutions turned down the exhibit ions you proposed for artists such as Leon Ferrar i and Gego because they had not heard them. Due to your efforts and the market forces you mentioned a Gego drawing priced at $6,000 a decade ago, now sells for $150,000. Has this financial reeva luation helped raise the profile of Latin American Art? Dr. Ramfrez- Yes,abso lutely.The field has expanded considerably to include bot h artists who had been marginalized or under-recognized for decades and/or emergent artists.We now have a far more dynamic and competitive situation wrth museums, dea lers, collectors , and auction houses vying for the work of artists from Latin America. Yet,at th is point, it is most ly the market which is dictating what gets bought or sold.This is too restrictive and should not be allowed.We must always strive to show art ists who have prod uced innovative work regardless of whether or not they have market value in the United States. IRREVERSIBLE- Latin American artists wer e themselves creat ing on the same wave length and in some instances, even preceding historical art movements often attributed to Nort h Amer icans and Europeans. How wo uld you explain these stunning similarities between the two although they ofte n knew little to nothing of each other? Dr. Ramfrez- The question of why arti sts far apart can be work ing on the same issues without having knowledge of eac h other can be exp lained by the fact that, partic ularly in the first half of the 20th century, they were all basing their research on the same sources- mainly the achievements of the European avant-garde-and this allows them to reach similar conclusions.The work of Piet Mondrian, Picasso and the Cubists, Surrealism, Dada, these movements influenced a great dea l of developments both in Europe and elsewhere. The Latin American and North Amer ican artists who be nefited from them were not copying the Europeans but assimilating key concepts that they put forth , combining the m with local sources and t ransforming them into someth ing new. In the spec ific case of the United States, it is wort h noting that before the 1950s, U.S. artists confronted the same kind of marginalization as Latin American art ists today. That is, they were per ipheral to Europe. Abstract Expressionism and the shift from Paris to New York did a lot to change that situation.
Public A rt Project I Co urtesy of Cruz D iez Family
ChromaticPerformancepresented by Carmen Worn Contem porany Dance company Gallery Konkret Martin Worn. Sulzburg, Germany. 2008. at the exhibit ion Color!, Image Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
IRREVERSIBLE - You are currently creating the Digrtal Arch ive and Publications Project, as advance in our under standing of Latin American and Latino art while creating bridges for cultural dialogue and exchange. IRREVERSIBLE - Wou ld do you consider your greatest acco mplishme nts thus far? Dr. Ramirez- I co nsider my greatest accomplishments:
The permanent co llection of Latin American art that we have been creat ing at the MFAH since 200 I. Right now the collection includes over 450 works represe ntative of the Latin American avant-garde .These include the Adolpho Leimer Collection of Brazilian Constructive Art as we ll as key works such as Gyula Kosice's monumental Hydro -spatial City, I94854, Cildo Meireles'Volatil andTunga's Lezarts Lezart. Inverted Utopias, the major exhib ition co-curated by Hector O lea and myself, that presented over 300 works of the Latin Amer ican avant-garde between 1920 and 1970.This seminal show provided the foundatio n for subsequent collection-building as well as researc h efforts- such as the ICM Docume nts Project- at the MFAH. The New York Times declared it one of the top two exhibitions of the last de cade . The ICM Documents of 20th Ce ntury Lat in Amer ican and Latino Art Project - a digital archive and publications project that aims to make accessible t he intellectual foundations of this art at the globa l level.
Chromatic Inductio n 53 I Acrylic paint on wood I Cruz-Diez Foundation at the Museum of Fine Arts , Houston, 1973
Š 20 10 Carlos Cruz-Diez/ Art ists Rights Society (ARS), Ne w York / ADAGR Paris
IRREVERSIBLE - You are current ly creat ing the DigitalArchive and Publications Project, as we ll as t he publication of the first volume of Cr it ical Do cuments of 20th -Ce ntur y Latin Ameri can and Latino Art. Are th ese initiatives what you cons ider to be t he "new " curatorial mode l for the 2 1st century? Dr. Ramfrez - Yes, the y co uld be see n as integrating a new researc h-based curator ial mod el. In this mod e l, systematic researc h informs co llectio ns, exhibitions, and other programmati c activities.The Cru z-Diez retrospective, (current ly on exhibit ion at the Museum of Fine Art s in Husto n), came o ut of a five-year researc h project between th e ICM and the Cr uz-Diez Foundation, Ho uston. The same applies to almost every ot her major exhibitio n we have done. The notion of or iginal researc h as the basis for co llect ion -building and ex hibitio ns is noth ing new or radical. Research and scho larsh ip are the foundation of everyt hing a museum does. Indeed , museums have tradition ally engaged the se activities. Unfort unate ly, in recent years, research and scholarship have been pushed aside by the proce ss of 'spectacularization ' and corporati zat ion that has taken hold of museums.These institutions have substitut ed serious scholarship for the Reader's Digest vers io n.The ICM is a rath er utopian work-in-progress that att empts to provide th e too ls and const ruct a platform that stradd les between academ ia and the museum; a platform that allows us t o
IRREVERSIBLE - After all you have acco mplished, what cou ld possibly be next? Dr. Ramfrez- We need permanent galleriesto displaythe LatinAmerican art collection. These will have to wait until the museum'sthird buildingis built.This new buildingwill housethe MFAH's extensivecollectionsof 20th century modern and contemporaryart, includingLatinAmerican art. The collectionswill not be separatedbut will be placedin dialoguewith one another.
Around 1950 accor ding t o Miguel Cabanas Bravo (I) there were tw o sites of "progressi ve Venezue lan Art". Caracas and Paris,where two groups emerge d in short success ion _ Th e ta ller Libre de Arte (Free art s workshop , 1948) and Los Disidentes (The dissidents, 1950). Many of the latter 's members returned to Caracas during 1950s, espousing an abst ract-geometric vision t hat challenged the preva iling artistic conservatism inVenezuela ; the y fell into step w it h contempora ry Western artistic product ion and wit h the work of Latin Amer icans such as W ilfredo Lam. This group - w hich included Alejandro Otero, Mat eo Manaure and Oswaldo Vigas, among others , and wh ich maintained close contact with Car los Cruz Diez and Jesus Rafael Soto- ep itom ized that moment of mid-cen t ury moderni ty in which contemporar y universalism entere d into a dialogue that exceeded the me rely local, reach ing it s ult imate expres sion in Villanueva's Universidad Cent ral Oust one examp le amo ng many).This work by Villanueva involved the participation of such internationa l art ists as Jean Arp ,VictorVasare ly;Alexander Calder. and Fernand Leger. Venezuelan and Latin America n mid-centur y mod ern ity continued its dialogue with Western European culture, but for t he first t ime it expe rienced the euphoria of seeing one of its projects validated and assimilated, at least by th e West :the euphor ia of having atta ined a mo dern ity that carr ied it s own signatu re - a modern ity "ma de in Lat in Amer ica" that could engage as an equa l, if not with the rest of the world, at least wit h t he o ld world and the most recentl y "Americ an dr eam". The distinctly Venezuela stamp on this mode rnit y lay in the audacity of its proposal and its progressive character within the Latin American Con te xt. (2)
Manifesto "Nosotros no vinimos a Pan's a seguir cursos de diplom acia, ni a adqu irir una "cultura" co n fines de comodidad personal. Vinimos a enfrentarnos con los problemas , a luchar con ellos, a ap render a llamar las cosas po r su nombre, y por ello mismo no podemos mantenernos indiferentes ante el clima de falsedad que constitu ye la realidad cultural de Venezuela.A su mejora miento creemos contr ibuir atacando sus defecto s con la mayor crudeza, hacienda recae r las culpas so bre los verdadero s responsables o quiene s les apoya n. Buena parte de la tarea que emprendemos no nos co rresponde, pero ante la indiferencia de aquellos a quienes les incumbe, no hemos vacilado en hacer la nuestra, puntua lizando tambien todo cuanto podamos. Somos venezolano s (y cont inuaremos siendolo) y hemos sido las primera s v(ctimas de ese estado lamentable de cosas. Hoy nos reve lamos co ntr a e llas, y hablamos alto porque es necesano. Vamos contra lo que nos parece regresivo o estacionar io, contra lo que tiene una falsa funcion . He mos sido result ado y testigos de mucho absurdo, y mal andar(amo s si no pudier amos decir lo que pensamo s, en la forma en que creemos nece sar io decir lo. Hemos quer ido decir "NO" ahora y despues de "Los Disident es"."NO" es la tradicion que queremos instaurar: El "NO" venezo lano que nos cuesta tanto dec ir: "NO" a los falsos Salones de Arte Oficial. "NO" a ese anacronico arch ivo de anacronismo que se llama Museo de Bellas Artes. "NO" a la Escuela de Arte s Plast icas y sus promociones de falsos impres ionistas. "NO" a las exposici one s de mercaderes naciona les y extranjeros que se cuentan por cientos cada ano en el Museo. "NO" a los falsos crfticos de arte. "NO"a los falsos mu sico s folkloristas. "NO" a los falsos poet as y escritores llena- cuart illas. "NO" a los periodicos que apoyan tanto absurdo, y al pub lico que va todos los d(as doc ilmente al matad ero. Dec imos "NO" de una vez para todas; al consum atum est venezolano con el que no seremos nunca sino una ruina."
The 1960 was t he decade in which Jorge Luis Borges achieved global recognitio n, Gabr iel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred years of Solitude app eared, and Carlos Fue ntes, Julio Co rtazar. Mario Vargas Llosa, and numero us ot her writers of t he Latin "boom" genera t ion published th eir major wor ks.
Navarro Pascual, Mural, Concert Hall, Central aerea of the PlazaCubierta (covered Plaza),Universidad Central de Venezuela. Photograph by Luis Brito, 20 I I
....
PARIS
, A I I I J 1111 0 t t I I
CIRCULA
POR
AMERICA
- LATINA
CIRCULA
POR
nn1EN•1 I9 50
AMERICA-LATINA
Cl RC ULA
Los Disidentes Manifesto Collection court esy of Jorge Hulian Artdea ler Miami & AnthropologistLilianaPonce
I. Miguel Cabanas Bravo," Caracas, un intento frustrado de continuidad en las biennales hispanoamericanasde arte ( I)" (Series 7, Historia del Arte, no 8; Madrid: Universidad nacionalde Educacion a distancia, 1995) 2. Latin American Modernities Hugo Achugar Introductory Studies,A lfredo Boulto n and his Contemporaries. Critical dialoguesinVenezuelan art 19 12- 1974. Edited byAriel lmenez.The Museum of ModernArt,NewYorl<
Mural "An Element - Vertical character horizontal evolution" of Oswaldo Vigas. The entrance hall of the Rectorate Building Ciudad Universitaria.Photographby Luis Brito , 20 I I
Mural "Static Element in FivePositions" Oswaldo Vigas.Communications Building Ciudad Universitaria,UniversidadCentr al de Venezuela.Photograph by Luis Brito, 20 I I
embracingmodernity:GEOMETRICABSTRACTION FROMVENEZUELA
The concep t of Abstraction in Latin Ame rica as a distinct and infiuential cat egor y of modern and co ntemporary art production is finally being recogn ized for its significance, and Venezue la stands at th e forefront. For years , the art of Latin Ame rica was too often associated with fantasy, surrea lism, figuration, murals and po lit ical propag anda, not to me nt ion Popu lar or Folk Art. It was also subtly ignored for be ing "der ivat ive" of European and Amer ican artistic stylist ic categor ies througho ut the twenti eth cent ury. Fort unately, that has changed with new ex hibitions, exce llent scholarsh ip, and the accessibility of co llect ions for exhibit ions that can demonst rate th at abstra ction is not unusua l, but is importa nt and just as interesting as many of the ot he r ab stract art movements th at have dominated th e last centur y and th is, in all parts of the wor ld. N ow we know t hat Latin America is a source for new ideas , that art ists not only travel led and brought ideas back with them , but bro ught ideas from their home land to other locations as well and left t heir mark upon nume ro us artists and art movem ents abro ad. This fall.The Frost Art Muse um at Florida Internatio nal Univer sity in Miami was the locat io n for a most significant and histor ical ex hibition that tra ced the de ve lop ment of abst ract ion in the country assoc iated with its infiuence in Latin Amer ica, Europe and the United St ates. The art from the continen t of Sout h Amer ica is as comp lex as the geolo gical, soc ial, po lit ical and cultura l descr iptions it represents. To presen t abstract ion from Venezu ela, the co untr y associated w ith it s form ation as a mode rnist aesthetic and category, allowed the visitor to follow its de ve lopment from the 1940s th roug h the work of so me of the most import ant artists in the world , t hen and now, and to expand o ur unde rstanding abo ut how it emerge d and why it has become recognizable for certa in chara cteristic feat ures , such as minimal geometr ic forms , draw ing in space, chromatics, kinetic works, and interact ive insta llations. This exh ibition and the scho larly cat alog th at accompan ied it, introduced all of thes e concepts through t he works of the mo st re nowned protago nists ofVenezuelan moderni sm and inaugurat ed a new chapter in the story of the Art of Latin Am erica . The brilliant young curators , Francine Birbrag he r-Roze ncwa ig and Maria Car lot a Perez, masterful ly brought t he ir insight and scho larship to t his very current discussio n of t he or igins of Venezuelan mo derni sm , documenti ng it for t he future and giving it a rightful place in the rich art histor y of th e modern wor ld.
"Los Disidentes " form as a group in Paris in 1950; During the 1940s, a group of young Ve nezue lan art ists rejected the t raditional ed ucation offered by Caracas' art schoo ls and we nt abroad in search of fresh ideas and new oppo rtunit ies. "Los Disidente s" reject the landscape painting and Nativist styles tha t are t hen pop ular in Venezuela and become devotees of geometric abstract ion; The ¡ expa triate Venezue lans present t hemse lves as an avant-garde co llect ive , in synch with t he latest deve lop me nts in the inte rnat iona l art world. The gro up includes art ists Alejand ro Ote ro , Mateo Manau re , Narciso Debo urg, Pascual Navarro, Peran Erminy, Car los Gonza lez Bogen, Aimee Batt istini,Armando Barrios, Luis Guevara Moreno , Dora Hersen, Ruben Nu nez, dancer Belen Nun ez, and philosoph er J.M. Guillent Perez; They are later joined by Cesar Enriquez , Alirio O ramas, Oswa ldo Vigas, Ge naro More no, O mar Carre no, Migue l Arroyo , Regulo Perez and Luis E. Chavez: The artists begin publishing a co nt rovers ial jo urnal, also called "Los Diside ntes";The work of Los Disidentes beg in to forge a new pat h for art in the ir nat ive Venezue la, where artists and intellectua ls seek to create a cosmopol itan culture . This publicatio n serve d of manifesto to a more radical art for th ose time s: the call abstract ion ism geo metr ic, like refusal to t he trad it iona l forms of th e art. The art istic movem ent known as The Dissidents was based o n Paris in 1945 and lasted unt il 1950 .
A lejandro Otero ITabion de Pampatar(Pampatarplank). 1954.Enamel on plywood. Collection Patricia Phelps de Cisneros,Caracas
Ca rol Dam ian Director & Ch ief Curato r The Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum Florida Internat ional Univers ity Miam i