Modernism, the United States Continues to Suffer from a Dis We to Modernism's Cultural Tressing Provincialism

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Modernism, the United States Continues to Suffer from a Dis We to Modernism's Cultural Tressing Provincialism When it comes to modernism, the United States continues to suffer from a dis We to modernism's cultural tressing provincialism. still presume share patent War II to between ourselves and Europe?before World belongs that side of the to us. case are a Atlantic; post-WWII goes (In you thinking "beating dead horse" as read the exercise: count the references to non you this, try following major in new Hal Rosalind European/non-U. S. works the splashy textbook by Foster, Krauss,Yve-Alain Bois, and Benjamin Buchloh, Art Since 1900.' Even Robin Ad?le to modernism still adds Greeley for those who really ought know better, up to an Eurocentric Modernism: overwhelmingly phenomenon.) A provincialism underwritten by the worlds biggest military with a to "mul What El Norte Can Learn from budget cannot, however, be easily shrugged off nod continents Latin America ticulturalism."2 Merely adding cultures of the other five + subcontinents + archipelagos + etc. to the modernist mix does not And costs us we fix the problem. this deficiency dearly. What understand?or to don't?about, say, Chinas cultural relationship modernity may spell the differ ence an or between actively collaborative future with Asia's colossus antagonistic as at news will the blundering. And, any glance the daily show, knowledge gap U.S. interests adds to between hegemonic and Islamic culture exponentially politi cal tensions and human misery both here and abroad. in six The essays collected this forum, analyses by contemporary scholars of Latin are a to address key American and Chicano/a critics, part of larger effort to Latin American a this problem with regard modernism. Stemming from 2003 seminar in Bellagio, Italy, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and aimed at a examines the semi publishing double-volume trilingual anthology, this effort nal contributions of Latin American and Chicano/a art critics to our understand at ing of modernism's development the interconnected levels of the regional, in the critics national, and international. Sharply nonprovincial their thinking, all notion of discussed here demonstrate the impossibility of extracting any mod ernist or in economic postmodernist aesthetics from their implication postwar Americas worldwide. even con and political shifts throughout the and Indeed, are ventional distinctions between "modernism" and "postmodernism" thrown to art criticism in open question. Positioning themselves against predominant an the United States and Europe, Latin American critics take often radically dif stance on intricate ferent the relationship among modernism, modernity, and in contexts modernization. What might modernism look like, they ask, where are is the dreams and desires of modernity fully developed but modernization not a when yet wholly established? What might modernist aesthetics be, gener ated from an that Latin America's status has 1.Hal Foster, Rosalind Krauss, Yve-Alain Bois, and understanding "peripheral" nothing Art since 1900: to a to Benjamin Buchloh, Modernism, do with purportedly inherent backwardness and everything do with Antimodernism, Postmodernism Thames (London: socioeconomic increasingly harsh, neoliberal policies?3 and Hudson, 2004). critics no means on to 2. E. Sk?ns et al., "Military Expenditure," in The discussed here by completely agree art's relation Stockholm International Peace Research Institute issues. U.S. to see these Jos? G?mez Sicre opposed the irritating tendency only the Yearbook 2004: Armaments, Disarmament, and folkloric in Latin American the Museum of Modern Art's view International Security (Oxford: Oxford University art, yet championed Press, 2004). as to of capitalism essential the advancement of international, hemispheric mod 3. Dependency Theory economist Raul Prebisch, ernism. a head of the United Nations Economic Mario Pedrosa, by contrast, argued that modernism could provide realm Commission on Latin America (1948-62) inaugu of freedom outside the clutches of such patronage. Pedrosa's writing energized rated the use of the terms "center" and "periph such artists as H?lio Oiticica, Clark, and Mathias Goeritz ery" with regard to the effects of capitalism on ground-breaking Lygia nations. art in developing who rejected the market's network of consumption favor of modernist 82 WINTER 200? as a abstraction socially embedded, experimental practice. Marta Traba and Jorge Romero on in Brest, the other hand, both changed their minds mid-career. Romero Brest advocated as moment abstraction the culminating of modernism, until this in political critiques of Greenbergian position by 1960s artists?notably the exhibition Tucum?n Is him to 1968 Burning?forced reconsider. Traba dropped her for modernism's inherent to the early argument apoliticism, shifting radically as she to Left began comprehend the dangers of the U.S.-backed free-market strategies of Latin America's elites. But unlike Pedrosa, she remained of ventures as art Forum wary cultural such Conceptual that on focused process and viewer engagement. Tom?s Ybarra-Frausto and Amalia Mesa-Bains a have pioneered conceptual and visual analysis of what had as a largely been thought of purely social category: Chicano/a culture. Despite their differences, however, the writings of all these critics offer on provocative?indeed essential?perspectives modernism's development in Western era the Hemisphere, from the nationalist of the 1930s and 1940s, the Cuban the a through Revolution, cold war, and plethora of right-wing dicta to torships, the rise of the New Left, recurrent debt crises, NAFTA, MERCOSUR, and to increasing globalization. To read these critics is learn how Latin Americans see own in to their art, opposition the often uninformed?even biased?inter from El Norte. Even more pretations important, the dialogues engendered by these and other Latin American critics into offer indispensable insights facets of modernity largely unavailable elsewhere. Robin Greeley is reviews editor for Art Journal and teaches Latin American modernism at the University of Connecticut. Her first book is Surrealism and the Spanish CivilWar (Yale, 2006). Her second book project, The Cultural Face of State Nationalism: Post-Revolution Mexico 1920-1952, won a Rockefeller fellowship. The artists o? America know that international centers art are in own conti young of being born their and as nents, they already have points of reception New York and Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro and Lima, Mexico and Sao City Paulo, Caracas andWashington. ?Jos? G?mez Sicre, 19^9 Alejandro Anreus Jos? G?mez Sicre (1916-91), chief of the Visual Arts Section at Pan an the American Union, published article in 1959 entitled G?mez Sicre and the "Idea" in in Jos? "Trends?Latin America" the magazine Art America.' Pointedly art in of Latin American Art describing the limited conception of Latin American the United States and Europe as "carnival-tvpe, descriptive, and super ficial pictorial chronicle of South American people and customs that appeal to The is from G?mez "Editorial He an as in epigraph Jos? Sicre, visiting tourists."2 argued opposite viewpoint: "Just the United States Note," Pan American Union Bolet?n de Artes in the last 20 there has evolved a art movement years magnificent of very high Visuales 5 (Washington, DC, May-December, extreme so 1959): 2. quality and importance, in Latin America there are many artists? with more or less the same intentions and the same ambitions as the modern 1.G?mez Sicre was born inCuba and educated United States have been in a manner at the University of Havana. He advised Alfred H. painter?who working progressive and Barr, Jr., in the preparation of the 1944 Museum with intellectual deep feeling."3 of Modern Art exhibition Modern Cuban Painters. With this article G?mez Sicre was in the Latin American context He studied art history at both New York Univer addressing, and Columbia of the and the the modern and sity University. 1950s 1960s, placement of region's contemporary 2. Jos? G?mez Sicre, "Trends?Latin America," art on the international This text was of a twofold First, he Art inAmerica 47, no. 3 ( 1959): 22. stage. part strategy. 3. 23. a new artists a Ibid., promoted generation of with diverse yet decidedly modernist 83 art journal aesthetic (basing it on the paradigm of international modernism espoused by his H. at mentor, Alfred Barr, Jr., the Museum of Modern Art). Second, he rejected was retar and criticized "the style and politics of Mexican mural painting, which daire, academic, anecdotal, and folkloric and at its worst moments an instrument at the service of communism."4 Since G?mez Sicre's most active and influential agenda at the Visual Arts Section took place at the height of the cold war, it is to see in Mexican important his "warrior" role attacking the school's style and an as a politics with "international" modernist alternative very much part of the "freedom versus communism" discourse of the time.5 Beyond the specific (and at times sinister) politics of his role, G?mez Sicre was among the first, if not the first, critic/curator to travel all over Latin America art as a and comprehend the of the region series of hemispheric visualities, common He artists at with both links and divergences. presented emerging the S?o Paulo Bienal and introduced both established modernists and contemporary to as as institu artists United States audiences (private collectors well public In an tions). 1965 he organized the ambitious Sal?n Esso, "Inter-American" event to that selected and made awards artists under forty years of age from all over
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