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Home , Fernando de Szyszlo, Jorge Romero Brest, Latin American art, Marta Traba

When it comes to , 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 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 '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. 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 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 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 , Rio de Janeiro and , 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 . 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 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 ). Second, he rejected was retar and criticized "the style and politics of Mexican , 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 was in at the Americas. The selected work exhibited the gallery the Organization of American States headquarters in April 1965.All of the awarded works entered the corporate collection of Esso (which grew from Standard Oil Jos? G?mez Sicre with Alfred H. (right) and was the precursor of today's multinational ExxonMobil).6 In the exhibition Ban*, Jr., and Fidelio Ponce, Matanzas, G?mez Sicre's words reaffirmed his of both , 1942 (photograph by Mario Carrerto, catalogue, agenda capitalist patron provided by Alejandro Anreus) in a "Of age free world and the enduring value of modernism: singular signifi cance was it was initiative a the fact that private industry?the capitalistic of free was to an world?that thus seeking foster the things of the spirit by undertaking

with broad cultural repercussions." He concluded, "Behind these compositions one can the ferment of the of our who to 4. Jos? G?mez Sicre, interview with the author, perceive youth hemisphere, agreed March 17, 1989, DC. This and all measure in now Washington, talents fair combat, whose champions have made themselves other translations from the Spanish are by the known. For those concerned with the most lesson to be author. lasting values, significant 5. The activities of his included nine to to or agenda derived is that, with freedom of expression, with liberty accept reject direc eleven yearly exhibitions at the Pan American tion, art continues its forward progress in the Americas. In the best tradition of Union/O.A.S. headquarters inWashington, DC, it awaits his articles in newspapers and magazines in both the past, confidently the challenge of the future."7 North and South America (Spanish and English), In of the tone of his words in 1965, G?mez Sicre's his editorials in the Visual Arts Section's Bolet?n spite triumphant agenda cease to to a de Artes Visuales, and his informal advice to U.S. would be effective by 1970?partly due the emergence of pluralistic museum directors in their of Latin acquisitions aesthetic on the part of the New Left in Latin America, the radicalization of artists American art. His "cultural anti-communism" the and his own lack of interest in installation, became more aggressive after the Cuban Revolu throughout region, conceptual, tion declared itself Marxist-Leninist in the and art. He was a cold-war modernist in an early performance increasingly postmodern 1960s. world where clear identification was 6. The Washington, DC, jury that gave first-, political becoming increasingly fragmented. and awards and G?mez Sicre sublimated modernism into and values in second-, third-place by category "enduring universal" consisted of Alfred H. Barr, region Jr. (MoMA), to more remains is aes order make his cold-war politics palatable. Yet what his Thomas M. Messer (Guggenheim), and Gustav to find von Groschwitz (Carnegie Institute). Although thetic judgment; his ability and promote new, genuine, and important some of the Latin American from the cor works vision arts In talents; and his hemispheric of the of Latin America. the words porate collection were deaccessioned, a majority of them were later donated to the Lowe Art of the Peruvian painter Fernando de Szyszlo, "The person who really promoted Museum inMiami, Florida. art was was the idea of Latin American Pepe G?mez Sicre. Before him, there 7. Jos? G?mez Sicre, "Introduction" in Sal?n Esso Colombian Venezuelan or Mexican It de Artistas J?venes, exh. cat. (Washington, DC: Argentinean painting, painting, painting. Pan American Union, was G?mez Sicre who was the first to of Latin American April 1965). speak painting."8 8. Fernando de Szyszlo inAlvaro Medina, "An Interview with Fernando de Szyszlo," Art Nexus Alejandro Anreus is associate professor of art history and atWilliam Paterson (January 1994): 48. University. He is the coeditor of and a contributor to The Social and The Real: Art and Politics in the Americas (Penn State Press, 2005).

84 WINTER 2005 In 1980, at the age of eighty and soon before he died, Mario Pedrosa helped found 's Labor Party (the new leftist party governing today). At that time he abandoned the conventional practice of art criticism (we will see why later a on) and rediscovered the active militancy of his youth. While committed social a conscience is trait of many Latin American critics, for Pedrosa the combination of political and critical radicalism was especially meaningful, as the trajectory of his aesthetic ideas is indistinguishable from his political trajectory. Among politi were a cal exiles (and they many, from variety of countries), Pedrosa the militant transformed himself into a critic, and the critic became a cul one to Francisco Alambert tural activist. The radicalism of position lent itself the in Pedrosa's a with an inno other, resulting becoming key figure vative in art criticism. 1001Words for Mario Pedrosa role the history of Latin American In 1925, the young Pedrosa joined the newly founded Communist Party of Brazil. In 1929, he set off to study inMoscow, but stopped in common cause where, abandoning his Moscow plans, he made with Soviet It was Trotsky's rejection of Stalinism. during this sojourn that Pedrosa modern art in experienced Expressionist and Bauhaus Berlin, though he had yet to become return to in completely consumed with the subject. Upon his Brazil he at same moment 1933, founded aTrotskyist group, and the presented his first critical work?an address on German the printmaker K?the Kollwitz, the first Marxist of art in Brazil. Because his ties to truly study of strong Trotsky, Pedrosa

became secretary of the Fourth International?a position that took him to New

York in the 1940s, where he became familiar with North American modern criticism and art, particularly that of Alexander Calder. Mario Pedrosa was thus a an militant of the revolutionary Left who became artistic through realizing that the forms and conditions of the twentieth

century sprang from its recurring social crises. In consequence, Pedrosa never dissociated world art. moment revolution from vanguard From this on, his criti cal sketched out the as as practice overtly utopia of modern art, well its impasses and His was a insights. critical activity continual exercise of redefinition and pos of various and a art tulation, forms of reflective analysis, of pedagogy of aimed Luiz In?cio Lula da Mario Silva, Pedrosa, at alive the ideal of a art. This ideal would later and Manuel da Conceic?o at the founding keeping revolutionary vanguard of the Workers October influence art as art. meeting Party, 2, postmodern concepts of environmental well conceptual S?o Brazil 1980, Colegio Si?n, Paulo, (pho Pedrosa could not conceive art Indeed, of modern without revolutionary tograph ? Jesus Carlos/lmagenlatina). vice-versa?even while art in Da Silva was elected president of Brazil in politics?and arguing that should principle be 2002. autonomous He its territory. famously defined "emancipated" art, with creative and critical as challenges, the experimental exercise of freedom. "Exercise" because art is, above an attentive of because artistic all, making things; "experimental" effort, in a world in which social classes are alienated from labor, enables a freer, more between the individual and open relationship the material?a relationship that reinvents the world in to constantly order keep from losing it; "freedom" because the role of the artist (and the critic) is to spill into the living world that which freedom in order to to own requires flow according its properties. Art is thus the best a emanci possibly experimental laboratory for creating socially

pated utopia. For Pedrosa, the liberating potential of the work of art comes from the pos of or action thatmay dislocatethe reifica This essay was translated from the Portuguese by sibility making differently making freely?an JayTelles. tion of alienated subjectivity, enabling the renewed individuals to regain their

85 art journal own "destinies." But does not mean making "freely" doing just anything, because an act that is not reflected or upon carefully considered merely repeats the reified world. to not art are Therefore, according Pedrosa, all forms of valid exercises must on of freedom. Rather, the critic focus the criteria that cannot be appro into the alienated of culture. The critic is priated linearity here neither the organizer of taste of the nor some or bourgeois (nor agent "market"), kind of educator as a judge. With the experimental exercise of freedom baseline, he or she must reflect upon and question the course of aesthetic movements at the same time as antici pating actions and meanings. At this we Pedrosa with a con point might compare Clement Greenberg, to whom he was connected various links. temporary through Greenberg fash ioned his criticism an from "abstractionist" prism, centered in the concept of planarity then prominent in the of North America. For Pedrosa, the issue of was never the most however, two-dimensionality decisive. Contrary to Greenberg, Pedrosa's concept of social totality (a Marxist trademark that the Brazilian critic never him art abandoned) kept from analyzing the history of from an internal or This entirely endogenous angle. position significantly dis tanced Pedrosa from the "formalist" positions and from the euphorias and of the Abstract raptures Expressionist movement, thus bringing him closer to art. ideologically conceptual For Mario the of art in a Pedrosa, meaning lay liberating repressed and alienated in and in to cross society, being negative antibourgeois, seeking from the world to the realm of art and back us to living again. Knowing this allows understand his interest in art the insane and as as produced by by children, well his constant valorization of "primitive" art, especially by pre-Columbian peoples. For the was an Pedrosa, essential thing the utopia of autonomous art, pro in most gressing through ruptures, engaged the intense transformation of soci

ety. Nevertheless, while he pursued this Utopian conception, he also saw in the course of the its crises history configuration of and impasses. At the end of his when he witnessed the life, shipwreck of the constructive utopias of modern art and of Latin American societies as well as the liberal turn of international capital ism, he perceived the relative failure of the forms of intervention that modern art "Mass consumer does not represented: society encourage the arts," he argued. And it does not "modern with its especially encourage art, mandates for quality That harsh against ambiguity." realization brought back Pedrosa's desire for direct his return to a as a means political intervention, politics of socialism of saving the that art could no contain in itself nor exercise and utopia longer freely exper

imentally.

Francisco Alambert is professor of art history at the University of S?o Paulo (Brazil) and also writes art criticism. He is coauthor, with Polyana Canh?te, of the 2004 Bienais de S?o Paulo: Da era do Museu ? era dos Curadores (S?o Paulo: Boitempo Press, 2004).

86 WINTER 200? Marta was a in Until the 1960s, Traba (1923-1983) key figure the consolidation of international modernism in the visual arts of Latin America. But when the cultural influence of the United States began to spread throughout the hemi most sphere?along with the experimental artistic Florencia Bazzano-Nelson modes?Traba became one of the most resolute critics

of this homogenizing process. She understood better Marta Traba: Internationalism than most the such could potential danger influence in the con or Resistance? represent semideveloped and semidependent Regional ' text of Latin America. In this regard, the now-dominant concern on regarding the effects of globalization subaltern cultures demands of critics a new consideration of Traba's critique of the cultural imperialism of the North.

Traba left an important legacy in her writings primarily because they addressed many pivotal cultural events in the from the was to 1950s through the early 1980s. Moreover, she among the first scholars consider the art Latin as a texts into of America whole, thereby transforming her at moments fascinating documents of the theoretical horizons existing different of Latin American art criticism.

Traba 's in native in forty-year art-critical practice began her the mid- art 1940s when she joined 's influential magazine Ver y Estimar and continued the and in throughout 1950s 1960s , her adoptive where she became a national and country, celebrity the leading arbiter of the arts. at the moment was at its an Then, very when her power peak, she took unexpected public turn to the political Left that ultimately resulted in a life of in various political exile countries, including Uruguay, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, the United States, and France. Until the late 1960s,Trabas support for high modernism aligned her with as colleagues such Jorge Romero Brest and Jos? G?mez Sicre. In Colombia, her

aestheticism?shaped by her readings of European scholars like Benedetto Croce, Herbert and Ren? resistance Read, Huyghe?encountered strong from the very She considered art an autonomous artist a beginning. practice and the "genius" Marta Traba, Caracas, 1972 (photograph by who as she wrote in in Zigala, provided by Gustavo Zalamea) was, 1956, "eminently apolitical, asocial, disinterested the a that is in as a contingent, being the midst of history disquieting island and whom no for words like progress, civilization, justice, have meaning whatso Her were a art ever."2 articles forceful attack against those who believed should a local and or a stance. was "express" regional identity political She particularly critical of Mexican which had as a muralism, served conceptual paradigm for

the first generation of Colombian modernists. Her internationalism lent support to modernists like young Alejandro Obreg?n, Eduardo Ram?rez Villamizar, and Fernando Botero. However, she irritated well-established nationalists such as Gonzalo Ariza and G?mez Ignacio Jaramillo, who made themselves heard through a number of heated but to win revealing public debates. Traba always seemed these but her as as it battles, aesthetic project only prevailed long remained politi 1.Marta Traba, Dos d?cadas vulnerables en las neutral and cally supported the modernizing discourse of the Colombian elite. artes pl?sticas latinoamericanas 1950-1970, ed. In the late and 1970s, in an exile marked Andrea Giunta (Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI, 2005), 1960s early by political persecu 65. Traba to critics as tion, turned Marxist theory and the work of cultural such 2. Marta Traba, "Cr?tica de arte. El genio anti Herbert Marcuse, Henri Lefebvre, and Umberto Eco whose were servil," Intermedio (Bogot?, June 26, 1956): 5. All writings are own. translations of Traba's writings my becoming increasingly influential among Latin American leftist intellectuals.

87 art journal a an in her This shift resulted in her formulation of theory of "art of resistance" en artes latinoamericanas best-known book, Dos d?cadas vulnerables las pl?sticas 19^0-1970 Marcuses One-Dimensional that industrialized (1973). Inspired by Man,Traba argued an resulted in the nations were dominated by ideology of technology that frag communication codes. In the field mentation and loss of meaning of general an an of culture, the ideology of technology supported on international level and neutralized "aesthetic of deterioration" that fragmented cultural systems local a to assure the continued specific meanings, strategy necessary technolog ical domination of all forms of communication.3 such as For this reason, Traba profoundly distrusted experimental art, Pop and which she considered of the "aes art, , , examples the thetic of deterioration" and associated exclusively?and erroneously?with art culture in United States. She believed that these modes could only critique an cathartic that satisfied artists but were explosive manner, creating experiences to the of over industrial and nonindustrial powerless stop tyranny technology art modes could nei societies alike. Furthermore, for Traba, these experimental context American societies. ther fit into nor express the underdeveloped of Latin in of the Instituto Ironically, she found the experimental approach prestigious Romero a of the aes Di Telia of Buenos Aires, directed by Brest, leading example thetic of deterioration in the Americas.4

Latin America could overcome its status as a cultural For Traba the only way States was to resist all artistic modes that weakened the colony of the United sig functions of as well as its and nifying and ideological art, permanence unique to favor ness. While she never abandoned the primacy of the aesthetic, she began and to the work of Latin American artists whose ideological edge ability produce links to their communities of She critical meanings required stronger origin. art of resistance in the works of found the best examples of the Obreg?n, Botero, and Beatriz Gonz?lez (Colombia), Fernando de Szyszlo (), Enrique T?bara saw as (Ecuador), and Jos? Luis Cuevas (Mexico).They had rejected what she the an on and errors of muralism and shared important emphasis mythical atempo to the and time ral elements that she found comparable mythification cyclical One Hundred Years of Solitude. These artists had in in Gabriel Garc?a M?rquez's shown, to its Traba 'swords, "the capacity pull the national reality from underdevelop ment it to a or which and transpose magical, mythical, purely imaginative level, to . . . imitation of tasks indus is considered far superior the proposed by highly art of resistance trialized societies."5 She also considered important aspects of the as a viable artistic the of the reemergence of drawing medium, exploration

humor and eroticism in art, and the "nationalization" of , which tied art to contexts. this mode specific While Traba discussed artists from different countries, she seemed to find

most art of resistance in the the definitive examples of the Colombia, country even that she constructed an artistic she knew and loved best. One might argue as the that the rest of the conti model that privileged paradigm nent should follow. The fact that radical artists elsewhere in Latin America, such a as Leon Ferrari, H?lio Oiticica, and Diamela Eltit, could successfully combine with the critical articulation of voices powerful aesthetic community suggests 3. Traba, Dos d?cadas, 57-63. that Traba had an of how art could be 4. Ibid., 63-70. incomplete understanding experimental to communities that had it. 5. Ibid., 99. meaningful the generated

88 WINTER 200? most even Perhaps the telling sign of the value of Trabas writings is that as are more "mistakes" such these often interesting than many critics' truths. Far errors a more from rendering her theories irrelevant, such demand critical read

ing of history.

Florencia Bazzano-Nelson is currently an assistant professor of Latin American art history at Georgia State University inAtlanta and was a 2004-05 J. Paul Getty Postdoctoral Fellow in the History of Art and the Humanities. She is preparing a book on Marta Traba's art criticism in the context of inter-American rela tions since the 1950s.

Both influential and controversial, the sixty-year art-critical practice of Jorge Romero was not Brest (190^-1988) fundamental only for the introduction of the idea of modern art in Latin its America but also for the problematization of crisis. Romero Brest is usually associated with the culminating point Andrea Giunta of his public career, when he directed the Centro de Artes Visuales of the Instituto Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires Romero Brest and the (CAV) (ITDT) Jorge center during the 1960s. This for cultural and scientific experimen Coordinates of Aesthetic tation was in Latin America its noteworthy for exceptional interdis in as Modernism in Latin America ciplinary approach integrating advanced research fields such the visual arts, music, theater, economics, and medicine. Romero Brest's directorship of the CAV during those years helped crystallize aesthetic thought that had been intensely shaped by the political and intellectual history

of the period. in on to Although trained physics and law, Romero Brest decided early ded icate to art in himself the study of history, which he complemented the 1930s with his first to and extensive in trips Europe readings philosophy. Argentina's situation own interest in He political during that period triggered his politics. soon work of Lenin not approached the Marx, Engels, and but would join the in to rise Socialist Party until 1945, and then only response the of Peronism.1 In 1937 he published El problemadel arte y del artista contempor?neos:Bases para su dilucidaci?n

cr?tica [The Problem of Contemporary Art and Artists: Bases for their Critical in art. Analysis], which he addressed the social agency of Romero Brest's role as an educator and lecturer in different Latin American

countries had an influential, formative role in the art criticism of those nations. Between at La was 1939 and 1947 he taught the Universidad de Plata, until he to to s fired due his opposition Per?n government. In 1941, he created the class and Artistic Research" at the "Orientation Colegio Libre de Estudios Superiores de Buenos Aires. In the 1930s, he also lectured at Montevideo's Universidad de la Rep?blica. not art criticism in a manner Romero Brest did produce systematic until came to see it as a criteria 1939, when he way of shaping public for historical and aesthetic His in valorization. essays appeared regularly the socialist newspa La per Vanguardia (1939-40), the antifascist periodical Argentina Libre (1940-46), Ver Estimar and the well-known magazine y ( 1948-^), which he published with the collaboration students as Marta of such Traba and Dami?n Carlos Bay?n, a as and network of international correspondents such Mario Pedrosa, Fernando I.The authoritarian populist government of Juan Garc?a Esteban, Mathias Goeritz, Lionello Venturi, and Max Bill, all of whom were Per?n ( 1945-55) mobilized organized labor in the service of a centralized state. its themselves extremely influential. This magazine, characterized by support for

89 art journal in a modernization the visual arts, had central role in the formation of postwar art criticism and in the dissemination of the idea of modernism in Latin

America.

In Romero Brest La in 1952 published pintura europea contempor?nea (1900-1950) a and popular amply disseminated edition. This history of European modern art, written in Spanish by a Latin American, not only explained the poetics of each movement but also out its successes to a pointed and limitations according for a malist paradigm that indicated progressive evolution toward abstraction. Both the book and Ver y Estimar implicitly supported a project of renewal for Latin American art and its in advancement the evolutionary map of modernity that

Alfred H. Barr, Jr., had defined in 1936. For Romero Brest such progress was

represented by abstraction. The Peronism were critic years of for this Argentine particularly regressive and marked isolation. Once was in by international Per?n deposed 1955, how ever, Romero Brest became the director of the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Jorge Romero Brest, Mar del Plata, exhibitions that advocated art as in In curating the future of residing abstraction. Argentina, 1981 (photograph by Juan B. P. this both his exhibition of Brazilian and work Mastropascua) regard, painting ofVictorVasarely's as functioned legitimating spaces for abstraction. However, Romero Brest did not since a initially support Informalism, this would have represented regression with to respect geometric abstraction and the paradigm of the integration of the arts with a new art. architecture and design, which for him indicated path for As professor of aesthetics and director of the Instituto de Est?tica in the Facultad de Filosof?a y Letras of the Universidad de Buenos Aires (1956?61 ), Romero Brest read in depth the work of existentialist philosophers such asMartin most controver Heidegger. These readings greatly influenced the celebrated and sial period of his professional practice during the 1960s. From this philosophical framework?for instance he examined the or art "being" "essence" of Pop using art Heideggerian concepts?Romero Brest interpreted Argentine and international of the period, formulating an interpretation of the crisis of modernity inWestern art alternative to the one criticism. that dominated hegemonic In 1963 he resigned as director of the Museo Nacional to become the head the CAV. From center artistic of newly founded this he supported experimenta tion art. and promoted the dissemination of Argentine He organized national and international invited the most in art competitions, prestigious figures the of the and cocurated the Walker Art Center time, for of Minneapolis the exhibition New Art ofArgentina, which traveled to different venues in the United States in 1964 and 1965. Despite Romero Brest's faith in abstraction, his ideas began to shift during the in to art. For art was not a 1960s response Pop him, understanding Pop matter. At the was to simple beginning, his position similar that of Clement for art was more Greenberg, whom Pop nothing than kitsch. Romero Brest, was to however, ready reconsider the fundamentals of his aesthetic in order to and follow the art his time. His comprehend of understanding of aesthetic a change implied reformulation of genealogies from which he reconceptualized the paradigm of visual modernism with the help of the philosophical instru ments of existentialism. In the 1970s, he even embraced an aesthetic of kitsch and the everyday consumption when, after closing of the ITDT, he created the cultural Fuera Centro arte consumir commercial company de Caja: de para [Outside the Box:

90 WINTER 2005 Center for Consumer This was to Art]. company dedicated the design of cups, and all kinds was not tablecloths, of everyday utensils. The design, which intrinsi to was cally related the function of each object, merely decorative and character a ized by strong na?f influence that included images of little clouds and kittens. the During 1970s, affected by the debates of the period, Romero Brest focused on Latin American art. the word to primarily Although "politics" began with in never art appear greater frequency his writings about art, he considered in relation to in political revolutionary ideas, and that sense, the intense debates about the art were a relationship between and politics of those years territory excluded from his out critical practice. Since the 1950s, the critic had pointed the representational limits of politics in art, and these had been defined by Pablo Picasso's Guernica. this art into Beyond painting, risked dissolving politics. For more than Romero Brest most sixty years, faced the profound aesthetic transformation of the art of the twentieth century with a dynamic intellect. Until the his version modernism a 1950s, of ultimately argued for unified genealogy that the art of Latin America to narrative art. integrated the central of European

With the 1960s, Romero Brest considered that, in part due to his support for the most art had to its experimental art, Argentine acquired enough maturity take at the forefront international art art in or place of along with the made Paris New York.

Andrea Giunta is a professor of Latin American contemporary art at the University of Buenos Aires and the editor of the series Arte y Pensamiento for the publisher Siglo XXI. She has received numerous grants and fellowships, including a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship and a J. Paul Getty Postdoctoral Fellowship in the History of Art and the Humanities. She has published and edited several books on Argentine art of the twentieth century.

Tom?s Ybarra-Frausto and Amalia Mesa-Bains written over have extensively the three on criticism art. past decades the history and of Chicano/a The corpus of

Ybarra-Frausto s writing has focused on defining and exploring the complexities of Chicano/a art and culture, from his early work with Barnet-Sanchez on to Holly Joseph Sommers modern Chicano writers his his torical overviews of Chicano art and written Tom?s Ybarra-Frausto and history, solo or with Two most Shifra Goldman. of his significant

Amalia Mesa-Bains: essays address the multiple roles of the vernacular in Chicano/a art: "Arte a A Critical Discourse from Within Chicano: Images of Community," ' and "Rasauachismo. a Chicano Sensibilitv." Ybarra-Frausto 's

is as a scholar and at the background literary professor University of Washington and Stanford, and a former member of the Seattle-based Teatro del Piojo [Theater I.Tom?s "Arte Chicano: the He is at Ybarra-Frausto, of Head Louse]. currently associate director of the humanities the of a in the Heart: Images Community," Signs from Rockefeller Foundation. California Chicano , ed. Eva Sperling is most as an Cockcroft and Holly Barnet-Sanchez (Venice, CA, Mesa-Bains recognized installation artist and cultural critic. and Social and Public Art Resource Albuquerque: She is a in also psychologist, former public school educator San Francisco, and Center and University of New Mexico Press, a of the MacArthur is 1993), 54-67; and "Rasquachismo, a Chicano 1992 recipient "genius" fellowship. Currently she the Sensibility," inChicano Art: Resistance and at director of the Institute of Visual and Public Art California State University, Affirmation, 1965-1985, ed. Richard Griswold del She writes about Castillo, Teresa McKenna, and Yvonne Yarbro Monterey Bay. primarily feminine and feminist creativity, partic Art Chicanas and Latinas. From in Bejarano (Los Angeles: Wight Gallery, ularly among other her early articles the alterna University of California, Los Angeles, 1991 ), tive Area press on Mexican and Chicano/a art to her on the work of 155-62. An earlier version of "Rasquachismo" Bay essays was in 1988. Carmen Lomas Ester Patricia Patssi published Judy Baca, Garza, Hernandez, Rodriguez, and

91 art journal artistic contexts Valdez, she has analyzed practice within the of memory, cultural activism recuperation and resistance, family and community, and spirituality. on Her essay "Domesticar?a: The Sensibility of Chicana Rasquache" expanded Ybarra s Frausto analysis.2 on are in Historically, these writings rasquachismo and domesticana unique the on art art small but expanding bibliography Chicano/a art, criticism, and history. are written as as They unique because?although recently 1988 and 1995?they provide the first analytical mechanisms by which to interrogate the specificities of what we seewhen we look at certain kinds of Chicano/a works of art from an a means expressly formal perspective. The essays also provide for formal analysis that is completely integrated with the content of these works of art and with

the historical, economic, political, and cultural particularities of the Chicano/a lived as resistant experience primarily working class, bicultural, bilingual, and to are vast assimilation within the United States. They also unique because the art a majority of writings about Chicano/a have, until very recently, sidestepped to at its content direct approach looking specifically form and conjunction with and context. Tom?s 2005 Ybarra-Frausto, (photograph term is not The virtually untranslatable rasquache perceived by Ybarra-Frausto provided by the Rockefeller Foundation, and Mesa-Bains as but is often defined others as its New York) kitsch, incorrectly by equiva it as lent. Ybarra-Frausto described "the aesthetic sensibility of los de abajo, of the as a to as a underdog," "visceral response lived reality" that began strategy of Mexicans Mexican Americans was survival among working-class and and later into an in transformed overarching attitude expressed much Chicano/a activist it as an in art-making. Further characterizing "attitude rooted resourcefulness stance it and adaptability, yet mindful of and style," he asserted that continuously

undermines the ideas of aesthetic autonomy.3 to to not out According Ybarra-Frausto, being rasquache "is be down but (fregadopero no jodido)."4Responding to a direct relationship with the material level existence or is a of subsistence what engenders rasquache attitude of survival and inventiveness. Mesa-Bains summarizes:

In irreverent are to rasquachismo, the and spontaneous employed make the most from the least. . . one has a stance that is both defiant and inventive.

... In its broadest sense, it is a combination of resistant and resilient atti

tudes devised to allow the Chicano to survive and persevere with a sense of dignity. The capacity to hold life together with bits of string, old coffee cans, and broken mirrors in a is at dazzling gesture of aesthetic bravado the heart . . . is an artist of rasquachismo. [It] obvious, and internally defined tool of activists.5

a irreverence on sus Mesa-Bains perceives rasquachismo "as survivalist ('based encounters a taining elements of Mexican tradition and lived in hostile envi 2. Amalia "Domesticana: The Mesa-Bains, that as a of ronment') functioned vehicle cultural continuity."6 Ybarra-Frausto Sensibility of Chicana Rasquache," inDistant two which is translated into to Relations: A Dialogue among Chicano, Irish,and posits ways by rasquachismo specific approaches Mexican Artists, ed. Trisha Ziff (New York: Smart art art-making and formal elements of Chicano/a through "recuperation and Art Press, 1996), 156-63. recontextualizations of vernacular sensibilities. ... It can be sincere and 3. "Rasquachismo," 156. pay 4. Ibid. homage to the sensibility by restating its premises," or it can be evoked through 5. "Domesticana" 156. self-conscious of materials or 6. Ibid., 158. manipulation iconography.7 7. 161. In Mesa-Bains s structures "Rasquachismo" 1996 Amalia particularized Ybarra-Frausto basic

92 WINTER 2005 within as a feminine and feminist Chicana representation domesticana, conceptual and certain women artists construct formal sensibility through which the domes tic as sphere place of both paradise and prison, of "constriction, subversion, and In emancipation, ultimately redemptive enunciation." exploring both "bar rio life" and "family experience," she included "home embellishments, home altar and or as maintenance, healing traditions, personal feminine pose style" the sites in is as a of representation Chicano homes.8 Domesticana positioned form of to as an resistance within the domestic sphere "majority culture" and "affirma tion it serves as intervention to of cultural values," yet also critique and change structures restrictions on women same those of patriarchal placed within that culture.

were not set as structures Rasquachismo and domesticana forth comprehensive to all Chicano/a art. were as applying Instead, they offered pathways for under art connec standing conceptual and visual elements of certain forms and their tion to communities came. To the from which they paraphrase Mesa-Bains, these

concepts have assisted critics to understand how Chicano/a art contributed a means of and constructing redefining?not merely reflecting?identities, world Or as wrote art con views, and ideologies. George Lipsitz recently, Chicano also stitutes a not process of art-based community-making, just community-based

art-making.9 These critics to certain analytical mechanisms have helped recognize prom inent to and seemingly ubiquitous aesthetic and other visual properties and Amalia Mesa-Bains, with a detail of her theorize how and came to be so Chicano artists. 1993 installation Venus Envy Chapter I: why they privileged by many First Holy Communion Moments before the most connect Perhaps important, rasquachismo and domesticana provide the tools for End (artwork ?Amalia Mesa-Bains, pho form, content, and context in an that bounces back and forth tograph by Idaljiza Liz-Lepiorz for the ing interplay Bread and Roses Cultural of New a Project among artist, community, work of art, and individual viewer. As result, these York's Health and Human Service Union, can also be instrumental for of such II99/SEIU) concepts understanding processes reception as art the often-instant recognition of Chicano/a within Chicano/a communi and its relative ties, inaccessibility for?and frequent misrepresentation by? numerous critics Americas. throughout the

Holly Barnet-Sanchez is an associate professor of Latin American and Latino/a, Chicano/a art history at the University of New Mexico where she currently also serves as associate dean of student affairs and technology for the College of Fine Arts. She has written on exhibition practices, civil rights/community murals, and Chicano/a graphic arts and is currently writing a book with community murals historian Tim Drescher on the Estrada Courts murals in East Los Angeles. Inaddition to being one of the coeditors for the proposed anthology Latin American and Chicano/a Art Criticism since the 1940s: Between Modemiity and Globalization, she will contribute the essay on Shifra Goldman's Chicano/a art criticism.

8. "Domesticana," 162, 160. 9. George Lipsitz, "Not JustAnother Poster Movement: Poster Art and the Movimiento Chicano," inJust Another Poster? Chicano Graphic Arts inCalifornia, exh. cat., ed. Chon A. Noriega (Santa Barbara: University Art Museum, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2001), 71-87.

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