Copyright by Abigail Gena Winograd 2015
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Copyright by Abigail Gena Winograd 2015 The Dissertation Committee for Abigail Gena Winograd Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: REFRAMING LATIN AMERICA: CURATORIAL PRACTICE AND LATIN AMERICAN ART SINCE 1992 Committee: Eddie Chambers, Supervisor Andrea Giunta, Co-Supervisor Janice Leoshko George Flaherty Roberto Tejada REFRAMING LATIN AMERICA: CURATORIAL PRACTICE AND LATIN AMERICAN ART SINCE 1992 by Abigail Gena Winograd, B.A.; M.A.; M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May, 2015 Dedication For Dr. Herman and Aileen Tuchman, I only wish you could have been here at the end. Acknowledgements This effort would have been impossible without the help of dozens of people. In lieu of listing them all, I would like to thank a few in particular. First and most important among them is my mother, Shila Tuchman, whose constant love, support, and guidance were indispensable to the completion of my dissertation. There is no way this project would have reached a conclusion without her. Mom, words can truly not express how wonderful you are. I would be remiss in not mentioning my brother, Jesse Winograd, for his love and encouragement. Sadly, my grandparents, Dr. Herman and Aileen Tuchman, both passed away shortly before the completion of my dissertation. My grandmother’s love of art was a constant presence in her home, her life, and in our life together. In one way or another, this effort belongs almost entirely to her. It was my grandfather’s constant encouragement and insistence on the importance of my work that often brought me back from the verge of abandoning this process entirely. I miss them both terribly and am tremendously saddened I was unable to finish in time to show them what they have made possible. We do not choose our families but I was given an incomparably loving, thoughtful, and brilliant one. I am forever in their debt. The community of scholars at the University of Texas has been an invaluable resource in this endeavor. A few individuals in particular have made thie project a success. The constant direction, consultation, and advise of my supervisors, Drs. Andrea Giunta and Eddie Chambers, has been essential. Likewise, my sincerest gratitude goes to the other members of my dissertation committee, Drs. Janice Leoshko, Roberto Tejada, and George Flaherty, whose interest and encouragement has been gratifying and edifying all at once. Their guidance and support were a constant source of inspiration. I would also like to acknowledge the students of the Center for Latin American Visual Studies at the v University of Texas, especially Luis Vargas-Santiago and Doris Bravo with whom I began this journey, for giving me a forum to discuss this project, for giving me wise counsel, and excellent feedback. I would also like to thank Kathleen McKenna for her editorial advice. Finally, thank you to Dieter Roelstraete for his love and indispensable intellectual support. vi REFRAMING LATIN AMERICA: CURATORIAL PRACTICE AND LATIN AMERICAN ART SINCE 1992 Abigail Gena Winograd, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2015 Supervisor: Eddie Chambers Co-Supervisor: Andrea Giunta This dissertation presents a comparative analysis of institutional policy towards Latin American art after 1992. Specifically, this study examines several concurrent phenomena: the increased visibility of Latin American artists in institutions, a rise in academic and scholarly attention, growing numbers of collectors, and an extraordinary growth in the overall art market in the 1990s that dramatically increased the value of Latin American art. Though the expanded interest in Latin American art was wide- spread, four institutions – The Museum of Modern Art, New York (MoMA), the Museum of Fine Arts Houston (MFAH), the Tate Modern, London, and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid – invested heavily in acquisitions and widely exhibited cultural production from the region. Though the impulse for strengthening institutional commitment to Latin America in Europe and North America resulted from factors arising from similar geopolitical and theoretical circumstances, these four museums approached developing their stake in Latin American art quite differently in a debate which was often contentious. Their rivalry emerged in an increasingly globalized art world, yet each institution remained committed to a notion of Latin America as a discrete cultural entity, the research and exhibition of which would allow each museum to vii assert its dominance as a leader in the field. In order to do so, each institution charted a different course marked by distinct aesthetic and curatorial choices that resulted in the establishment of competing maps (temporal, historical, and geographic) of Latin America. This involved a redrawing of the cultural maps which privileged a horizontal, transatlantic exchange over transcontinental or diagonal transatlantic dialogue. It also involved attempts to renovate or erase previously held notions of Latin American art as primitive, fantastic, or both. By emphasizing particular eras and styles, each case study institution created architectures of knowledge based on a particular idea of Latin American identity and culture. In doing so, they attempted to capture the symbolic capital inherent in defining a regional identity. The institutional and curatorial practice of these museums was emblematic of the confrontational and increasingly contentious debate regarding the relationship of Latin American art to modernity. viii Table of Contents List of Figures ....................................................................................................... xii Introduction: “The Boom” Aftershocks and Ramifications .....................................1 Theoretical Considerations .............................................................................7 Geography Matters ...............................................................................10 The Museum as Political Space ...........................................................11 Creating Narratives, Heterotopic Spaces .............................................16 Revisiting the Archive .........................................................................22 On a Case-by-Case Basis ..............................................................................23 Chapter 1: Shifting Paradigms: Globalization and Multiculturalism in the 1990s 32 Shifting Geopolitical Sands: A New World Order .......................................33 The Columbian quincentennial and the Revision of World history .............39 1992: A Pivotal Turning point ......................................................................44 “The Age of Fracture”: Intellectual Development and the Emergence of Multiculturalism ...................................................................................48 Changes in Institutional and Artistic Practice in the 1990s: A Brief Genealogy ..............................................................................................................59 Chapter 2: The Specter of the Museum of Modern Art ........................................68 Latin American Artists of the Twentieth Century: After the Quincentennial: A Recommitment .....................................................................................68 ‘And other countries’: A Brief History of Latin American art at the Museum of Modern Art ...........................................................................................71 Exhibitions and Collections: 1929-1992 .......................................................80 Relationship to Mexico ........................................................................80 The Responsive Eye .............................................................................81 Information ..........................................................................................84 The Permanent Collection .............................................................................85 After Latin American Artists of the Twentieth Century: Exhibitions, 1992- Present ..................................................................................................92 The Project Series (1990-2014) ...........................................................92 ix Solo Exhibitions ...................................................................................93 MoMA at El Museo (2004) ..................................................................93 Modern Starts (2000) ...........................................................................95 New Perspectives in Latin American Art 1930-2006 (2006) .............100 Conclusion ..................................................................................................100 Chapter 3: A New Canon for Latin American Art ...............................................103 Mari Carmen Ramírez and the Museum of Fine Arts Houston ...........................103 A Curatorial Manifesto: “Beyond the Fantastic” ........................................107 The Constellar Model: Challenging the Survey ..........................................111 Cultivating Relationships: Collection Exhibitions at The MFAH ..............126 A Stable of Stars .........................................................................................128 A New Map of Latin America ....................................................................133