13.296 ICAA Working Papers3.rd4:13.296 ICAA Working Papers3.rd4.qxd 12/2/13 4:19 PM Page 1 ICAA Documents Project Working Papers The Publication Series for Documents of 20th-Century Latin American and Latino Art Number 3 November 2013 13.296 ICAA Working Papers3.rd4:13.296 ICAA Working Papers3.rd4.qxd 12/2/13 4:19 PM Page 3 Number 3 November 2013 ICAA Documents Project Working Papers The Publication Series for Documents of 20th-Century Latin American and Latino Art CONTENTS The ICAA Documents Project Working Papers series brings together papers stemming from the Documents of 20th- Century Latin American and Latino Art Project at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. It also serves as the official vehicle to assemble and distribute related research by the Center’s team of researchers, staff, and affiliates. 2 INTRODUCTION PARTISAN LIFE AND REVOLUTIONARY PRACTICE: Series Editor: María C. Gaztambide, Cover: Tomás Maldonado, detail of For more information, please contact: THE PLACE OF IDEOLOGY IN NONOBJECTIVE ARGENTINEAN ART AND ICAA/MFAH Sin título, c. 1945, tempera on board, The International Center CONCEPTUAL CHILEAN HAPPENINGS 79 x 60 cm, private collection, Buenos Aires. Number 3 Editor: Marcela C. Guerrero, for the Arts of the Americas (ICAA) Marcela C. Guerrero, Research Coordinator, ICAA/MFAH Back Cover: No +, Art Action (Mapocho The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston International Center for the Arts of the Americas, MFAH P.O. Box 6826, Houston, TX 77265-6826 Design: Graciela Constanza, MFAH River), Santiago, 1983. CADA video still. © CADA / Lotty Rosenfeld, 2013 Telephone: 1 (713) 639-1529; © 2013 International Center for the Arts Fax: 1 (713) 800-5385; 3 ART FOR PARTISAN LIFE: of the Americas, Museum of Fine Arts, NONOBJECTIVITY TRANSLATED TO BUENOS AIRES, 1944–48 [email protected] Houston. All rights reserved. Sean Nesselrode, Winner of the Peter C. Marzio Award for ICAA Documents of 20th-Century Latin American and Latino Art Project Outstanding Research in 20th-Century Latin American and Latino Art, Graduate Student Essay PROJECT ADMINISTRATION AND STAFF Michely Vogel, Digital Librarian/Cataloguer, Tahía Rivero Ponte, Fundación Mercantil, Gary Tinterow, Director, MFAH ICAA (2007–2011) Caracas, Venezuela Peter C. Marzio, Ph.D., Maribel Secco de Herrera, Victor A. Sorell, Independent Scholar, CADA: A REVOLUTIONARY PRACTICE Director, MFAH (1982–2010) Assistant Cataloguer Chicago, Illinois 15 Gwendolyn H. Goffe, Interim Director Edward Sullivan, Ph.D., New York University, Molly Moog, Winner of the Peter C. Marzio Award for (2010–2011) and Associate Director, DOCUMENTS PROJECT EDITORIAL BOARD New York City, New York Outstanding Research in 20th-Century Latin American and Zuleiva Vivas, Independent Scholar, Caracas, Investment and Finance, MFAH Beverly Adams, Ph.D., The Diane and Bruce Latino Art, Undergraduate Student Essay Mari Carmen Ramírez, Ph.D., Director, Halle Collection, Scottsdale, Arizona Venezuela (2003–2010) ICAA, and Wortham Curator of Latin Gilberto Cárdenas, Ph.D., Institute for Tomás Ybarra-Frausto, Ph.D., Independent American Art, MFAH Latino Studies, University of Notre Dame, Scholar, San Antonio, Texas María C. Gaztambide, Documents Project South Bend, Indiana 24 CONTRIBUTORS Director and Senior Research and Karen Cordero, Ph.D., CURARE, Espacio crítico DOCUMENTS PROJECT STEERING COMMITTEE Publications Associate, ICAA para las artes/Universidad Iberoamericana, Esther Acevedo, Ph.D., CURARE, Espacio Helvetia Martell, Documents Project Director Mexico City, Mexico crítico para las artes, Mexico City, Mexico 25 SPONSORS and Chief Bibliographer (2006–2009), ICAA Olivier Debroise, Museo Universitario de Patricia Artundo, Ph.D., Fundación Espigas, Marcela C. Guerrero, Ciencias y Artes, UNAM, Mexico City Buenos Aires, Argentina (2004–2007) Research Coordinator, ICAA (2004–2008) Ana Maria Belluzzo, Ph.D., Universidade Bonnie van Zoest, Documents Project Fabiola López-Durán, Ph.D., Rice University, de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil Administrator, ICAA Houston, Texas Gustavo Buntix, Independent Curator and Nora Nava Heymann, Diane Lovejoy, Publications Department, Scholar, Lima, Peru (2004–2010) Copyrights Coordinator, ICAA MFAH, Houston, Texas Pilar García de Germenos, CURARE, Espacio María B. McGreger, Research/Technical Natalia Majluf, Ph.D., crítico para las artes, Mexico City, Mexico Assistant, ICAA Museo de Arte de Lima, Peru María C. Gaztambide, ICAA, MFAH, Marie Rodríguez, Technical Assistant Ivo Mesquita, Pinacoteca do Estado, Houston, Texas (2010–2013), ICAA São Paulo, Brazil (2009–2011) Tracy Grimm, Institute for Latino Studies, Yvonne Zepeda, Documents Project Chon Noriega, Ph.D., Chicano Studies Research University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana Technical Assistant, ICAA Center, UCLA, Los Angeles, California María Elena Huizi, Independent Scholar, Diane Lovejoy, Publications Director, MFAH James Oles, Ph.D., Wellesley College, Caracas, Venezuela Melina Kervandjian, Ph.D., Wellesley, Massachusetts María Iovino, Independent Scholar, Senior Editor, MFAH Marcelo Pacheco, MALBA-Colección Costantini, Bogotá, Colombia (2008–2009) Héctor Olea, Ph.D., Translations and Buenos Aires, Argentina Carmen María Jaramillo, Universidad Publications Editor, ICAA & MFAH Justo Pastor Mellado, Independent Scholar, Jorge Tadeo Lozano, Bogotá, Colombia Shemon Bar-Tal, Santiago, Chile (2003–2010) Alberto Madrid Letelier, Ph.D., Universidad Chief Technology Officer, MFAH Ivonne Pini, Editor ArtNexus, and de Playa Ancha, Valparaíso, Chile Dave Thompson, Database and Business Universidad Nacional/Universidad Josefina Manrique, Independent Scholar, Intelligence Manager, MFAH de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia Caracas, Venezuela Bruno Favaretto, Database/Website Mari Carmen Ramírez, Ph.D., Director ICAA, Tere Romo, Chicano Studies Research Center, Developer, Base7, São Paulo, Brazil MFAH, Houston, Texas UCLA, Los Angeles, California Luz Muñoz-Rebolledo, Chief Digital Librarian/Cataloguer, ICAA 1 13.296 ICAA Working Papers3.rd4:13.296 ICAA Working Papers3.rd4.qxd 12/2/13 4:19 PM Page 2 PARTISAN LIFE AND REVOLUTIONARY PRACTICE : T HE PLACE OF IDEOLOGY IN NONOBJECTIVE ARGENTINEAN ART AND CONCEPTUAL CHILEAN HAPPENINGS Marcela C. Guerrero In this third edition of the ICAA Documents Project Working and the subsequent offshoot collective Asociación Arte Concreto- Papers , the ICAA is delighted to highlight the two winning essays Invención [Association of Concrete Art–Invention], the author of the first installment of the Peter C. Marzio Award for argues that Argentine artists such as Maldonado took full Outstanding Research in 20th-Century Latin American and Latino advantage of the deracination of nonobjectivity and the Art. Named after the late director of the Museum of Fine Arts, movement’s lag time in arriving to Argentina, and pushed Houston, who was a champion of the ICAA since its inception in nonfigurative painting to new extremes. Its most radical 2001, the award recognizes creative new scholarship in this field. reformulation, as Nesselrode argues, was the shaped canvas The best graduate student essay and best undergraduate student imbued with ideological underpinnings that responded to a paper awards were generously underwritten by The Transart belief in Marxist dialectical materialism. With intelligent use Foundation for Art and Anthropology, a private nonprofit organi - of archival texts readily available in the ICAA Documents Project zation based in Houston that supports the creative process of digital archive, Nesselrode documents how deeply invested the contemporary artists and scholars who integrate advanced and concreto-invencionistas were in projecting a nonfigurative art relevant social, anthropological, or cultural research in their that did not merely fulfill an artistic program but that sought work. Each essay had to produce outstanding academic knowl - to have an impact in the daily reality of Argentineans. edge based on the newly published primary-source materials available from the digital archive Documents of 20th-Century Ideology is also at the forefront of Molly Moog’s “CADA: A Latin American and Latino Art and its companion book series, Revolutionary Practice,” an essay that stems from her undergrad - Critical Documents of 20th-Century Latin American and Latino Art . uate thesis written under the supervision of Dr. Angela Miller at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, and approved in After receiving close to a dozen papers in the summer of 2012, spring 2012. In her essay, Moog analyzes how the “NO +” slogan, the ICAA asked a group of three distinguished scholars of Latin originally developed in 1983 by the Chilean group Colectivo American art—all members of the editorial board of the ICAA Acciones de Arte [Arts Action Collective], or CADA, became a Documents Project—to select the winning essays based, princi - means of raising awareness of the politicization of public space pally, on those that best used the documents available on the during the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973–90). digital archive and book series. The jury also upheld parameters In the several art happenings that CADA organized from 1979 to such as the ability to communicate a persuasive and cogent 1985—the period they were active—and that the author discuss - argument on any topic regarding 20th-century Latin American es in her essay, it becomes evident that the artists collective was and/or Latino art, and the ability to comply with the formatting particularly deft at co-opting the codes of the official discourse and image