17.351 ICAA Working Papers 5.rd3.qxp_17.351 ICAA Working Papers 5.rd3 11/8/17 10:00 AM Page 1 ICAA Documents Project Working Papers The Publication Series for Documents of 20th-Century Latin American and Latino Art Number 5 December 2017 17.351 ICAA Working Papers 5.rd3.qxp_17.351 ICAA Working Papers 5.rd3 11/8/17 10:00 AM Page 2 Number 5 December 2017 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 Beatriz R. Olivetti, Research and Digital Experience Specialist, Series Editor: María C. Gaztambide, Front cover (see also p. 7, fig. 3) : For more information, please contact: International Center for the Arts of the Americas, MFAH ICAA/MFAH Luis Fernando Benedit, Proyecto huevos , The International Center 1976–77, installation view. Number 5 Editor: María C. Gaztambide , for the Arts of the Americas (ICAA) SIGNS , S YSTEMS , C ONTEXTS : T HE CENTRO DE ARTE Y COMUNICACIÓN ICAA/MFAH Back cover (detail) and p. 18 : Marta Minujín, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston 3 P.O. Box 6826, Houston, TX 77265-6826 AT THE SÃO PAULO BIENAL , 1977 Design : Graciela Araujo, MFAH Movimiento Interior [Internal Movement], 1960, sand, pigments, cardboard, pyroxilin Telephone: 713-639-1528 Julia Detchon, Winner of the Peter C. Marzio Award for © 2017 International Center for the Arts shellac, chalk, and carpenter’s glue on Fax: 713-800-5385 Outstanding Research in 20th-Century Latin American of the Americas, Museum of Fine Arts, canvas, 60 x 80 cm, collection of Lilian [email protected] and Latino Art, Graduate Student Essay Houston. All rights reserved. and Mario Rodero, Buenos Aires. ICAA Documents of 20th-Century Latin American and Latino Art Project 14 REMEMBERING MARTA MINUJÍN ’S INFORMALISMO : M EMORY AND POLITICS PROJECT ADMINISTRATION AND STAFF DOCUMENTS PROJECT EDITORIAL BOARD IN THE ART OF POST -P ERONIST ARGENTINA Gary Tinterow , Director, MFAH Beverly Adams, Ph.D. , Adjunct Curator of Michaela de Lacaze, Winner of the Peter C. Marzio Award for Mari Carmen Ramírez, Ph.D. , Director, Latin American Art, The Blanton Museum of Outstanding Research in 20th-Century Latin American and ICAA, and Wortham Curator of Latin Art at The University of Texas at Austin Latino Art, Honorable Mention Essay American Art, MFAH Gilberto Cárdenas, Ph.D. , Institute for María C. Gaztambide, Ph.D. , Latino Studies, University of Notre Dame, Associate Director, ICAA South Bend, Indiana Héctor Olea, Ph.D. , Translations and Karen Cordero, Ph.D. , Universidad 24 CONTRIBUTORS Publications Editor, ICAA & MFAH Iberoamericana, Mexico City, Mexico Beatriz R. Olivetti , Research and Digital Fabiola López-Durán, Ph.D. , Rice University, Experience Specialist, ICAA Houston, Texas Bonnie van Zoest , Latin American Art and ICAA Diane Lovejoy , Publications Department, Project Administrator, ICAA MFAH, Houston, Texas Nora A. Heymann , Copyrights Coordinator, ICAA Natalia Majluf, Ph.D. , María B. McGreger , Imaging and Web Content Museo de Arte de Lima, Peru Specialist, ICAA Chon Noriega, Ph.D. , Chicano Studies Research J. Angel Carrazco , Technical Assistant, ICAA Center, UCLA, Los Angeles, California Yvonne Zepeda , Documents Project Technical James Oles, PhD , Wellesley College, Assistant, ICAA Wellesley, Massachusetts Diane Lovejoy , Publisher in Chief, MFAH Marcelo Pacheco , MALBA-Colección Costantini, Shemon Bar-Tal , Chief Technology Officer, Buenos Aires, Argentina MFAH Ivonne Pini , Editor ArtNexus , and Bruno Favaretto , Database/Website Universidad Nacional/Universidad Developer, Base7, São Paulo, Brazil de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia Luz Muñoz-Rebolledo , Chief Digital Mari Carmen Ramírez, Ph.D. , ICAA/MFAH, Librarian/Cataloguer, ICAA Houston, Texas Tahía Rivero Ponte , Fundación Mercantil, Caracas, Venezuela Víctor A. Sorell , Independent Scholar, Chicago, Illinois Edward Sullivan, Ph.D. , New York University, New York City, New York Susana Torruella Leval , Independent Scholar, New York City, New York Tomás Ybarra-Frausto, Ph.D. , Independent Scholar, San Antonio, Texas 1 17.351 ICAA Working Papers 5.rd3.qxp_17.351 ICAA Working Papers 5.rd3 11/8/17 10:00 AM Page 2 INTRODUCTION Beatriz R. Olivetti This fifth edition of the ICAA Documents Project Working Papers Writing from Columbia University, New York, Michaela de Lacaze highlights two winning essays of the Peter C. Marzio Award for reconstructs and investigates the discursive field and reception Outstanding Research in 20th-century Latin American and Latino of Informalismo in Argentina during the 1960s through a deep Art: “Signs, Systems, Contexts: The Centro de Arte y Comunicación analysis of the artist Marta Minujín’s little-known early works. at the São Paulo Bienal, 1977,” by Julia Detchon, and The author argues that Minujín’s special circumstances as a “Remembering Marta Minujín’s Informalismo: Memory and latecomer to this movement, paired with the artist’s rejection of Politics in the Art of Post-Peronist Argentina,” by Michaela de transcendentalist values, allowed her to reference what the artist Lacaze. In keeping with support for Latin American and Latino viewed as a flawed social memory in Argentinean society in her art extended by the late director of the Museum of Fine Arts, body of work. De Lacaze focuses her analysis on Minujín’s first Houston, Peter C. Marzio, the Award aims to recognize, reward, Informalist paintings, completed between 1960 and 1961, which and enable new scholarship in the field. Chosen by a jury of the author states differed greatly from other more expressive distinguished scholars, these essays draw from the primary and arte informal works as they “possessed the unmistakable density critical resources available through the Documents of 20th- of concrete sidewalks and public walls—a dumb, obdurate solidi- Century Latin American and Latino Art project’s digital archive. ty.” The fissures, holes, and blotches in Minujín’s works, argues De Lacaze, depict the precarious foundation in which walls and Julia Detchon analyzes the development of a Latin American sidewalks are built in Argentinean urban settings. In this critical brand of conceptual art in Argentina during the second half of way, Minujín effectively reconnected this art movement with the 20th century in her essay. Drawn from her master’s thesis at Argentina’s own historical context. Ultimately, De Lacaze argues the University of Texas, Austin—“Latin American Conceptualism that Minujín’s Informalist works were her own expression of the and the Problem of Ideology: The Centro de Arte y Comunicación de-Peronization campaign of the years following the Revolución at the São Paulo Bienal, 1977,” which she successfully defended Libertadora of 1955. in 2016—Detchon’s analysis considers the construction of an international narrative of conceptualism in the region from the The ICAA is delighted to feature both essays as part of the lens of CAYC’s publications and activities during the 1970s. The Documents Project Working Papers series and is proud to serve author explicates how CAYC’s founder Jorge Glusberg’s strategy as a key platform for accessing the growing body of knowledge of promoting international exchanges between the center and on the field of Latin American and Latino art. The Peter C. Marzio art scholars, critics, and artists followed a strict “theoretical Award is generously underwritten by The Transart Foundation framework of structuralism” (from which “systems art” origi- for Art and Anthropology, a private nonprofit organization based nates). Ultimately, CAYC’s controversial participation in the XIV in Houston dedicated to the support of contemporary artists and São Paulo Bienal in 1977 is evidence of Glusberg’s institutional scholars who integrate advanced and relevant social, anthropo- use of politics to introduce CAYC and those related to “systems logical, or cultural research in their work. art” to broader international art networks. Opposite: detail of fig. 1, p. 5. 2 17.351 ICAA Working Papers 5.rd3.qxp_17.351 ICAA Working Papers 5.rd3 11/8/17 10:00 AM Page 4 SIGNS, SYSTEMS, CONTEXTS: Biennial Politics MICLA to produce the self-published book Contrabienal, which In this area, CAYC’s objectives aligned with those of the São Paulo circulated as an alternative exhibition comprised of prints, letters, THE CENTRO DE ARTE Y COMUNICACIÓN AT THE SÃO PAULO BIENAL, 1977 Bienal. Founded by the Brazilian industrialist Francisco “Ciccillo” and evidence of political repression (fig. 2).8 In Contrabienal, Gordon Julia Detchon Matarazzo Sobrinho in 1951, the first Bienal Internacional de São Matta-Clark published an open letter exhorting artists to withdraw Paulo consciously modeled itself on the Venice Biennale. Matarazzo their works from the Bienal, which “shamefully lent weight to that had partnered with Nelson Rockefeller and the Museum of Modern totalitarian government and its allies.”9 The letter also implicates Art in New York three years prior to found the Museu de Arte Glusberg, in his role of inviting artists to participate through the Moderna de São Paulo (MAM-SP), which sponsored the new biennial CAYC exhibition Arte de Sistemas: In 1977, a group of Argentinean artists affiliated with the Centro de Glusberg wrote in an early exhibition catalogue, from 1972, “I believe and shaped its emphasis on modern art. While Rockefeller’s principal Arte y Comunicación (CAYC) in Buenos Aires won the Itamaraty Grand that the current languages, created by man out of his necessity to role in founding MAM-SP links the institution inextricably to projects Of those who were invited by Jorge Glusberg to participate in Prize at the XIV São Paulo Bienal—the first ever awarded to Latin communicate, have a common denominator that I have termed of American cultural expansion under the Good Neighbor Policy, the São Paulo Bienal, the majority have already expressed their American entrants.