Ticio Escobar: Towards a Popular Art

What theoretical and political exigencies framed the discussions of Latin American art in the 1970s, and what are the afterlives of those formations today? This Dialogues traces a constellation of curators and scholars that participated in the articulation of the field of modern and contemporary Latin American art, paying attention to experimentation and the ways coloniality haunt its development. Authors analyze episodes in the formation of the field, including a prominent international symposium, an audiovisual display as curatorial intervention, and the redefinition of popular art, as well as troubling the subordination of Black art. George Flaherty and Adele Nelson discuss the intensive questioning that constituted the Austin Symposium in 1975, drawing on the previously understudied audio recordings of the conference. Camila Maroja reconsiders the controversial audiovisual presentation by Ángel Kalenberg at the Tenth Paris Biennial (1977) with a view to the transnational cultural politics of the period. Karen Benezra offers that Ticio Escobar’s multidecade reconception of popular art grants space for art by communities historically excluded from both art and the mestizo nation, notably the Ishir Indigenous people of Paraguay. Eddie Chambers issues a challenge and reflects on the limited degree to which the contributions of African-descended artists have been recognized by historians of Latin American art, focusing on Brazil and Cuba. Together these texts propose that questioning and unresolvability can serve as both tools and reminders of the size and significance of the ontinued work required of the field of modern and contemporary Latin American art.