by Jon Lackman | 23 March 2010 | Uncategorized
ARTnews editor Robin Cembalest writes:
In the United States, the art made in Spain’s Latin American colonies used to be considered artistically minor and politically incorrect. Now, as intellectual trends coincide with demographic realities, it’s on the cutting edge of art history – and the wish lists of top museums … The promise, mystery, and challenge of colonial Latin American art are luring not only a growing number of graduate students but also veteran art historians who built their careers in European art … “It’s an intellectually vibrant field with a whole new set of issues, objects, problems,” says Tom Cummins, chair of Harvard’s department of the history of art and architecture … The rise of interest in colonial Latin American art reflects the influence of fields like anthropology, archeology, and cultural studies on art history … Jonathan Brown, an authority on Spanish art … does see Latin American colonial as the first global art form. “At the bottom of this is a major change in the way that art historians are looking at their subject,” he says. “People are starting to conceive of transnational entities that bring into play areas that have been overlooked by Western art historians. There’s a much broader understanding of how art objects are used as commerce, a means of currying favor, of reinforcing belief” … Meanwhile, at LACMA, [curator Ilona] Katzew is organizing the first major survey of images both of and by indigenous peoples across Latin America. “It’s kind of amazing, but it hasn’t been done in a show or a book” yet, she says. That’s the great thing about the field, she adds. “You can just sink your teeth into practically any subject you like, and you’re going to make a major contribution.”
