ABSTRACT

This edited volume examines the history of abstract art across Latin America after 1945. This form of art grew in popularity across the Americas in the postwar period, often serving to affirm a sense of being modern and the right of Latin America to assume the leading role Europe had played before World War II. Latin American artists practiced gestural and geometric abstraction, though the history of art has favored the latter. Recent scholarship, for instance, has focused on geometric abstraction from Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela. The book aims to expand the map and consider this phenomenon as it developed in neglected regions such as Central America and the Andes, investigatinghow this style came to stand in for Latin American contemporary art.

chapter |7 pages

Introduction

part I|57 pages

Gestural Abstractions

chapter 1|14 pages

Informalism between Surrealism and Concrete Art

Aldo Pellegrini and the Promotion of Modern Art in Buenos Aires during the 1950s

chapter 3|25 pages

The Painting Devoured

El Techo de la Ballena and the Destruction of Venezuelan Informalism

part II|70 pages

New Visions of Geometric Abstraction

chapter 4|15 pages

The Fotoforma Exhibition at MASP, 1951

Geraldo de Barros and the Museum-School 1

chapter 5|20 pages

Negotiating Afro-Brazilian Abstraction

Rubem Valentim in Rio, Rome, and Dakar, 1957–1966

chapter 6|17 pages

Fighting for the Abstract

Manuel de la Cruz González and Geometric Abstraction in Costa Rica

chapter 7|16 pages

Beyond Abstraction

The Work of Vicente Rojo, Kazuya Sakai, and Manuel Felguérez during the 1970s

part III|51 pages

Nuestra América

chapter 10|16 pages

Public ‘Lifescapes’

Gonzalo Fonseca’s Designs for Life and Play (1964–1969)

part IV|51 pages

Abstraction and the Avant-Garde

chapter 11|17 pages

From Sacrilegious Black to Chromatic System

The Argentinean Monochrome

chapter 12|17 pages

Antagonistic Environments

Gendered Spaces and the Kinetic Installations of Colombian Artists Feliza Bursztyn, Jacqueline Nova, and Julia Acuña

chapter 13|15 pages

Vontade Construtiva

Latin America’s Geometric Abstract Identity