Latin America

Read text by Daniel Garza Usabiaga in which they share the journey of Ángela Gurría’s practice. This text was shared alongside for the solo ‘Escuchar la materia’.

The solo exhibition ‘La tierra habla’ followed Mendieta’s journey to three different sites in Cuba: Jaruco, Varadero, and Guanabo. Following the completion of her now well-known ‘Silueta Series’ (1973–80), the artist’s works in Cuba demonstrate an evolving, more sculpturally-inclined practice as well as her increasing comfort with working on a grander scale.

This exhibition was Carlos Garaicoa’s debut exhibition at Goodman Gallery, London. Garaicoa is one of Cuba’s most significant contemporary artists. Through a multidisciplinary approach, Garaicoa addresses issues of culture and politics with a reflexive lens into architecture, urbanism and history.

Histórias afro-atlânticas (Afro-Atlantic Histories) was the second in the “historias” series, taking place across two major venues in São Paulo in 2018 – Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand (MASP) and Instituto Tomie Ohtake. The exhibition was motivated by an exploration of parallels and frictions across what Paul Gilroy termed the Black Atlantic, considering the visual cultures of Afro-Atlantic territories – their experiences, creations, patterns of worship and philosophy.

The 32nd Bienal de São Paulo, INCERTEZA VIVA (Live Uncertainty), in 2016 proposed to look at notions of uncertainty and the strategies offered by contemporary art to embrace or inhabit it.

Under the Same Sun: Art from Latin America Today, forming part of the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative, presented a nuanced reconsideration of contemporary art in Latin America. According to curator Pablo León de la Barra, this extensive show aimed to present “a diversity of creative responses to a rich cultural context shaped by colonialism, civil conflict, economic crisis, social inequality, and repression – as well as by intervals of growth and the emergence of parallel modernities”.

In a powerful research project initiated by Astrup Fearnley Museet, Imagine Brazil showcased Brazilian contemporary art through a compelling curatorial approach. Exhibition curators Gunnar B. Kvaran, Hans Ulrich Obrist and Thierry Raspail invited a group of emergent Brazilian artists to produce new work, and in addition select an older artist who they considered influential, to accompany them in the exhibition.

The Bienal de la Habana, when first established in 1984 offered a singular and crucial meeting place for art from the region, exhibiting artists solely from Latin America and the Caribbean. In the second edition in 1986, the Bienal included art from Africa, Asia and the Middle East, becoming one of the most important platforms for artists from outside the West.