P A N A M E R I C A N M O D E R N I S M

AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES EL ARTE DE VANGUARDIA EN AMÉRICA LATINA Y LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS

UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI LOWE ART MUSEUM

PA N A M E R I C A N M O D E R N I S M
AVA N T - G A R D E A R T I N L A T I N A M E R I C A A N D T H E U N I T E D S T A T E S
E L A RT E D E VA N G U A R D I A E N A M É R I C A L AT I N A Y L O S E S TA D O S U N I D O S

Nathan J. Timpano

CONTRIBUTORS:

Heather Diack
Edward J. Sullivan

EDITED BY:

Patricia García-Vélez Hanna

Published on the occasion of the exhibition, Pan American
Modernism: Avant-Garde Art in Latin America and the
United States, June 22 through October 13, 2013.
Organized by Nathan J. Timpano, Ph.D.
©2013 The Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami.
No part of this publication may be reprinted or reproduced
in any form, by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, or by any storage or retrieval
system, without the written permission of the Lowe Art
Museum, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida 33124.
Funding for the exhibition and catalogue was made possible
through Beaux Arts, Friends of Art, and the membership of TABLE OF CONTENTS
the Lowe Art Museum, with additional support from the
Linnie E. Dalbeck Memorial Foundation Trust.
Additional programmatic support is provided through the FOREWORD. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Department of Cultural Affairs, the Miami-Dade Mayor and Brian A. Dursum
Board of County Commissioners, support from Beaux Arts,
Friends of Art, and the general membership of the Lowe
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Art Museum.
Nathan J. Timpano

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013946399 INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

ISBN: 978-0-9894684-0-4 Nathan J. Timpano

Designed by Chris Rogers, Yazi PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: DIALOGUES, COMMONALITIES, DISCONNECTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Catalogue photography by Daniel Portnoy Nathan J. Timpano
Spanish translation by The Language Corner

Printed by NuPress of Miami, Inc. GEOMETRY AND GESTURE: NOTES ON ABSTRACTIONS IN THE AMERICAS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Edward J. Sullivan
Notes:
In dimensions, height precedes width and depth. BODY OF EVIDENCE: THE MODERNISMS OF MANUEL ÁLVAREZ BRAVO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Heather Diack

CATALOGUE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Part 1: Dialogues. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
COVER (Catalogue No. 71):
Part 2: Commonalities & Disconnects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
KENNETH NOLAND
b. 1924, Asheville, North Carolina
CONTRIBUTORS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
d. 2010, Port Clyde, Maine
Untitled, 1968 MUSEUM STAFF. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
screen print on linen
16 3⁄4 x 47 1⁄2 in. (42.5 x 120.7 cm)
REFERENCES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Martin B. Grossman, 85.0131
Cover Art © Estate of Kenneth Noland/Licensed by
VAGA, New York, NY
 FOREWORD
Drawn from the Lowe Art Museum’s permanent collection, the exhibition, Pan American Modernism: Avant-Garde Art in Latin America and the
United States, features seventy-five paintings, sculptures, photographs, and works on paper produced between 1919 and 1979. Commemorating
the Lowe’s longstanding commitment to collecting and exhibiting art from Latin America, the original concept for the exhibition was to include
works exclusively from this region.

Rather than focusing our attention entirely on one area of the hemispheric region, the decision was made to “cast the net” more broadly and
organize an exhibition that would demonstrate artistic developments in the hemisphere as a whole. Dr. Nathan Timpano, the exhibition’s curator,
enthusiastically embraced the overarching concept of the exhibition selecting works that clearly demonstrate the rich diversity of artistic expression
that emerged throughout the continents, and the sometimes surprising crosscurrents that informed the featured artists.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Dr. Timpano, for agreeing, two years ago, to undertake this exhibition project. While primarily
designed as a major exhibition of modern art of the Americas, he developed the early organizational process as a pedagogical tool for students
at the University of Miami. As a teaching museum, I was especially pleased with the integrated academic components to the project. I would also
like to thank Dr. Heather Diack, Assistant Professor of Art History, for her wonderful contribution to the catalogue and Dr. Edward J. Sullivan, Helen
Gould Sheppard Professor of the History of Art, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, and a long-time friend of the Lowe Art Museum, for his
contribution to the exhibition catalogue.

Brian A. Dursum
Director and Chief Curator

6 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES 1
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A number of individuals contributed to the fruition of Pan American Modernism: Avant-Garde Art in Latin America and the United States. I wish to
principally thank Brian A. Dursum and Kara Schneiderman at the Lowe Art Museum for providing me with the opportunity to curate this important
exhibition, and for their countless support and assistance in organizing the show and its accompanying catalogue.

Special thanks are due to Edward J. Sullivan (New York University) and Heather Diack (University of Miami) for their thought-provoking and timely
essays on various aspects of Pan American modernism. Our incomparable editor, Patricia Hanna (former Director, CIFO) further strengthened the
overall quality of the Pan American Modernism catalogue and its contents.

I want to express my gratitude to a number of undergraduate students at the University of Miami who contributed to the catalogue entries included
in this book. They include: Gabriella Abdelnour, Harriet Ashton, Diego Da Silva, Cory Dunn, Sarah Fischer, Kari Hecker, Sophie Isacowitz, Amanda
Lemos, Katie Mato, Adys Mendizábal, Yoruba Mitchell, Albert Monreal, Natascha Rincón, Gainya St. Clair, Anaïs Sánchez, Ryan Simone, Jessica
Tellería, Nikita van Dijk, Fabiola Vélez, and Fiona Yakubu.

Thanks are due to Julie Berlin, Natasha Cuervo, Alessia Lewitt, Raymond Mathews and Darren Price (Lowe Art Museum), Daniel Portnoy (Daniel
Portnoy Photography), and Chris Rogers (Yazi design), who contributed significantly to various aspects of the exhibition and catalogue, including
the promotion, design, preparation and implementation of this project. Irene Bergmann and Jodi Sypher (Lowe Art Museum) were additionally
instrumental in organizing educational programming and special events related to Pan American Modernism.

Major funding for this exhibition and catalogue is made possible through the generosity of Beaux Arts, Friends of Art, and the membership of
the Lowe Art Museum, with additional support from the Linnie E. Dalbeck Memorial Foundation Trust. Additional funding is provided through
the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs, the Cultural Affairs Council, the Mayor and the Miami-Dade County Board of County
Commissioners.

Without the substantial support – be that financial, intellectual, or collegial – of these individuals and organizations, Pan American Modernism
would be an unrealized endeavor. Thankfully, this is not the case.

Nathan J. Timpano
Guest Curator and Assistant Professor of Art History
University of Miami

2 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES 3
 INTRODUCTION
During the summer of 2011, Brian A. Dursum, Director and Chief
Curator at the Lowe Art Museum, approached me about organizing
a major exhibition for the Lowe centered on the theme of Pan
American modernism. The proposed show, which would draw upon
on objects in the Lowe’s permanent collection, would likewise provide
the opportunity to explore dialogues, commonalities and disconnects
that exist between various artists working throughout North, Central
and South America during the early to mid-twentieth century. Since
opening its doors in 1952, the Lowe has importantly showcased works
by artists from Latin America during every decade of its existence,
though it has been an entire decade since the museum has organized
a survey of Latin American modern art. The present exhibition not
only examines avant-garde art in Latin America, but additionally
investigates such artistic articulations in relation to U.S. modernism
and postmodernism for the first time in the history of the Lowe Art
Museum.
Pan American Modernism: Avant-Garde Art in Latin America and the
United States is therefore the culmination of this initial impetus to
explore a discourse centered on art produced across two continents
during a sixty year period (1919–1979). This exhibition and the
accompanying catalogue importantly asks viewers to question the
traditional manner in which curators have dealt with objects in U.S.
collections that typically fall under the rather generalized rubric
4 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
“Latin American Art,” in spite of the fact that works placed in this
singular category originate in various countries and through disparate,
multivalent artistic traditions. Moreover, rather than perpetuating a
U.S.-centric hegemony – which tends to diminish and polarize works
of art produced by artists from Latin America in relation to U.S.-based
artists – Pan American Modernism analyzes how pan-American artistic
exchange processes, rather than stylistic transmission, construct a fuller
understanding of modernism as an intercontinental phenomenon
across the Americas.
This exhibition opens at an appropriate time at the Lowe Art Museum.
2013 marks the 500th anniversary of an important moment in the
history of European expansionism, colonialism, Caribbean travel,
and the state: Juan Ponce de León’s arrival on the east coast of
Florida in 1513. Even though his numerous journeys to La Florida
(“the flowery,” or “flowery land” in Spanish) were initially driven
by exploratory motives, and later on by colonialist agendas, Ponce
de León’s voyages throughout the Caribbean region (one of which
took him and his crew from Puerto Rico to present-day Key Biscayne)
highlight a common aspect of Spanish colonialism: the realization that
travel facilitated the spread of ideas, language and culture, regardless
of the impetus to do so. Apart from the erroneous claim that Ponce
de León actually “discovered” Florida – as the land had already been
inhabited by American Indian populations for thousands of years –
5
this moment in history does, nevertheless, present an early example
of Pan American cultural exchange. The quincentenary of European
exploration in the Sunshine State has likewise prompted a litany of
cultural heritage events for the statewide initiative known as “Viva
Florida 500,” and Pan American Modernism is very much a part of
this festival year.
Miami’s art scene has enjoyed considerable growth in recent years,
due in part to the international visibility of Art Basel Miami Beach and
the slow but steady revitalization of Miami’s Wynwood District. Major
private collections, such as the Margulies Collection at the Warehouse,
the Ella Fontanals-Cisneros Collection at the Cisneros Fontanals Art
Foundation (CIFO), the de la Cruz Collection Contemporary Art Space,
and the Rubell Family Collection / Contemporary Arts Foundation
(RFC/CAF), have generously offered works by postmodern and
contemporary artists from Latin America and the United States for
public consumption, contemplation and scrutiny, and in the process,
have helped to solidify art from Latin America as a major facet of
Miami’s art scene.
Since joining the art history faculty within the Department of Art
and Art History at the University of Miami in the fall of 2010, I have
developed undergraduate and graduate courses on avant-garde and
neo-avant-garde art in Latin America. The current exhibition and
6 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
catalogue are very much a part of my current teaching interests and
have developed, in part, as a pedagogical tool for students at the
University of Miami. Undergraduates in my spring 2012 Latin American
Modernism and Modern Art courses were involved in researching and
writing catalogue entries. Additionally, former and future students in
these courses will have the opportunity to study works included in the
exhibition from a firsthand perspective – a keystone to the study of art
history. As a university art museum, the Lowe has served as an optimal
environment for this project, and given that the University of Miami
was envisioned from its start in 1925 as a Pan American university that
would service students across North, Central and South America, it is
equally fitting that Pan American Modernism originates at the Lowe.
This exhibition showcases a range of objects not currently on view
at the Lowe, as well as works that have rarely been seen by faculty,
students, or the general public over the sixty years of the Lowe’s
existence. Pan American Modernism highlights seventy-five objects
from the museum’s permanent collection, including paintings,
sculpture, works on paper, photography, and mixed media pieces.
Artists from 13 countries are featured in the exhibition. Countries
include Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Guatemala, Mexico,
Nicaragua, Peru, Puerto Rico, the United States, Uruguay, and
Venezuela. The remaining country – Brazil – is represented solely in
the exhibition by Ivan Cardoso’s documentary/art film H.O. (1979),
which highlights works by Hélio Oiticica and his contemporaries.
That having been stated, it is necessary to equally call attention
to the fact that numerous American countries are not included
in this study of modernism. These omissions were not, however,
governed by cultural or stylistic hegemonies; but rather, by choices
based on either curatorial aptness, or more likely, by the absence of
works by artists from these American countries in the permanent
collection of the museum. Within the context of the exhibition,
each of the countries that are included in Pan American Modernism
understandably represents an artist’s nationality, and yet it is
important to note that such distinctions enjoyed considerable fluidity
as a result of travel and expatriation throughout the sixty years that
encompass works in this exhibition. Travel prompted the exchange of
ideas and created dialogues between artists and styles, and in turn,
helps to negate the notion that European or U.S. artists were the only
individuals “transmitting” artistic styles throughout the Americas
during this period.
This catalogue and, to a lesser extent, the exhibition are organized
into two sections. Part I: Dialogues consists of multiple sub-sections, or
modules, including “Mexican Muralism and its Legacy,” “The Female
Muse: Class, Gender, Race,” “Modernist Photography: Pan American
Exchanges,” and “Abstract Expressionism and its Legacy: A Pan
PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
American Language?.” Counterpoints – or opportunities to explore
moments when established artists broke with more dominant style(s)
associated with the “status quo” – are offered in the modules on
Mexican Muralism and Abstract Expressionism. Part II: Commonalities
& Disconnects presents a single module: “The Legacy of Geometric
Abstraction: Constructivist Art, Minimalism, Op Art,” which explores
these various “isms” in South America and the United States between
the late 1930s and late 1970s.
My hope is that Pan American Modernism ultimately provides an
opportunity for faculty, students, and staff at the University of Miami,
as well as visitors to the Lowe Art Museum, to contemplate the
varied relationships that exist between artists, artworks, styles, and
discourses that developed throughout the Americas in the early to
mid-twentieth century.
Nathan J. Timpano
Guest Curator and Assistant Professor of Art History
University of Miami
7
PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: “So, while there is indeed a sense in which we have entered a postmodern,
postcolonial, and post-western-centred period of history, there is another
DIALOGUES, COMMONALITIES, DISCONNECTS sense in which we still have yet to catch up with modernism.” — David Craven 1

“In the case of Latin American artistic movements, …omission…is largely

MODERNISMO PANAMERICANO: due to the biased decharacterization coming from the market and exhibition
DIÁLOGOS, PUNTOS DE CONTACTO, INCONEXIONES boom of the 1980s and 1990s in the United States.” — Mari Carmen Ramírez 2

In many ways, Pan American Modernism: Avant-Garde Art in Latin America

and the United States developed as an informal reaction to David Craven’s
Nathan J. Timpano theorization of modern and postmodern art in Latin America, as well as Mari
Carmen Ramírez’s observations on the disproportionate attention given to
U.S. artistic movements of the twentieth century in relation to avant-garde
movements in Latin America. As analyzed by Craven, the term “modernism,”

“Por tanto, a pesar de que en cierto sentido hemos ingresado a un período

de historia posmoderno, poscolonial y poseurocéntrico, también es cierto que
debemos aún llegar al modernismo.” — David Craven 1

“En lo relativo a los movimientos artísticos latinoamericanos, …las

omisiones… se deben en gran medida a la descaracterización tendenciosa
que llega del mercado y al boom de las muestras de arte de los años 1980 y
1990 en los Estados Unidos.” — Mari Carmen Ramírez 2

En cierta manera, Pan American Modernism: Avant-Garde Art in Latin

America and the United States (Modernismo panamericano: la vanguardia
en Latinoamérica y Estados Unidos) se desarrolló como una reacción informal
a las teorías de David Craven sobre el arte moderno y posmoderno en
Latinoamérica, y como respuesta a las observaciones de Mari Carmen Ramírez

8 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: DIALOGUES, COMMONALITIES, DISCONNECTS 9

or modernismo, was first utilized in relation to the arts by the
Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío in the 1880s, rather than the French
poet Charles Baudelaire, who Craven aptly suggests employed the
term modernité solely in response to the economic modernization
of Europe in the 1860s.3 It would seem, then, that a discussion of
the history of artistic modernism is a particularly American (read
here as “relating to the Americas,” rather than to the United States)
concept. George Yúdice has similarly examined the claim that the
“precedent of postmodernity” could be situated in Latin America,
as opposed to the United States – a debate which suggests that the
neo-essentialism of postmodernity might mirror the heterogeneity
of Latin American nations and cultures.4 In linking modernity with
postmodernity, Gerardo Mosquera has further theorized that
Latin America – when viewed from a Western (that is, Euro-North
American) perspective – may even have reached postmodernity
without ever having arrived at modernity.5
sobre la atención desproporcionada dispensada a los movimientos
artísticos estadounidenses del siglo XX en relación a los movimientos
vanguardistas de Latinoamérica. Del modo en que lo analiza Craven,
fue el poeta nicaragüense Rubén Darío quien utilizó por primera vez
el término modernismo, en vez del poeta francés Charles Baudelaire,
quien Craven indica con acierto que empleó el término modernité
solo en respuesta a la modernización económica europea de los
años 1860.3 Parecería, entonces, que cualquier discusión sobre la
historia del modernismo en las artes es un concepto específicamente
americano (entiéndase América como “las cuatro Américas” en lugar
de solo a los Estados Unidos). De forma similar, George Yúdice ha
examinado la afirmación de que “el precedente del posmodernismo”
se podría situar en Latinoamérica en lugar de en los Estados Unidos,
lo que implica un debate que sugiere que el neoesencialismo de la
posmodernidad podría ser un reflejo de la heterogeneidad de las
naciones y culturas latinoamericanas.4 Al vincular la modernidad con
10 MODERNISMO PANAMERICANO: DIÁLOGOS, PUNTOS DE CONTACTO, INCONEXIONES
This examination of modernity/postmodernity in the postcolonial era in
Latin America has subsequently been the topic of numerous intellectual
discourses, books, articles and exhibitions since the 1990s, particularly
in the United States, and yet a number of pertinent questions still
remain today. First and foremost, are scholars able to move beyond
the “old” dichotomies that have long classified Latin America’s push
towards hegemonic equality, particularly in the twenty-first century?
Moreover, has the present discourse moved beyond a “center” versus
“periphery” binary, or are we still tied to such constructs? And finally,
have we, as Craven offers, truly entered a postmodern, postcolonial,
and post-western-centered period of (art) history? Attempting
to answer these very queries is where language ultimately fails us,
as words – often utilized as instruments of power – perhaps can
never truly capture the subtle nuances involved in the multicultural
conceptualizations that are postmodernism, postcolonialism, and
a post-western-centered examination of Pan American artistic
la posmodernidad, Gerardo Mosquera ha ido más allá para teorizar
que Latinoamérica, vista desde una perspectiva occidental (es decir
eurocentrista y norteamericana), puede incluso haber alcanzado la
posmodernidad sin haber llegado a la modernidad.5
Este estudio de la modernidad/posmodernidad en la era poscolonial de
Latinoamérica ha sido posteriormente el tema de numerosos discursos
intelectuales, libros, artículos y muestras de arte desde los años 1990,
en particular en los Estados Unidos; no obstante, aún quedan una
cantidad de interrogantes pertinentes a la fecha. En primer lugar, ¿son
capaces los académicos de dejar atrás las “viejas” dicotomías que
durante tanto tiempo han clasificado la presión de Latinoamérica hacia
la igualdad hegemónica, en particular en el siglo XXI? Asimismo, ¿el
discurso actual se ha alejado del binario “centro” versus “periferia”, o
aún nos encontramos atados a estos constructos? Por último, ¿hemos
de veras ingresado (como indica Craven) a un período de historia
processes. In accordance with this latter notion, even the term “Latin
America” becomes somewhat problematic, as we resort to utilizing
a generalized term that can never entirely encompass the localized
differences that exist among the various nations of North, Central and
South America, as well as the Caribbean. For example, the name of
this country – the United States – implies shared and common interests
that seemingly bind our states together, and yet there exists (among
these very same states) countless un-united ideals and conceptions of
what it means to be a U.S. citizen residing in this nation.
The need to address these questions, however, was a nascent line of
inquiry when Joseph Randall Shapiro organized the 1959 exhibition
The United States Collects Pan American Art, which opened at the
Art Institute of Chicago. Unlike Pan American Modernism, Shapiro’s
1959 exhibition did not include works by U.S. artists, opting instead
to represent works from Canada and countries in Latin America that
(del arte) posmoderno, poscolonial y poseurocéntrico? Al intentar
responder estos interrogantes es donde la lengua resulta infructuosa
ya que las palabras, que a menudo se utilizan como instrumentos
de poder, quizás nunca puedan de verdad captar las sutilezas que
conllevan las conceptualizaciones multiculturales que implican el
estudio de los procesos artísticos posmodernos, poscoloniales y
poseurocéntricos panamericanos. De acuerdo con esta noción, incluso
el término “Latinoamérica” se vuelve de algún modo problemático,
ya que recurrimos a un término general que nunca podrá abarcar
las diferencias localizada que existen entre las diversas naciones de
América del Norte, América Central, América del Sur y América Insular.
Por ejemplo, el nombre de este país, Estados Unidos, implica intereses
comunes y compartidos que parecen vincular nuestros estados; sin
embargo, existe (entre estos mismos estados) innumerables ideales
y concepciones no unificadas de lo que significa ser un ciudadano
estadounidense que reside en esta nación.
PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: DIALOGUES, COMMONALITIES, DISCONNECTS
were held in U.S. collections. In his introductory essay for the show’s
catalogue, Shapiro writes:
What then is “Latin American” about these new paintings
other than the nationality of the artists? Most Americans
think of Latin American art as having a single identity. It
would be a mistake, however, to assume that this art is or
at any time was homogeneous.6
Evident in Shapiro’s statement is the understanding that Latin
America, at least in 1959, was generally considered a single, unified
concept within the collective U.S. consciousness, if not in scholarly
discourses focused on the “other” Americas and their relationship
to the United States. Shapiro seems to propose that geographic
proximity may be the only link between these artists and artistic
traditions, yet he invariably utilizes the term “American” to denote
La necesidad de resolver estas cuestiones fue una perspectiva de
indagación que emergió cuando Joseph Randall Shapiro organizó la
muestra The United States Collects Pan American Art (Los Estados
Unidos colecciona arte panamericano), que se inauguró en el
Art Institute of Chicago en 1959. A diferencia de Pan American
Modernism (Modernismo panamericano), la exhibición de Shapiro
no incluyó obras de artistas estadounidenses, y en su lugar optó
por presentar trabajos de Canadá y de países latinoamericanos
pertenecientes a colecciones estadounidenses. En su ensayo
introductorio al catálogo de la muestra, Shapiro se pregunta:
¿Qué es “latinoamericano” de estas pinturas más
que la nacionalidad de los artistas? La mayoría de los
estadounidenses piensa que el arte latinoamericano posee
una identidad única. Sin embargo, sería un error dar por
sentado que este arte es, o alguna vez fue, homogéneo.6
11
individuals from the U.S. alone, thus situating Latin America in a
binary with the United States and Canada, as demonstrated in The
United States Collects Pan American Art.
Mari Carmen Ramírez’s examination of the bias shown to non-
U.S. American art in this country highlights a paradox in the
current literature given that the intellectual formulation of artistic
modernism was initially realized in Central America (Nicaragua), not
the United States or Europe. In her seminal 2004 exhibition Inverted
Utopias: Avant-Garde Art in Latin America, which showcased a
substantial survey of pan-Latin American art at the Museum of
Fine Arts, Houston, Ramírez offered that such an examination
was overdue since avant-garde movements in Latin America
had yet to be given “a pertinent reading at the museological or
academic level” in U.S. institutions.7 And while Inverted Utopias
certainly helped, in Ramírez’s words, to “halt this vicious cycle,”
Shapiro destaca en su declaración que, al menos en 1959, se veía a
Latinoamérica como un concepto singular y unificado en el imaginario
colectivo estadounidense cuando no en los discursos académicos
centrados en las “otras” Américas y su relación con Estados Unidos.
Shapiro parece proponer que la proximidad geográfica puede ser
el único vínculo entre estos artistas y estas tradiciones artísticas;
sin embargo, utiliza el término “americano” para referirse a los
individuos de los EE. UU. y de este modo sitúa a Latinoamérica en
un binario con los Estados Unidos y Canadá, como se demuestra en
el título de la muestra The United States Collects Pan American Art.
Los estudios de Mari Carmen Ramírez sobre el sesgo demostrado hacia
el arte no estadounidense en este país subrayan una paradoja en la
literatura actual dado que la formulación intelectual del modernismo
artístico se llevó a cabo en un comienzo en Centroamérica (en
Nicaragua), y no en los Estados Unidos o Europa. En su trascendente
12 MODERNISMO PANAMERICANO: DIÁLOGOS, PUNTOS DE CONTACTO, INCONEXIONES
the exhibition did so by focusing solely on works produced in Latin
America as a means of investigating these “other” modernisms
apart from U.S. or European counterparts.
My point here is not to criticize Inverted Utopias, as it was, and
remains today, one of the most significant explorations of modern
and postmodern art from Latin America. Rather, my aim with the
present exhibition is to steer my audience away from a discourse
centered on oppositional binaries, and instead explore the
positivistic and tangible artistic exchange processes that transpired
across the Americas – including the United States – from the
early to mid-twentieth century. This notwithstanding, accepting
(as this exhibition does) the notion that Pan Americanism might
be a fruitful tool to explore the dialogues, commonalities, and
disconnects that exist between avant-garde art produced in the
Americas, may yet be, as George Yúdice, Jean Franco, and Juan
muestra de 2004, Inverted Utopias: Avant-Garde Art in Latin
America (Utopías invertidas: la vanguardia en Latinoamérica), que
realizó un recorrido sustancial del arte panamericano en el Museum
of Fine Arts de Houston, Ramírez indicó que hacía tiempo que era
necesario un estudio de este tipo debido a que las vanguardias
latinoamericanas debían aún recibir una “lectura pertinente a nivel
museológico o académico” en instituciones estadounidenses.7
A pesar de que Inverted Utopias sin dudas contribuyó, según
explica Ramírez, a “detener este círculo vicioso”, la muestra lo hizo
centrándose en las obras producidas en Latinoamérica solo como
medio para estudiar estos “otros” modernismos localizados más allá
de de sus contrapartes estadounidenses o europeos.
Mi deseo no es criticar Inverted Utopias ya que fue, y continúa
siendo, una de las exploraciones más significativas del arte moderno
y posmoderno de Latinoamérica. Mi propósito con esta muestra es
Flores have previously argued, nothing more than “a jazzed-up
remake of an old standard” – that is, U.S. “dominion” over less
powerful American nations.8 Interestingly enough, this distrust
of the cultural and artistic impact of a U.S.-centric globalization
and the effects that such cultural imperialism would have on the
visual arts in Latin America was already being discussed in the
1970s by the influential Argentine-Colombian art critic Marta
Traba, who suggested that terms like “Latin American” and
“American” were nothing more than vague labels assigned to
objects and individuals within an emerging global art market.9
As previously mentioned, one of the goals of the current
exhibition is to examine the use of such vague terminology,
particularly since a number of artists, including Joaquín Torres-
García and Alfredo Jaar, were also challenging these notions
throughout the twentieth century.
más bien guiar a mi público más allá de un discurso centrado
en binarios opuestos para que pueda, en cambio, explorar los
procesos de intercambio positivistas y tangibles que ocurrieron
en toda América (incluyendo los Estados Unidos) desde principios
y mediados del siglo XX. No obstante, aceptar (como lo hace
esta muestra) la noción de que el panamericanismo pueda ser
una herramienta fructífera para explorar los diálogos, puntos
de contacto y inconexiones que existen entre las vanguardias
producidas en América puede de todas maneras no ser más
que, como sostienen George Yúdice, Jean Franco y Juan Flores,
solo “una versión renovada de estándares viejos”, es decir, del
“dominio” estadounidense sobre las naciones menos poderosas
de América.8 Resulta interesante señalar que la influyente
crítica de arte argentino colombiana Marta Traba ya discutía
en los años 1970 esta desconfianza por el impacto cultural y
artístico de una globalización que girara en torno a los EE. UU.
PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: DIALOGUES, COMMONALITIES, DISCONNECTS
BINARIES OF IDENTITY?
In line with Traba’s assertions, the Uruguayan constructivist artist
Joaquín Torres-García, and the Chilean-born U.S. conceptual artist
Alfredo Jaar, have each explored the semantics of “Americanism”
in their modernist works, respectively. Torres-García’s seminal piece
América invertida (Inverted America, 1943; illustration 1) has been
the subject of recent scholarship, including the exhibition catalogue
for Inverted Utopias.10 In this image, Torres-García – who was the
originator of Constructive Universalism, as well as the founder of the
Sociedad de las Artes del Uruguay (Society of Arts of Uruguay) and
the Taller del Sur (Studio of the South) – toys with presuppositions
of geographic and cartographic “truths,” namely the historical (and
current) placement of South America in relation to North America on
maps. Very much in dialogue with the history of European exploration
in South America (and the resultant colonial period), Inverted America
y los efectos que tal imperialismo cultural podría tener sobre las
artes visuales latinoameticanas; Traba sugería que términos como
“latinoamericano” y “americano” no eran más que rótulos amplios
que se asignaban a objetos e individuos en un mercado artístico
global emergente.9 Como ya se ha mencionado, uno de los objetivos
de esta muestra es examinar la utilización de tal terminología amplia,
en particular ya que un número de artistas, incluyendo a Joaquín
Torres-García y Alfredo Jaar, también desafiaron estas nociones
durante el siglo XX.
¿BINARIOS DE IDENTIDAD?
En consonancia con las afirmaciones de Traba, el artista constructivista
uruguayo Joaquín Torres-García y el artista conceptual estadounidense
nacido en Chile Alfredo Jaar han cada uno explorado la semántica
del “americanismo” en sus obras modernistas. La trascendente obra
13
 Illustration 1
JOAQUÍN TORRES-GARCÍA
b. 1874, Montevideo, Uruguay
d. 1949, Montevideo, Uruguay
América invertida
(Inverted America), 1943
ink on paper
7 1⁄2 x 8 1⁄4 in. (19 x 21 cm)
Museo Torres García,
Montevideo, Uruguay
© Museo Torres García
de Torres-García América invertida (1943) [ilustración 1], ha sido
objeto de recientes estudios académicos, incluyendo el catálogo de
la muestra Inverted Utopias.10 En esta imagen, Torres-García (quien
fue el iniciador del Universalismo Constructivo además del fundador
de la Sociedad de las Artes del Uruguay y del Taller del Sur) juega
con las presuposiciones de “verdades” geográficas y cartográficas,
es decir, con la ubicación histórica (y actual) de Sudamérica en
relación con Norteamérica en los mapas. En dialogo con la historia
de la exploración europea en Sudamérica (y su consiguiente período
colonial), América invertida hace notar la idea de que los mapas pueden
haberse construído y utilizado desde hace años como herramientas
hegemónicas para, en esencia, “ubicar” a Latinoamérica “debajo” del
Norte. Dado que Sudamérica está situada “debajo” de Norteamérica
en términos latitudinales, el trabajo de Torres-García además juega
con las metáforas culturales inherentes a la semántica y semiología
de los mapas.
14 MODERNISMO PANAMERICANO: DIÁLOGOS, PUNTOS DE CONTACTO, INCONEXIONES
calls attention to the idea that maps have long been constructed
and utilized as hegemonic tools to essentially “place” Latin America
“below” the North. Given that South America is situated “below”
North America in terms of latitudinal demarcations, Torres-García’s
work is moreover a play on the cultural metaphors inherent in the
semantics and semiology of maps.
In his 1935 manifesto La escuela del Sur (The School of the South),
Torres-García initially argued that he chose this particular title
“because, in fact, our North looks South. For us, there must not
be a North, except in opposition to our South.”11 By inverting the
South to the North, Torres-García’s Inverted America conceptually
proposes that by looking “North” – that is, toward South America’s
nearest pole, the South Pole – Uruguayan artists might embrace
their “North,” while simultaneously distancing themselves from
the other North (that is, Europe, North America, etc.). From a
En su manifiesto del año 1935, La escuela del Sur, Torres-García
en principio sostenía que escogió este título en particular “porque,
de hecho, nuestro Norte mira hacia el Sur. Para nosotros, no hay
Norte excepto en oposición a nuestro Sur”.11 Al invertir el Sur
hacia el Norte, la obra América invertida de Torres-García propone,
desde lo conceptual, que al mirar hacia el “Norte” (es decir
hacia el polo más cercano a Sudamérica, el Polo Sur) los artistas
uruguayos podrían acoger su “Norte” a la vez que se distanciarían
del otro Norte (es decir, de Europa, Norteamérica, etc.). Desde una
perspectiva teórica, esta maniobra fue importante para Torres-
García ya que le permitió sostener que La escuela del Sur no
tuviera lazos que la unieran con movimientos artísticos europeos o
estadounidenses más allá de la necesidad o la hegemonía cultural;
desde una perspectiva humorística, el mapa invertido del artista
podría librar a los sudamericanos de la necesidad de mirar “patas
para arriba” para ver su Norte. En última instancia, las palabras
theoretical perspective, this was an important maneuver for the
artist, as it allowed Torres-García to argue that the School of
the South was not tied to European or U.S. artistic movements
out of necessity or cultural hegemony; from a humorous
perspective, Torres-García’s inverted map might be seen to
rescue South Americans from having to look “upside down”
to see their North. Ultimately, Torres-García’s words remind us
that terms such as “North” and “South” are nothing more
than linguistic attempts to understand the world around us,
sometimes in hierarchical ways, and often in terms of (arbitrary)
geographic boundaries, divisions, and constructs.
Alfredo Jaar’s A Logo for America (1987, illustration 2) similarly
confronts the semantics involved in defining Pan Americanism. In
Jaar’s work, a series of animated images and texts were broadcast
on a Spectacolor light board affixed to the side of a building in
de Torres-García nos recuerdan que palabras como “Norte” y
“Sur” no son más que intentos lingüísticos por comprender
el mundo a nuestro alrededor, en ocasiones de maneras
jerárquicas y a menudo en términos de límites geográficos,
divisiones y constructos (arbitrarios).
La obra A Logo for America (Logotipo para América,1987)
[ilustración 2], de Alfredo Jaar, confronta de manera similar la
semántica de la definición de panamericanismo. En el trabajo de
Jaar, se transmitieron una serie de imágenes y textos animados
en un cartel luminoso Spectacolor sobre el costado de un edificio
de Times Square, en Nueva York. Me gustaría detenerme para
describir la secuencia de palabras e imágenes que construyen A
Logo for America ya que las ilustraciones presentadas aquí no
pueden transmitir la complejidad, ni la totalidad, de la instalación
de Jaar. La obra comienza con un “mapa” de Estados Unidos que
PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: DIALOGUES, COMMONALITIES, DISCONNECTS
Illustration 2
ALFREDO JAAR
b. 1956, Santiago, Chile
Lives and works in New York,
New York
A Logo for America, 1987
neon sign
© 1987 Alfredo Jaar
Courtesy of the Artist, NY
funde a una silueta de los Estados Unidos; a continuación aparecen
las palabras ESTO NO ES AMÉRICA sobre la silueta de los Estados
Unidos; la silueta y el texto desaparecen, y aparece la bandera de EE.
UU.; luego los colores tradicionales de la bandera se disuelven en sus
colores complementarios (verde, negro, anaranjado); las palabras ESTA
NO ES LA BANDERA DE AMÉRICA aparecen sobre la bandera verde de
los EE. UU.; la bandera desaparece y la palabra AMÉRICA aparece en
la pantalla. La “R” de AMÉRICA cambia a varias formas geométricas
hasta que por fin se transforma en un contorno de América del Norte,
del Sur y Central. Este “mapa” de las Américas comienza a girar en
medio del cartel luminoso mientras la palabra AMÉRICA, que se repite
a lo largo de la pantalla, comienza a moverse verticalmente a ambos
lados de la imagen de las Américas que está girando; la pantalla funde
a negro y la palabra AMÉRICA con el “mapa” de América del Norte,
del Sur y Central vuelve a aparecer. Por último, el cartel funde a negro
y el nombre del artista se revela en luces blancas.
15
New York City’s Time Square. I want to spend some time describing
the sequence of words and images that construct A Logo for
America, as the accompanying images cannot convey the intricacies,
or entirety, of Jaar’s installation. The work opens with a “map” of
the United States, which then fades to an outline of the United
States; next, the words THIS IS NOT AMERICA appear superimposed
over the outline of the United States; the outline and text disappear,
and the U.S. flag appears; next, the traditional colors of the U.S.
flag dissolve into their color compliments (green, black, orange); the
words THIS IS NOT AMERICA’S FLAG appear over the green U.S.
flag; the flag disappears and the word AMERICA appears on the
screen. The “R” in AMERICA then morphs into various geometric
shapes, before it finally transforms into an outline of North, Central
and South America. This “map” of the Americas starts to pinwheel
in the middle of the light board, while the word AMERICA, which is
repeated across the screen, starts to move vertically on either side of
Es importante considerar cómo la especificidad de la pieza de Jaar
en la ciudad de Nueva York sugiere que el mensaje de la obra estaba
dirigido a los residentes de los Estados Unidos en los años 1980,
quienes sin dudarlo daban por sentado que la palabra “América” se
refería de manera exclusiva a los Estados Unidos. En su análisis de
la obra de Jaar, Jacqueline Barnitz sugiere que el mapa de América
del Norte, del Sur y Central puede entonces leerse como un “mapa
corregido de ‘América’ “ en tanto y en cuanto las Américas se ven
representadas en esta imagen.12 Barnitz también propone que
existe un vínculo conceptual entre el trabajo de Jaar y la pintura
de René Magritte La trahison des images (Cecin’est pas une pipe)
(La traición de las imágenes [Esto no es una pipa]) de 1928-1929.
En la pintura surrealista de Magritte, el título Esto no es una pipa,
que se pinta en francés sobre el lienzo debajo de la imagen de una
pipa, le recuerda al espectador que no está mirando una pipa de
verdad sino una representación pintada de una pipa. Si aplicamos
16 MODERNISMO PANAMERICANO: DIÁLOGOS, PUNTOS DE CONTACTO, INCONEXIONES
the spinning image of the Americas; the screen fades to black and
the word AMERICA with the “map” of North, Central and South
America reappears. Finally, the board fades to black and the artist’s
name is revealed in white lights.
It is important to consider how the specificity of Jaar’s piece in New
York City suggests that the work’s message was intended to reach
residents of the United States in the 1980s that unquestioningly
assumed that the term “America” exclusively referred to the United
States. In her analysis of Jaar’s piece, Jacqueline Barnitz suggests that
the map of North, Central and South America can therefore be read
as a “corrected map of ‘America’,” insofar as all of the Americas are
represented in this image.12 Barnitz also proposes that a conceptual
link exists between Jaar’s work and René Magritte’s painting La
trahison des images (Ceci n’est pas une pipe) (The Treachery of
Images [This is Not a Pipe]) of 1928-1929. In Magritte’s surrealist
una lectura semiótica similar a A Logo for America de Jaar, llegamos
a la conclusión de que no estamos viendo un mapa corregido de
“América” sino la representación de una representación de las
Américas. Dejando esta lectura conceptual aparte, sin dudas Jaar
deseaba que esta obra despertara una discusión sobre la semántica
del término “América” si se la observa desde una perspectiva
centrada en los EE. UU. Juntas, América invertida de Torres-García y
A Logo for America de Jaar complejizan la idea del espectador sobre
lo que significa ser americano a la vez que expanden las posibilidades
de lo que el término puede representar (y que de hecho lo hace).
El problema de la terminología y como se aplica a Norte y Sudamérica,
o Latinoamérica y los Estados Unidos en las obras respectivas de
Torres-García y Jaar, se observa de igual manera en el discurso que
rodea al modernismo y la siempre cuestionable y siempre cambiante
definición de posmodernismo. Hace dos décadas, cuando los
painting, the title This is Not a Pipe, which is painted onto the canvas
in French below an image of a pipe, reminds the viewer that she/he
is not looking at an actual pipe, but rather, a painted representation
of a pipe. If we apply a similar semiotic reading to Jaar’s A Logo for
America, then we conclude that we are not viewing a corrected map
of “America,” but rather, a representation of a representation of
the Americas. This conceptual reading aside, Jaar certainly intended
his piece to spark a conversation on the semantics of the term
“America” when considered from a U.S.-centric perspective. When
viewed together, Torres-García’s Inverted America and Jaar’s A Logo
for America collectively complicate the viewer’s understanding of
what it means to be an American, while expanding the possibilities
for what this term can – and does – represent.
The problem of terminology, as it applies to North and South America,
or Latin America and the United States in Torres-García’s and Jaar’s
estudios culturales latinoamericanos, los estudios literarios y la
historia del arte gozaban de un renacimiento considerable en todo el
mundo, numerosos individuos se encontraban comprensiblemente
dedicados a traer a estos modernismos “marginales”a primer
plano. Por lo tanto, resulta interesante que cuando se discuten
los modernismos y posmodernismos latinoamericanos en círculos
académicos, estos términos a menudo se refieran a movimientos
literarios vanguardistas en lugar de a aquellos que ocurrieron en las
artes visuales.13 Mi elección de términos en la presente muestra
puede entonces parecer enigmática ya que (para algunos) Pan
American Modernism puede significar un estudio de las vanguardias
literarias (lo que esta muestra no ofrece) dado mi interés por la historia
y el uso del término modernismo en un contexto latinoamericano.
La utilización repetida de “panamericano” en toda esta exhibición
corre de igual modo el riesgo de subrayar la noción discutible de
que el panamericanismo no es más que un intento por parte de
PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: DIALOGUES, COMMONALITIES, DISCONNECTS
respective works, is equally observable in the discourse surrounding
modernism and the ever-questionable, ever-changing definition of
postmodernism. Two decades ago, when Latin American cultural
studies, literary studies, and art history enjoyed a considerable revival
across the globe, numerous individuals were understandably invested
in bringing these “marginal” modernisms to the fore. It is interesting
then, that when Latin American modernism and postmodernism are
discussed in academic circles, these terms often refer to avant-garde
literary movements, rather than those that transpired in the visual
arts.13 My choice of terms in the present exhibition might therefore
appear quizzical, as Pan American Modernism may imply (to some)
an examination of the literary avant-gardes – which it does not offer
– given my interest in the history and usage of the term modernism/
modernismo in a Latin American context. The repeated use of “Pan
American” throughout the exhibition equally risks highlighting the
contestable notion that Pan Americanism is nothing more than an
los Estados Unidos (visto como el “centro” de esta Panamérica) de
imponer su arte y cultura sobre los países americanos que residen en
la “periferia” de este centro. Sin embargo, me justifico en la agenda
curatorial que da sustento a este proyecto.
Al proponer (con una cierta despreocupación) que traslademos el
presente discurso a una arena post posmoderna, o incluso a una
antipostmoderna, espero que las obras de esta muestra les permitan
a los espectadores esquivar los binarios que colman la literatura
actual: binarios tales como “centro” versus “periferia”; “colonizador
cultural” versus “otro”; “privilegiado” versus “excluído”; “Occidente”
versus “No occidente”, y en cambio investigar los vanguardismos
americanos más allá de estos constructos dicotómicos. Creo que
también es importante desafiar (por más que resulte paradójico) la
idea de que los movimientos artísticos de los EE. UU. mantuvieron
un dominio inequívoco y uniforme sobre los movimientos que
17
attempt on the part of the United States (seen as the “center” of
this Pan America) to impose its art and culture on American countries
residing on the “periphery” of this center. And yet, I feel justified in
the curatorial agenda that informs this project.
By proposing—somewhat glibly—that we move the present
discourse into a post-postmodern arena, or even an anti-postmodern
arena, my hope is that works in the exhibition will allow viewers
to circumvent the binaries that pervade the current literature –
binaries like “center” versus “periphery”; “cultural colonizer”
versus “other”; “insider” versus “outsider”; “West” versus “Not
West” – and instead investigate American avant-gardism apart
from these dichotomous constructs. I think it is also important
to challenge, however paradoxically, the idea that U.S. artistic
movements unequivocally and uniformly held dominion over those
that transpired in Latin America throughout the twentieth century.
Perhaps such an objective is impossible, or naïve, yet when one
considers that a number of the artists that fill the walls and pages
of this exhibition and catalogue were not grappling with these
binaries, but were instead interested in creating and promoting their
art and the art of others, then this task certainly seems plausible. The
narratives explored in Pan American Modernism hopefully attest to
this endeavor.
PAN AMERICAN EXCHANGES
In his essay “Geometry and Gesture: Notes on Abstractions in the
Americas,” which follows in this volume, Edward J. Sullivan offers
astute observations on the connections that exist between artists
and objects in the “Abstract Expressionism and its Legacy: A Pan
American Language?” module, as well as the final module of the
exhibition, “The Legacy of Geometric Abstraction: Constructivist
Art, Minimalism, Op Art.” With regard to this latter module, it is
important to note that many of the artists, who shared a common
interest in the tenets of geometric abstraction (even when visually
confronting such disparate styles as minimalism, optical or “retinal”
art, and kinetic art), had previously been shown together in 1965
when William C. Seitz organized The Responsive Eye exhibition
at The Museum of Modern Art. The MoMA show was principally
an exploration of the importance of color, media, and form in
nonobjective paintings created throughout Europe, the United
States and Latin America, but Seitz’s exhibition equally examined
the manner in which contemporary, post-painterly abstraction had
developed in response to the New York School’s particular brand of
Abstract Expressionism.
Individuals represented in both The Responsive Eye and Pan American
Modernism include U.S. artists Richard J. Anuszkiewicz, Gene Davis,
Kenneth Noland, Julian Stanczak, and Frank Stella, as well as the
Venezuelan artist Carlos Cruz-Diez.14 Interestingly enough, works by
the Venezuelan painter Jesús Rafael Soto (see cat. nos. 70 & 74),
which compare favorably to works by Cruz-Diez, were not included
in The Responsive Eye. Pan American Modernism not only reunites
works by various artists in the MoMA show in order to analyze their
commonalities and disconnects, but additionally presents works by
Soto and the Colombian artist Eduardo Ramírez Villamizar, both
of whom were part of the optical and kinetic art movements, and
furthermore interested in the modernist language of geometric
abstraction. Torres-García and Pierre Daura, who had collectively
formed the Parisian anti-surrealist group Cercle et Carré (Circle and
Square), equally favored geometric abstraction and constructivism,
as evidenced by the iconography of their respective works (cat. nos.
63-65). A final image titled Circus (cat. no. 75) by the U.S. artist
Gordon Matta-Clark (son of the Chilean surrealist artist Roberto

ocurrieron en toda Latinoamérica a lo largo del siglo XX. Quizás
este objetivo sea imposible, o ingenuo; sin embargo, cuando uno
considera que muchos de los artistas que cubren las paredes de esta
muestra y llenan las páginas de este catálogo no lidiaban con estos
binarios sino que se interesaban por crear y promover su arte y la de
otros, entonces esta tarea sin dudas parece razonable. Espero que
las narrativas exploradas en Pan American Modernism den cuenta
este esfuerzo.
INTERCAMBIOS PANAMERICANOS
En su ensayo “Geometry and Gesture: Notes on Abstractions in
the Americas” (Gesto y geometría: apuntes sobre la abstracción
en América) que se encuentra más adelante en este volumen,
Edward J. Sullivan ofrece algunas observaciones astutas acerca
de las conexiones que existen entre los artistas y los objetos en el
módulo “Abstract Expressionism and its Legacy: A Pan American
Language?” (El expresionismo abstracto y su legado: ¿un lenguaje
panamericano?), al igual que en el módulo final de la muestra “The
Legacy of Geometric Abstraction: Constructivist Art, Minimalism,
Op Art” (El legado de la abstracción geométrica: arte constructivo,
minimalimo, op art”. Con respecto a este último módulo, es
importante señalar que muchos de los artistas, quienes compartían
un interés común por principios de la abstracción geométrica (aun
cuando desde lo visual confrontaban estilos tan dispares como el
minimalismo, el op-art o arte “retinal” y el arte cinético), ya habían
expuesto juntos en 1965 cuando William C. Seitz organizó la muestra
The Responsive Eye (El ojo receptivo) en el Museum of Modern Art
de Nueva York. La exposición del MoMA fue principalmente una
exploración sobre la importancia del color, el medio y la forma en
pinturas no figurativas creadas en toda Europa, Estados Unidos y
Latinoamérica, pero la muestra de Seitz examinaba de igual modo
la manera en la que la abstracción contemporánea pospictoricista se
había desarrollado en respuesta al tipo de expresionismo particular
de la New York School.
Los individuos representados tanto en The Responsive Eye como
en Pan American Modernism incluyen artistas estadounidenses
como Richard J. Anuszkiewicz, Gene Davis, Kenneth Noland,
Julian Stanczak y Frank Stella, además de al artista venezolano
Carlos Cruz-Diez.14 Resulta interesante observar que las obras del
pintor venezolano Jesús Rafael Soto (ver no. cat. 70 y 74), que se
comparan de manera favorable con los trabajos de Cruz-Diez, no se
vieron incluídos en The Responsive Eye. Pan American Modernism
no solo reúne las obras de varios artistas de la muestra del MoMA
para analizar sus puntos de contacto e inconexiones, sino que
además presenta obras de Soto y del artista colombiano Eduardo
Ramírez Villamizar, quienes formaron parte de los movimientos de
arte cinético y op-art además de estar interesados en el lenguaje
modernista de la abstracción geométrica. Joaquín Torres-García y
Pierre Daura, que habían formado colectivamente el grupo parisino
antisurrealista Cercle et Carré (Círculo y Cuadrado), favorecían del
mismo modo la abstracción y el constructivismo, como se evidencia
en las iconografías de sus trabajos respectivos (no. cat. 63-65).
Una imagen final titulada Circus (Circo) (no. cat. 75), del artista
estadounidense Gordon Matta-Clark (hijo del artista chileno Roberto
Matta), completa el módulo “The Legacy of Geometric Abstraction”
(El legado de la abstracción geométrica). A diferencia de las obras
de Cruz-Diez, Noland, Soto y Stella, el collage fotográfico de Matta-
Clark transmite un sentido de figuración de manera contrastante
ya que en la pieza se distinguen “fragmentos” de edificios; sin
embargo, la naturaleza deconstructivista del trabajo vincula desde
lo teórico la obra de Matta-Clark con articulaciones anteriores de
constructivismo y abstracción geométrica más que la fotografía

18 MODERNISMO PANAMERICANO: DIÁLOGOS, PUNTOS DE CONTACTO, INCONEXIONES PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: DIALOGUES, COMMONALITIES, DISCONNECTS 19
Matta) completes “The Legacy of Geometric Abstraction” module.
Unlike works by Cruz-Diez, Noland, Soto and Stella, Matta-Clark’s
photographic collage contrastingly conveys a sense of figuration, in
so far as “fragments” of buildings are discernible in the piece; and
yet, the deconstructivist nature of the work theoretically links Matta-
Clark’s work to earlier articulations of Constructivism and geometric
abstraction, rather than the “pure” photography explored by many
of the artists in the “Modernist Photography” module. Like Matta-
Clark’s Circus, Carl Andre’s Yucatan (cat. no. 62), which completes
the photography module, presents theoretical challenges to the
medium, while confronting the need for a distinction between “low”
and “high” art forms. Andre, who was close friends with Stella,
was likewise a proponent of minimalism, and Yucatan interestingly
highlights the interplay between minimalism, conceptual art,
concrete poetry, geometric abstraction, and new media (such as the
Xerox machine as artistic device).
In her essay “Body of Evidence: The Modernisms of Manuel
Álvarez Bravo,” Heather Diack explores a number of important
images created by this Mexican photographer in the 1920s
through the 1950s. In addition to offering thorough and critical
analyses of works by Álvarez Bravo included in the “Mexican
Muralism” and “Modernist Photography” modules, Diack equally
discusses his oeuvre in relation to images by U.S. photographers
Edward Weston, Man Ray, and Walker Evans, whose works can
also be found in this exhibition and catalogue. Álvarez Bravo
met Weston through the Italian actress and photographer Tina
Modotti, who, along with Weston, was living and working in
Mexico in the 1920s. Álvarez Bravo’s first wife, Lola Álvarez Bravo,
was also a photographer that worked alongside her husband until
their separation in 1934. Like Manuel, Lola was affiliated with
artists associated with the Mexican muralism movement, such as
Diego Rivera (see cat. no. 21), who were working during the post-
Mexican Revolution era, as well as non-muralists like Frida Kahlo,
who Lola frequently photographed in the 1940s.15
One of these images of Kahlo (cat. no. 7) forms part of the “Female
Muse” module, which examines the widespread modernist interest
in female subjects – a trope long explored throughout the history of
art. Unlike a number of the other modules, this particular section
proposes that commonalities among disparate works could be
explored through subject matter, rather than stylistic, conceptual,
or cultural constructs. Various works by Cuban avant-gardists, such
as Eduardo Abela, Carlos Enríquez (de Gomez), Antonio Gattorno,
Wifredo Lam, and Amelia Peláez, take the female body as subject,
be that through the visual language of naturalistic, surrealist, or
cubistic forms. Wifredo Lam’s Untitled ink drawing (cat. no. 6)
reveals a woman gazing at her reflection in a handheld mirror, a
theme equally evident in Lola Álvarez Bravo’s photograph of Kahlo.
Notions of modernist “primitivism,” or “otherness,” furthermore
develops as a common theme amongst a number of these works,
including the Afrocubanismo of the subject in Enríquez’s Mulata
(cat. no. 3), the African sculpture depicted in Man Ray’s Noire et
blanche (cat. no. 8), and the visage of Lam’s femme cheval, or horse-
headed woman, which is reflected on the surface of the mirror in
the artist’s 1943 drawing.
In terms of Pan American artistic exchanges, a number of
relationships between these artists speak to the importance of
travel, the interest in sharing ideas about art and culture, and the
personal connections that brought artists from the Americas into
contact with one another during the twentieth century. For example,
Enríquez was briefly married to the U.S. artist Alice Neel, who he
met in Philadelphia during his studies there in the 1920s; in turn,
Neel spent time in Havana following their marriage in 1925, which,

“pura” explorada por muchos de los artistas en el módulo “Modernist
Photography” (Fotografía modernista). Al igual que Circus (Circo)
de Matta-Clark, Yucatan (Yucatán) (no. cat. 62), de Carl Andre,
que completa el módulo de fotografía, presenta desafíos técnicos
para el medio a la vez que confronta la necesidad de distinción
entre formas artísticas “bajas” y “altas”. Andre, quien era amigo
íntimo de Stella, era de igual modo un defensor del minimalismo, y
resulta interesante destacar que Yucatan (Yucatán) subraya el juego
entre minimalismo, arte conceptual, poesía concreta, abstracción
geométrica y los nuevos medios (tales como la máquina Xerox como
artefacto artístico).
En su ensayo “Body of Evidence: The Modernisms of Manuel
Álvarez Bravo” (Cuerpo del delito: los modernismos de Manuel
Álvarez Bravo), Heather Diack explora un número de imágenes de
importancia creadas por este fotógrafo mexicano en los años 1920
y hasta los años 50. Además de ofrecer análisis completos y críticos
de las obras de Álvarez Bravo incluídas en los módulos “Mexican
Muralism” (Muralismo mexicano) y “Modernist Photography”
(Fotografía modernista), Diack también discute su obra en relación
con imágenes de los fotógrafos estadounidenses Edward Weston,
Man Ray y Walker Evans, cuyos trabajos también se pueden encontrar
en esta muestra y catálogo. Álvarez Bravo conoció a Weston a través
de la actriz y fotógrafa italiana Tina Modotti, quien vivía y trabajaba
junto a Weston en México en los años 1920. La primera esposa de
Álvarez Bravo, Lola Álvarez Bravo, también era fotógrafa y trabajó
junto a su esposo hasta que se separaron en 1934. Al igual que
Manuel, Lola se relacionaba con artistas asociados al movimiento
muralista mexicano tales como Diego Rivera (ver no. cat. 21) que
trabajaban durante el período posterior a la Revolución Mexicana,
además de con artistas que no eran muralistas como Frida Kahlo, a
quien Lola fotografió con frecuencia en los años 1940.15
Una de estas imágenes de Kahlo (no. cat. 7) forma parte del módulo
“Female Muse” (Musa femenina), que examina el interés modernista
tan extendido en los sujetos femeninos, un tropo explorado por años
a lo largo de la historia del arte. A diferencia de otros módulos, esta
sección en particular propone que se pueden explorar los puntos
de contacto entre trabajos dispares a través del tema en lugar de
a través de los constructos estilísticos, conceptuales o culturales.
Varias obras de vanguardistas cubanos como Eduardo Abela, Carlos
Enríquez (de Gomez), Antonio Gattorno, Wifredo Lam y Amelia
Peláez toman el cuerpo femenino como tema a través del lenguaje
visual de las formas ya sean naturalistas, surrealistas o cubistas. El
dibujo de tinta en papel Untitled (Sin título), de Wifredo Lam (no.
cat. 6), revela una mujer que mira su reflejo en un espejo de mano,
un tema por igual evidente en la fotografía que realizara Lola Álvarez
Bravo de Kahlo. Ciertas nociones del “primitivismo” (u “otredad”)
modernista se desarrollan como tema común en un número de estas
obras, incluyendo el afrocubanismo del tema en Mulata de Enríquez
(no. cat. 3), la escultura africana fotografiada por Man Ray en Noire
et blanche (no. cat. 8), y el rostro de femme cheval (o mujer con
cabeza de caballo) de Lam, que se refleja en el espejo en el dibujo
del artista de 1943.
En términos de intercambios panamericanos, una cantidad de
relaciones entre estos artistas hablan de la importancia de los
viajes, el interés por compartir ideas acerca del arte y la cultura y las
conexiones personales que pusieron a estos artistas americanos en
contacto unos con otros durante el siglo XX. Por ejemplo, Enríquez
estuvo casado por un breve lapso con la artista estadounidense Alice
Neel, a quien conoció en Filadelfia cuando estudiaba allí en los años
1920; a su vez, Neel pasó algún tiempo en La Habana luego de
casada en 1925, lo que, de acuerdo con Pamela Allara, tuvo un gran
efecto en el “arte con sentido social” de Neel.16 Esta unión marital

20 MODERNISMO PANAMERICANO: DIÁLOGOS, PUNTOS DE CONTACTO, INCONEXIONES PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: DIALOGUES, COMMONALITIES, DISCONNECTS 21
according to Pamela Allara, had a profound affect on Neel’s “socially
concerned art.”16 This marital and artistic union between a Cuban
and U.S. artist was present in a number of other relationships
throughout the modern/postmodern era, including Ana Mendieta’s
tumultuous marriage to Carl Andre. A further anecdote concerning
Pan American artistic interactions reveals that in 1932 the Rockefeller
family commissioned Diego Rivera to create a mural (Man at the
Crossroads) at Rockefeller Center in New York City – a painting that
was famously destroyed in 1934 when Rivera refused to remove an
image of the Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin from the mural. While
the fresco was still in progress, however, the U.S. social realist artist
Ben Shahn assisted Rivera with portions of the large-scale painting.17
Accordingly, images by Rivera and Shahn (cat. nos. 21 & 22) hang
side by side in Pan American Modernism as an opportunity to reflect
upon this relationship, but to also consider the differences that exist
between Rivera’s “brand” of social realism, which was often driven
y artística entre cubano y estadonidense también se dio en una
cantidad de otras parejas durante toda la era moderna/posmoderna,
incluyendo el tumultuoso matrimonio de Ana Mendieta y Carl Andre.
Otra anécdota relativa a las interacciones artísticas panamericanas
revela que en 1932 la familia Rockefeller le comisionó a Diego
Rivera que creara un mural, Man at the Crossroads (Hombre en la
encrucijada) en el Rockefeller Center de la ciudad de Nueva York,
pintura que fue celebremente destruída en 1934 cuando Rivera se
rehusó a retirar una imagen del líder soviético Vladimir Lenin del
mural. Sin embargo, mientras el fresco estaba aún en proceso, el
artista realista social Ben Shahn ayudó a Rivera en algunas porciones
de la inmensa pintura.17 Por lo tanto, imágenes de Rivera y Shahn
(no. cat. 21 y 22) se ubican lado a lado en Pan American Modernism
para tener la oportunidad de reflexionar sobre esta relación, pero
también para considerar las diferencias que existen entre el “tipo”
de realismo social de Rivera, que a menudo fue impulsado por ideales
22 MODERNISMO PANAMERICANO: DIÁLOGOS, PUNTOS DE CONTACTO, INCONEXIONES
by communist or revolutionary ideals, and Shahn’s, which was driven
by his Leftist political leanings as a social democrat.18
Other surprising connections exist between artists included in Pan
American Modernism, some superficial, and others particularly
substantial. Wifredo Lam, who is typically associated with European
artists like Pablo Picasso and the Parisian Surrealists, briefly spent
time discussing art with the U.S. abstract expressionists Jackson
Pollock and Lee Krasner (see cat. no. 38) during a trip to their Long
Island home in 1947.19 The U.S. artist Robert Motherwell, who was
equally associated with Pollock and Krasner during the 1940s and
1950s, was also close friends with the Chilean artist Roberto Matta,
who traveled with Motherwell to Mexico in the 1940s.20 Motherwell
later served as an editor and contributor to the short-lived, but
influential Mexican avant-garde art journal Dyn, which promoted
works by numerous artists between 1942 and 1944, including
comunistas o revolucionarios, y el de Shahn, que se veía animado
por sus inclinaciones políticas izquierdistas de social demócrata.18
Existen otras conexiones sorprendentes entre los artistas que se
incluyen en Pan American Modernism: algunas resultan superficiales,
pero otras son particularmente sustanciales. Wifredo Lam, a quien
en general se asocia con artistas europeos como Pablo Picasso y los
surrealistas parisinos, pasó un período corto analizando arte con los
expresionistas abstractos Jackson Pollock y Lee Krasner (ver no. cat.
38) durante un viaje a la casa que estos tenían en Long Island en
1947.19 El artista estadounidense Robert Motherwell, quien también
estaba vinculado con Pollock y Krasner en los años 1940 y 1950,
era también amigo del artista chileno Roberto Matta, quien viajó
con Motherwell a México en los años 1940.20 Motherwell luego
se desempeñó como editor y colaborador del periódico de arte
vanguardista Dyn, que solo se publicó durante un período breve pero
works by Matta, Motherwell, Manuel Álvarez Bravo, and Carlos
Mérida (see cat. nos. 44, 45, 52 & 24).21 The Dyn Circle, which was
recently the focus of a 2012-2013 exhibition at the Getty Research
Institute, provides a further thread connecting artists in the current
show, given that the journal’s founder – the Austrian-Mexican artist
and writer Wolfgang Paalen – studied art under Hans Hofmann (see
cat. no. 34) before each of these men immigrated to the Americas
(Hofmann to the United States, and Paalen to Mexico). These and
other anecdotes concerning Pan American artistic exchanges are
more fully explored in the illustrated catalogue that follows the first
part of this book, and, as a final reminder, have served as the very
impetus for the present exhibition.
Pan American Modernism is not, however, an attempt to offer
definitive answers, to put forth a single narrative on the development
of modern art in the Americas, or to conclusively state that we
que tuvo gran influencia en el medio; el periódico promovió la obra
de numerosos artistas entre 1942 y 1944, incluyendo los trabajos
de Matta, Motherwell, Manuel Álvarez Bravo, y Carlos Mérida
(ver no. cat. 44, 45, 52 y 24).21 El Círculo Dyn, foco reciente de
la muestra del Getty Research Institute en 2012-2013, ofrece otros
vínculos de conexión entre los artistas de la presente exposición ya
que su fundador, el artista y escritor austríaco mexicano Wolfgang
Paalen estudió arte con Hans Hofmann (ver no. cat. 34) antes de
que ambos emigraran a América (Hofmann a Estados Unidos y
Paalen a México). Estas y otras anécdotas relativas a los intercambios
artísticos panamericanos se encuentran exploradas en mayor detalle
en el catálogo ilustrado que sigue la primera parte de este libro y,
como recordatorio final, han impulsado la presente muestra.
No obstante, Pan American Modernism no intenta ofrecer respuestas
definitivas, proponer una narrativa única sobre el desarrollo del
PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: DIALOGUES, COMMONALITIES, DISCONNECTS
(whether in the local or global sense of this collective pronoun) have
either transcended into a utopic understanding of Pan Americanism,
or slipped back into retrograde ways of thinking about Latin
American avant-gardism in relation to U.S. modernism. Instead, this
exhibition and catalogue strive to discuss the many dialogues – both
linguistic and stylistic – that transpired between artists residing in
the Americas between 1919 and 1979, in order to explore tangible
relationships that were forged through the vibrant exchange of ideas
concerning the commonalities and disconnects that exist between
art and culture.
arte moderno en América, o declarar de manera concluyente que
nosotros (ya sea entendido el pronombre plural en sentido local o
internacional) hemos o bien alcanzado una comprensión utópica
del panamericanismo o retrocedido a formas retrógradas de pensar
las vanguardias latinoamericanas en relación con el modernismo
estadounidense. En cambio, esta muestra y catálogo intentan
discutir los numerosos diálogos (lingüísticos y estilísticos) que
ocurrieron entre artistas que vivían en América entre 1919 y 1979
con el objeto de explorar las relaciones tangibles que se forjaron a
través del animado intercambio de ideas en cuanto a los puntos de
contacto y las inconexiones que existen entre el arte y la cultura.
23
GEOMETRY AND GESTURE: INTRODUCTION

NOTES ON ABSTRACTIONS IN THE AMERICAS Abstract art, in all its varied forms, is having a major come-back in American
and European museums and is attracting renewed attention from the general
public. Judging from the recent efforts of New York’s Museum of Modern
Art, we observe a serious commitment to the subject. In 2010-2011 MoMA
GESTO Y GEOMETRÍA: mounted a major show entitled Abstract Expressionist New York (drawn from

APUNTES SOBRE LA ABSTRACCIÓN EN LAS AMÉRICAS its own immense holdings in this area) and in 2011-2012, De Kooning: A
Retrospective allowed us a ‘close up and personal’ look at the work of this
great pioneer of American abstraction. As this essay was being written (in
winter, 2012-2013) a major exhibition entitled Inventing Abstraction: 1910-
1925 was seen at MoMA. Investigating the roots of non-objective art in
Edward J. Sullivan Europe and the United States (with particular attention being paid to the
contributions of Russian, German, Dutch, Italian and Central European artists
as well as to some of the North Americans associated with the Synchromist
movement), this exhibition and its valuable catalogue allowed us invaluable

INTRODUCCIÓN

En toda su variedad de formas, el arte abstracto experimenta, en la actualidad,

un resurgimiento en los museos europeos y estadounidenses y atrae una
atención renovada del público. A juzgar por los esfuerzos recientes del Museum
of Modern Art de Nueva York (MoMA), se observa un serio compromiso con
el tema. En 2010-2011, el MoMA organizó una muestra importante titulada
Abstract Expressionist New York (Expresionismo abstracto en Nueva York) de su
inmensa colección en el área y en 2011-2012 hizo lo propio con De Kooning: A
Retrospective (De Kooning: Una retrospectiva), que nos permitió observar “de
cerca” la obra de este gran pionero de la abtracción estadounidense. Mientras
se escribía este ensayo (invierno de 2012-2013), se presentaba una muestra de
trascendencia con el título Inventing Abstraction: 1910-1925 (Inventando la
abstracción: 1910-1925) en el mismo Museo de Arte Moderno. Al investigar las
raíces de este arte no figurativo en Europa y los Estados Unidos (con atención
especial a las contribuciones de los artistas rusos, alemanes, holandeses, italianos

24 GEOMETRY AND GESTURE: NOTES ON ABSTRACTIONS IN THE AMERICAS 25

insights into the genesis of not only a form of art but a mode of
visual and cultural expression that had (and still has) profound
consequences in all parts of the world.22
The Lowe Art Museum’s Pan American Modernism: Avant-Garde
Art in Latin America and the United States exhibition is another
demonstration of a cultural institution’s search for meanings within
the parameters of its own collection. While abstract art forms only
a portion of its contents, this exhibition is notable for bringing to
the fore a number of works (many of them seldom seen in the
galleries) by artists from virtually all parts of the Americas who have
experimented with a variety of ways of creating images which do not
have observed reality (including the human form) as their point of
departure. Pan American Modernism also serves another important
purpose. It allows the public a glimpse at the patterns of collecting
of one of the region’s most significant art spaces – in this case, a
y centroeuropeos, además de algunos norteamericanos asociados con
el movimiento de Sincromismo), con su valioso catálogo, esta muestra
nos otorgó perspectivas invaluables en lo relativo al génesis no solo
de una forma de arte sino de un modo de expresión visual y cultural
que tuvo (y aún tiene) consecuencias profundas en todo el mundo.22
La exposición del Lowe Art Museum Pan American Modernism:
Avant-Garde Art in Latin America and the United States (Modernismo
panamericano: la vanguardia en Latinoamérica y los Estados Unidos)
es otro ejemplo de la búsqueda de significados de una institución
cultural dentro de los parámetros de su propia colección. A pesar de
que el arte abstracto representa solo una porción de su contenido,
esta muestra es notable por poner una cantidad de obras en primer
plano (muchas de las cuales vistas con poca frecuencia en las galerías
del museo) pertenecientes a artistas de toda América, artistas que
han experimentado con una variedad de maneras de crear imágenes
26 GESTO Y GEOMETRÍA: APUNTES SOBRE LA ABSTRACCIÓN EN LAS AMÉRICAS
university museum which has the mission not only to collect and
display art for the edification and interest of the general public but
for the education of students in all fields in which the visual arts can
illuminate their processes of learning.
It is noteworthy that Pan American Modernism poses to its viewers
the question “is abstraction a Pan American language,” this is
precisely the query that has been implicit within a number of recent
international exhibitions of abstract art from the Americas. The
decade of the 1990s and into the present has witnessed a much
broader interest in abstraction produced in the nations south of
the U.S. border and in the Caribbean than ever before. To cite only
a few major projects organized around the theme of abstract art
we might remember the seminal exhibition El Taller Torres-García.23
Organized by curator Mari Carmen Ramírez for the The Archer M.
Huntington Art Gallery (and an international tour), this project was
que no han utilizado la realidad objetiva (incluso la forma humana)
como punto de partida de su obra. Pan American Modernism
(Modernismo panamericano) tiene además otro propósito. Le
permite al público echar una mirada a los patrones de coleccionismo
de uno de los espacios artísticos más significativos de la región: en
este caso un museo universitario cuya misión no es solo adquirir y
exhibir arte para satisfacer el interés y las necesidades de cultura
del público sino también para la educación de los estudiantes en
todos los campos en los que las artes visuales pueden iluminar sus
procesos de aprendizaje.
Vale mencionar que Pan American Modernism les presenta a
los visitantes el interrogante “¿es la abstracción un lenguaje
panamericano?”. Precisamente esta es la pregunta que se ha
mantenido implícita en una cantidad de muestras internacionales de
arte abstracto llevadas a cabo en los últimos tiempos en toda América.
a landmark in rehabilitating the career of the virtual founder in Latin
America of forms of art based on the principles of geometry.24 Some
years later, in 2004, Ramírez and many of her colleagues discussed
the multitude of forms of abstract visual languages in the essays
that accompanied the monumental exhibition Inverted Utopias:
Avant-Garde Art in Latin America shown at the Museum of Fine
Arts, Houston.25 Many of the catalogue essays dealt either directly
or obliquely with the existence (or lack thereof) of a [Latin] American
sensibility to abstraction. This is, of course, a fundamental issue and
one that has provoked my own ruminations on this subject.
The essay that follows (which outlines certain thematic and
methodological approaches that I hope to take in a larger study of
this subject) does not attempt to solve this complex problem but
to suggest some ways in which we could consider various forms of
abstraction done by artists throughout the Americas to have certain
Desde la década de 1990 se ha observado un interés inédito mucho
más amplio en el arte abstracto producido en las naciones al sur de
los Estados Unidos y en el Caribe. Para citar algunos de los proyectos
más importantes que giraron en torno al tema de la abstracción
vale recordar la trascendente muestra El Taller Torres-García.23 Mari
Carmen Ramírez fue la curadora de esta exposición de 1992 en
el museo de arte de la Universidad de Texas (y para su posterior
itinerancia internacional): un proyecto que marcó un hito que volvió
a poner en escena la carrera del virtual fundador en Latinoamérica
de las formas artísticas basadas en los principios de la geometría.24
Unos años después, en 2004, Ramírez y muchos de sus colegas
retomaron los temas de la multiplicidad de formas que adquieren
los lenguajes visuales abstractos en los ensayos que acompañaron
la muestra monumental Inverted Utopias. Avant-Garde Art in Latin
America (Utopías invertidas: arte de vanguardia en Latinoamérica),
organizada para el Museum of Fine Arts de Houston.25 Muchos de
GEOMETRY AND GESTURE: NOTES ON ABSTRACTIONS IN THE AMERICAS
“signs of identity.” At times their “American DNA,” as it were, is
present in the way that artists suggest sources from specific design
motifs or patterns of architectural form (I deal with this here in my
remarks on what I call “Mythological Abstractions”). At other times
such distinct-ness is more difficult to determine. After all, abstraction
has become so common and a natural way for us to accept visual
information, since its earliest beginnings around 1910, that it’s
difficult to isolate the genesis of individual ways of abstracting
observed reality or suggesting evanescent things. Artists from the
Americas, as well as from everywhere else, inevitably absorb, share
and re-invent many of the sources to which they have been exposed
– often without even being conscious of their origins.
In the past decade further exhibitions of Latin American abstract art
have helped to push forward the conversation about its significance into
realms unexplored until now. Among many such projects, the various
los ensayos del catálogo trataron de manera directa o tangencial la
existencia (o ausencia) de una sensibilidad [latino] americana a la
abstracción. Se trata, por supuesto, de un tema fundamental que
me ha preocupado en los últimos años.
El presente ensayo, que representa un bosquejo de ciertos enfoques
temáticos y metodológicos sobre los que espero ahondar en un
estudio mayor sobre el tema, no intenta resolver este complejo
problema. Mi deseo es de sugerir algunas maneras en las que
podríamos considerar las varias formas de abstracción realizadas
por artistas en toda América para que podamos comprender ciertas
“marcas de identidad”. En ocasiones, su “ADN americano” (por
llamarlo así) se encuentra presente en el modo en que los artistas
sugieren fuentes de motivos de diseño o sugerencias arquitectónicas
específicas (discuto en este trabajo este punto en lo que denomino
“abstracciones mitológicas”). En otras ocasiones, tal distinción es
27
exhibitions of the collection of Patricia Phelps de Cisneros are inevitable
points of departure. This exemplary assembly, developed over several
decades by one of the most perspicacious collectors of modernist
art, is principally devoted to geometric abstraction beginning in the
1930s. Its great masterpieces of Venezuelan, Brazilian, Argentinean
and Uruguayan art have been shown in such university museums as
Harvard’s Fogg Museum, the Blanton Museum of Art at the University
of Texas at Austin and the Grey Art Gallery of New York University.26
The Newark Museum’s 2009 exhibition entitled The Constructivist
Spirit: Abstract Art in South and North America, 1920s-50s went
further than the exhibitions from the Cisneros collection in extending
the comparatist method of analysis to art produced in the 1920s to
the 1950s in both North and South America.27
There have also been important monographic exhibitions in U.S.
museums of abstract artists from Latin America. Most of them have
más difícil de determinar. Después de todo, la abstracción se ha
vuelto una manera tan cotidiana y natural de aceptar información
visual (desde sus comienzos en la década de 1910) que resulta difícil
aislar el génesis de las formas individuales de abstraer la realidad
observada o sugerir las cosas evanescentes. Los artistas americanos,
como los de cualquier otro sitio, inevitablemente absorben,
comparten y reinventan muchas de las fuentes a las que se han
expuesto, a menudo sin siquiera ser concientes de los orígenes de
estas.
En la última década, otras exposiciones de arte abstracto
latinoamericano han contribuído a profundizar el diálogo acerca
de su significado en terrenos hasta ahora sin explorar. Entre estos
numerosos proyectos, no se puede comenzar sin mencionar las
muestras de la colección de Patricia Phelps de Cisneros. Esta
colección ejemplar, desarrollada durante varias décadas por una
28 GESTO Y GEOMETRÍA: APUNTES SOBRE LA ABSTRACCIÓN EN LAS AMÉRICAS
concentrated on those who privileged a geometric or constructivist
approach. Houston’s Museum of Fine Art’s retrospective of Carlos
Cruz-Diez and that of Jesús Rafael Soto at the Grey Art Gallery of
New York University are outstanding recent examples.28
Beyond the confines of the U.S., many exhibitions and curatorial
projects in Latin America have asked similar questions regarding the
role of abstract art within their cultures. The 1998 São Paulo Biennial,
for instance, famously juxtaposed many works by artists as diverse
as Piet Mondrian, Kasimir Malevich, Yves Klein, Robert Ryman and
others with South Americans, Armando Reverón, Antonio Dias, Hélio
Oiticica and many others in a way the proved to be eye-opening to
all who had the privilege of seeing it or reading its catalogue.29
European museums have paid somewhat less attention to the
phenomena of Pan American abstraction. However, a recent
de las coleccionistas de arte moderno más perpicaces, se dedica
principalmente a la abstracción geométrica que comenzó en los
años 1930. Sus grandes obras maestras de artistas venezolanos,
brasileños, argentinos y uruguayos se han exhibido en museos
universitarios tales como el Fogg Museum de Harvard, el Blanton
Art Museum de la University of Texas en Austin y la Grey Art Gallery
de la New York University.26 La muestra del 2009 en el Newark
Museum titulada The Constructivist Spirit: Abstract Art in South and
North America, 1920s-50s (El espíritu constructivista: arte abstracto
de Sud y Norteamérica, años 1920-1950) avanzó aun más allá de
las muestras de la colección de Cisneros al extender el método
comparatista de análisis del arte producido en las décadas de 1920
a 1950 tanto en América del Norte como en América del Sur.27
Ha habido importantes muestras monográficas en museos
estadounidenses de artistas abstractos de Latinoamérica. La
show of Latin American constructivist-derived art was mounted to
great acclaim in Madrid in 2011. America Fría (Cold America) was
a landmark in the analysis of the role of hard-edged abstract art
throughout the continent.30
The Lowe’s exhibition should be seen in the context of these and
many other projects in which the questions provoked and the
ensuing scholarly dialogues initiated are as significant as the actual
works on the walls.
In this essay I would like to make some observations on only a few
of the most salient aspects of abstraction throughout the Americas,
in accordance with the exhibition’s module entitled “Abstract
Expressionism and its Legacy: A Pan American Language?”
In addition, I will suggest some other pathways and perhaps
suggest some heretofore un-named categories for abstract art as
mayoría se ha concentrado en aquellos que le han dado privilegio
a un enfoque geométrico o constructivista. La retrospectiva que el
Museum of Fine Arts de Houston realizó sobre Carlos Cruz-Diez y la
de Jesús Rafael Soto en la Grey Art Gallery de la New York University
son ejemplos recientes sobresalientes.28
Más allá de las fronteras de los EE. UU., diversas exhibiciones
y proyectos museísticos se han hecho preguntas similares en
Latinoamérica en lo relativo al papel del arte abstracto en sus
culturas. Por ejemplo, la bienal de São Paulo de 1998 llegó a
yuxtaponer y comparar de manera estupenda diversas obras de
artistas tan disímiles como Piet Mondrian, Kasimir Malevich, Yves
Klein y Robert Ryman entre otros, con las de sudamericanos como
Armando Reverón, Antonio Dias, Hélio Oiticica y muchos más, lo
que se convirtió en una revelación para todos aquellos que tuvieron
el privilegio de ver la muestra o leer su catálogo.29
GEOMETRY AND GESTURE: NOTES ON ABSTRACTIONS IN THE AMERICAS
it developed in Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as the
dialogues it sustained with parallel phenomena in the U.S. and
Europe. Following the spirit of the present exhibition that looks at
the museum’s permanent collection along trans-national lines, it
is imperative to consider these phenomena within a hemispheric
context. Such a view is a much more fruitful way to understand
how abstract art develops and circulates throughout most of the
twentieth century and well into our own times. In an era (beginning
in the 1920s) of increasing ability to travel as well as the possibilities
of seeing what artists in other parts of the world were doing via
magazine and other forms of publications, it seems less than logical
to adhere to an outmoded model that examines only the art of one
country, region or even continent. We might begin the discussion
with a brief look at the work of a seminal abstractionist from Latin
America, even though his art represents a period well before the
starting point of the present exhibition.
Los museos europeos le han prestado relativa menor atención al
fenómeno de la abstracción panamericana. Sin embargo, en 2011
se montó en Madrid una exposición de arte latinoamericano basada
en el constructivismo. Gozó de una excelente acojida por parte del
público. América fría marcó un hito en el análisis del papel del arte
abstracto geométrico en todo el continente.30
Se debería considerar la muestra del Lowe en el contexto de estos y
muchos otros proyectos en los que los interrogantes que se provocan
y los consiguientes diálogos académicos que surgen resultan tan
signiticativos como el arte expuesto.
En este ensayo, quisiera presentar ciertas propuestas y observaciones
sobre algunos de los aspectos más sobresalientes de la abstracción
en toda América de acuerdo con el módulo de la muestra
titulado “Abstract Expressionism and its Legacy. A Pan-American
29
EMILIO PETTORUTI AND DYNAMIC ABSTRACTION
The only works from Latin America in MoMA’s Inventing Abstraction
exhibition were two drawings by the Argentine artist Emilio Pettoruti
(1892-1971) dated 1914 and 1915.31 As his surname suggests
Pettoruti was of Italian origin and it was in Italy that he benefited
from lengthy contact with members of the Italian Futurists (Umberto
Boccioni, Carlo Carrá and others) whom he encountered during his
stay as a young artist in Florence and Milan. Pettoruti’s exposure to
cubism during his European years which lasted from 1913 to 1924 also
figured into the creation of his unique early drawings in charcoal and
pencil, which may be considered the earliest totally-abstract works
by an artist from Latin America. These drawings are characterized by
dynamic forms defined by vibrant outward-reaching lines of force or
in some examples suggest a vortex of whirling circles indicating an
inwardly-directed spiraling force (illustration 1). These drawings may
Language?” (El expresionismo abstracto y su legado: ¿un lenguaje
panamericano?). Asimismo, propongo otros caminos y quizás ciertas
categorías inéditas del arte abstracto tal y como se desarrolló en
Latinoamérica y el Caribe, además de los diálogos que este ha
mantenido con fenómenos paralelos en los Estados Unidos y Europa.
Siguiendo el espíritu de la exhibición actual que estudia la colección
permanente del museo desde un punta de vista transnacional,
resulta urgente considerar estos fenómenos dentro del contexto
del hemisferio. Esta mirada es una forma mucho más fructífera de
comprender el modo en el que el arte abstracto se desarrolla y circula
durante casi todo el siglo XX y aun en la actualidad. En una era (que
comienza en los años 1920) donde se ha facilitado cada vez más la
posibilidad de viajar y de ver lo que los artistas de otros lugares del
mundo hacían a través de revistas y otros tipos de publicaciones,
parece ilógico apoyar un modelo anticuado que examine solo el
arte de un país, una región o incluso, un continente. Podríamos
30 GESTO Y GEOMETRÍA: APUNTES SOBRE LA ABSTRACCIÓN EN LAS AMÉRICAS
be placed into a pan-American perspective if we consider them in the
light of the work of other pioneers of non-objective form associated
with dynamic force and movement. The most cogent comparison
with North American art is with the work of Arthur Dove. Beginning
in around 1910, just after his first European journey (where he had
been impressed with the futurists’ experiments with space) Dove
began making paintings and drawings of similar proportions to
those of Pettoruti, and with parallel suggestions of outward-moving
dynamism (illustration 2). Although rarely discussed together in
considerations of early American modernism and abstraction, these
two pioneers of non-objective form share a distinct sensibility and
method of expressing their analyses of shapes, space, and energy.
While Dove (whose work in the abstract manner was championed
and exhibited by Alfred Stieglitz) and Pettoruti never met, and were
perhaps unaware of each other’s work, a closer comparison of the
achievements of the early parts of their careers would certainly
comenzar la discusión echando una breve mirada al trabajo de un
artista abstraccionista trascendente de Latinoamérica, si bien su arte
representa un período anterior al comienzo de esta muestra.
EMILIO PETTORUTI Y LA ABSTRACCIÓN DINÁMICA
Los únicos dos trabajos de Latinoamérica en la muestra Inventing
Abstraction (Inventando la abstracción) del MoMA fueron dos
dibujos del artista argentino Emilio Pettoruti (1892-1971) que datan
de 1914 y 1915.31 Como lo sugiere su apellido, Pettoruti tenía
origen italiano y fue en Italia que aprovechó su amplio contacto con
miembros del movimiento Futurista italiano (como Umberto Boccioni
y Carlo Carrá entre otros), a quienes conoció durante su estancia
en Florencia y Milán cuando era un joven artista. La exposición de
Pettoruti al cubismo durante sus años en Europa, que se prolongaron
de 1913 a 1924, también tuvo su influencia en la creación de sus
yield compelling insights into the way American artists began to Illustration 1
formulate their own strategies of expressing pure form. EMILIO PETTORUTI
b. 1892, La Plata, Argentina
At the Museum of Modern Art’s Inventing Abstraction show d. 1971, Paris, France
the Pettoruti drawings were presented within the context Luci nel paesaggio II
of Italian Futurism. They formed an integral link between the (Light in the Landscape II), 1915
charcoal on paper
theoretical writings of Filippo Tommasso Marinetti and the visual 21 1⁄2 x 18 1⁄8 in. (54.6 x 46 cm)
representations of dynamism by Giacomo Balla, Gino Severini or Museum of Modern Art,
Luigi Russolo and others. These drawings precede, by at least Purchased with funds provided by
two decades, the more fully developed emergence of abstract art Nelly Arrieta de Blaquier and by
the Latin American and Caribbean
in Latin America. On one hand I am tempted, as shown above, to Fund in honor of Edward Sullivan,
link them to a hemispheric zeitgeist by comparing them with the 1405.2007
work of a handful of North American artists (Dove, and slightly © Fundación Pettoruti
later, Georgia O’Keeffe) who were doing analogous experiments
in their art. However, we are also reminded of the conundrum
of geography, aesthetic affinities as well as chronology in our
primeros dibujos singulares a carbón y en lápiz, que pueden Illustration 2
considerarse las primeras obras totalmente abstractas realizadas ARTHUR DOVE
por un artista de Latinoamérica. Estos dibujos se caracterizan por b. 1880, Canandaigua, New York
formas dinámicas definidas por enérgicas líneas centrífugas o, d. 1946, Huntington, New York
en algunos ejemplos, por un torbellino de círculos arremolinados Sails, 1911-1912
que indican una fuerza espiral centrípeta (ilustración 1). Estos pastel on composition board
mounted on wood panel
dibujos se pueden ubicar en una perspectiva panamericana si los 17 7⁄8 x 21 1⁄2 in. (45.4 x 54.6 cm)
consideramos a la luz de la obra de otros pioneros de las formas Terra Foundation for American
no figurativas asociadas con la fuerza dinámica y el movimiento. Art, Chicago, Daniel J. Terra
La comparación más convincente con el arte norteamericano Collection, 1993.10
© The Estate of Arthur G. Dove,
se puede realizar con la obra de Arthur Dove. Desde alrededor Courtesy Terry Dintenfass, Inc.
de 1910, luego de sus viajes por Europa, donde había quedado Photography ©Terra Foundation
impactado por los experimentos de los futuristas con el espacio, for American Art, Chicago
Dove comenzó a pintar y dibujar utilizando proporciones similares
a las de Pettoruti y con una idea paralela de dinamismo centrífugo
(ilustración 2). Aunque rara vez se los ha pensado juntos cuando
GEOMETRY AND GESTURE: NOTES ON ABSTRACTIONS IN THE AMERICAS 31
attempts to link Pettoruti’s work with a sensibility that is specifically
“Latin American.” This is complicated even further by the fact
that when Pettoruti returned to Buenos Aires his art became both
figurative and in many cases reflected subject matter directly related
to his Argentine surroundings.32
CONSTRUCTED FORMS
Although the majority of abstract works on exhibition in Pan American
Modernism are not, strictly speaking, based on the rigid proportions
of geometry, many of them possess an underlying sub-structure that
derives from their artist’s interest in the segmentation of space and
the analysis of form through the simplification of their component
units. This is especially true in the 1947 work by U.S. artist Adolph
Gottlieb. New York Night Scene presents us with an abstract pattern
of quasi-totemic shapes and forms derived from a universal visual
vocabulary of signs. Such elements as the sun in the upper left, the
minimally-described face or the several phallic/spear-shaped forms
pertain to a set of visual archetypes that appealed to and were utilized
by civilizations throughout time and geographical location to define
their history, myths, and beliefs. Like many artists of the mid-twentieth
century in the U.S. and Latin America (including the little known but
extremely important group of U.S. artists called the Indian Space
Painters, headed by Steve Wheeler), Gottlieb was highly impressed by
native American imagery and incorporated it into his “Pictographs.”
These pictures segment forms to create patterns reminiscent of the
organization of space in indigenous textiles or ceramics of a wide
variety of indigenous cultures in both North and South America.
A parallel attraction to indigenous arts (painting, sculpture, and
architecture) was an important factor for Uruguayan artist Joaquín
Torres-García (1874-1949) whose impact throughout South America
in the middle years of the twentieth century and after was definitive.
In fact, it is not an exaggeration to state that much of the art Illustration 3
throughout Latin America based on geometric principals had its JOAQUÍN TORRES-GARCÍA
roots in one way or another in the stimulus of Torres-García. b. 1874, Montevideo, Uruguay
d. 1949, Montevideo, Uruguay
Torres-García had spent his formative years in Europe Ciudad constructiva con hombre
where his contact with the work of Piet Mondrian and other universal (Constructive City with
Universal Man), 1942
founding fathers of geometric abstraction were critical for the
oil on board
development of his own aesthetic. This was enhanced in many 31 7⁄16 x 40 in. (79.9 x 101.5 cm)
ways by his deep engagement with the art of pre-Hispanic Solomon R. Guggenheim
America (patterned textiles, ceramics etc.) which he first viewed Museum, New York, Partial gift,
Mr. and Mrs. James Rudel
in Paris collections, principally at the Musée de l’Homme, the
anthropological museum that pre-dated today’s ethnographic
collections in the Musée du Quai Branly. Torres-García developed
his famous philosophy of Constructive Universalism that utilized
his knowledge of universal visual paradigms as well as world
philosophical tenets from wide-reaching sources. Although

se discute los comienzos del modernismo y la abstracción, estos
dos pioneros de formas no figurativas comparten una sensibilidad
distintiva y una manera de expresar sus análisis de formas, espacios
y energía. Mientras Dove, cuyo trabajo abstracto fue defendido
y expuesto por Alfred Stieglitz, y Pettoruti nunca se conocieron,
y quizás no conocían la obra del otro, comparar sus logros en la
primera parte de sus carreras sin dudas brindaría una perspectiva
contundente sobre el modo en el que los artistas americanos
comenzaron a formular sus propias estrategias para expresar las
formas puras.
En la muestra Inventing Abstraction los dibujos de Pettoruti se
presentaron en el contexto del Futurismo italiano. Formaban un
vínculo integral con los escritos de Filippo Tommasso Marinetti y
las representaciones visuales de dinamismo de Giacomo Balla, Gino
Severini y Luigi Russolo entre otros. Estos dibujos anteceden, en al
menos dos décadas, la aparición más acabada del arte abstracto en
Latinoamérica. Por un lado me siento tentado, como se ha indicado,
a vincularlos con un zeitgeist en el hemisferio al compararlos con
la obra de un puñado de artistas norteamericanos (como Dove, y
un tanto después, Georgia O’Keeffe), quienes llevaban a cabo
experimentos análogos en su arte. Sin embargo, también somos
recordados del enigma de la geografía, de las afinidades estéticas y
de la cronología en nuestros intentos por vincular la obra de Pettoruti
con una sensibilidad que resulta específicamente “latinoamericana”.
Este hecho se complica aun más por el hecho de que cuando
Pettoruti regresó a Buenos Aires, su arte se hizo figurativo y en
muchos casos reflejó los temas relacionados directamente con su
entorno argentino.32
FORMAS CONSTRUÍDAS Illustration 4
JOSÉ GURVICH
Aunque la mayoría de las obras abstractas expuestas en Pan b. 1927, Jieznas, Lithuania
American Modernism no están basadas, en un sentido estricto, Lived and worked in Montevideo,
Uruguay
en las proporciones rígidas de la geometría, muchas cuentan con d. 1974, New York, New York
una estructura subyacente que deriva del interés del artista por la
Constructivist Blue Grid, ca. 1957
segmentación del espacio y el análisis de la forma a través de la oil on board
simplificación de las unidades que lo componen. Esto resulta en 33 7⁄8 x 42 1⁄8 in. (86 x 107 cm)
especial evidente en la obra de 1947 del artista estadounidense Private Collection, San Antonio, TX
Adolph Gottlieb. New York Night Scene (Escena nocturna de Nueva
York) nos presenta un patrón abstracto de formas cuasi totémicas
derivadas de un vocabulario universal de signos. Elementos como
el sol en la esquina superior izquierda, el rostro mínimamente
descripto o las varias formas de lanza / fálicas corresponden a
arquetipos visuales que resultaron atractivos y fueron utilizados

32 GESTO Y GEOMETRÍA: APUNTES SOBRE LA ABSTRACCIÓN EN LAS AMÉRICAS GEOMETRY AND GESTURE: NOTES ON ABSTRACTIONS IN THE AMERICAS 33
some of his literally thousands of paintings, drawings, prints, wood
sculptures and other forms of construction were indeed abstract, the
majority of them could be classified as semi-abstract. In such images
as portraits or city-scapes he continued to employ the ideals of
proportion and geometric analysis that were derived from his studies
of cubism, the example of Mondrian and the De Stijl followers of
pure geometric non-objectivity, combined with his attraction to non-
Western pictorial elements (illustration 3).
Torres-García initiated several schools and artists groups in
Montevideo (the Taller Torres-García and the Escuela del Sur), where
he returned after his long European sojourn in 1934 and remained
until his death in 1949. His students (those who had worked directly
with him as well as the hundreds more who had been inspired by
him) took his example into many far-reaching directions. Some
of the artists who studied with Torres-García directly, such as the
por civilizaciones en distintos momentos y lugares para definir su
historia, mitos y creencias. Como muchos artistas de mediados del
siglo XX en los Estados Unidos y Latinoamérica (incluyendo el grupo de
artistas estadounidenses poco conocido pero de importancia singular
liderado por Steve Wheeler y denominado los Indian Space Painters),
Gottlieb se vio muy afectado por las imágenes indígenas americanas
y las incorporó en sus “Pictographs” (Pictografías). Estas pinturas
segmentan las formas y crean patrones que recuerdan la organización
del espacio en textiles y cerámicas autóctonos de una variedad de
culturas indias tanto de Norte como de Sudamérica. Una atracción
similar hacia las artes indígenas (pintura, esculturan y arquitectura) fue
un factor de importancia para el artista uruguayo Joaquín Torres-García
(1874-1949), cuyo impacto a lo largo de Sudamérica desde mediados
del siglo XX fue definitorio. De hecho, no es exagerado indicar que
mucho del arte latinoamericano que se basa en principios geométricos
tuvo su origen de una u otra forma en el estímulo de Torres-García.
34 GESTO Y GEOMETRÍA: APUNTES SOBRE LA ABSTRACCIÓN EN LAS AMÉRICAS
Lithuanian-born painter and sculptor José Gurvich (1927-1974), constructions. However, their concerns with geometry that forms Illustration 5
created fascinatingly hybridized forms that referenced his teacher’s the substructure of their aesthetic would have been unthinkable MARCELO BONEVARDI
art but added elements from his Eastern European visual heritage. without their having interiorized the lessons of Torres-García.33 b. 1929, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Gurvich was fascinated by Jewish mysticism, even though he was d. 1994, Córdoba, Argentina
not himself an overtly, deeply religious man, and some of his art Experimenting with pure abstract construction in his many large- Reclama grande (Large Decoy),
reflects a unique hybridization of geometric shapes informed by scale pieces in wood and other found objects, Argentine artist 1976
Rhoplex acyrlic medium, dry
an interest in pre-Hispanic pattern with subject matter related to Marcelo Bonevardi (1929-1994) went well beyond the parameters pigments, Dex-O-Tex cement
kabalistic traditions (illustration 4). set by Torres-García, even though his art, like that of so many of on burlap and wood with wood
his colleagues, was deeply steeped in the essential visual languages objects
It is important to stress the enduring legacy of the constructivist art of developed by him (illustration 5). Bonevardi added new dimensions 90 x 4 in. (228.6 x 10.2 cm)
Blanton Museum of Art, The
Torres-García well into the later years of the twentieth century (and to the totemic forms in Torres-García’s art. Bonevardi’s paintings University of Texas at Austin,
with artists who might not always have directly acknowledged their and constructed objects often resemble emblems of an unknown Barbara Duncan Fund, 1976
debt to the Uruguayan master). The members of such innovative civilization or symbols with obscure yet potent meanings. Photograph by Rick Hall
and experimental artists groups as the Argentine and Uruguayan © 1976 Marcelo Bonevardi
participants in Madí or Arte Concreto Invención rejected, in their work of A number of artists from Latin America who have attracted
the mid-1940s and beyond, any hint of figuration in their canvases and widespread attention throughout the Americas and Europe in
Torres-García había pasado sus años formativos en Europa, donde análisis geométrico que derivaban de sus estudios del cubismo, Illustration 6
su contacto con la obra de Piet Mondrian y otros fundadores de la del ejemplo de Mondrian y de los seguidores De Stijl de la pura JESÚS RAFAEL SOTO
abstracción geométrica resultaron críticos para el desarrollo de su geométrica no objetiva, que se combinaban con su atracción por b. 1923, Ciudad Bolívar, Venezuela
propia estética. Esta se vio acentuada de muchas maneras por su elementos pictóricos no occidentales (ilustración 3). d. 2005, Paris, France
profundo compromiso con el arte prehispánico (textiles con diseños, Olive and Black, 1966
cerámicas, etc.) que tuvo oportunidad de ver por primera vez en Torres-García fundó varias escuelas e inició grupos de artistas en metal strips suspended in front
of two plywood panels painted
colecciones en París, en especial en el Musée de l’Homme, el museo Montevideo (la Asociación de Arte Constructivo y el Taller Torres- with synthetic polymer paint and
antropológico que precedió a las colecciones etnográficas del actual García), donde regresó luego de su extendida estancia europea mounted on composition board
Musée du Quai Branly. Torres-García desarrolló su famosa filosofía del y donde permaneció hasta su muerte en 1949. Sus alumnos 61 1⁄2 x 42 1⁄4 x 12 1⁄2 in.
Universalismo constructivo que utilizaba sus conocimientos acerca de (aquellos que habían trabajado de manera directa con él como (156.1 x 107.1 x 31.7 cm)
Inter-American Fund, The Museum
paradigmas visuales universales y de principios filosóficos mundiales así también los cientos que se vieron inspirados por su obra) of Modern Art, New York, NY, U.S.A.
de variadas fuentes. Aunque algunos de sus literalmente miles de tomaron su ejemplo en diversas direcciones de amplio alcance. © 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS),
pinturas, dibujos, grabados, esculturas en madera y otras formas de Algunos de los artistas que estudiaron directamente con Torres- New York / ADAGP, Paris
construcción eran de hecho abstractos, la mayoría de ellos se podría García, como el pintor y escultor lituano José Gurvich (1927- Digital Image © The Museum of
Modern Art / Licensed by SCALA /
clasificar como semiabstractos. En imágenes tales como retratos o 1974), crearon formas híbridas que hacían referencia al arte de Art Resource, NY
paisajes urbanos, continuó utilizando los ideales de proporción y su maestro a la vez que le agregaban elementos desde lo visual
GEOMETRY AND GESTURE: NOTES ON ABSTRACTIONS IN THE AMERICAS 35
the last decade may also trace their beginnings of their interest in
geometric form and manipulation of constructed space to the art of
Torres-García. Brazilians Lygia Clark and Hélio Oiticica (subjects of
major upcoming exhibitions in U.S. institutions34) or the Venezuelan
constructivist and kinetic artists like Cruz-Diez and Soto (whose
experiments in kineticism both captured the spirit of modernity of
the 1950s oil-rich society and were coveted by the political and social
elites of the 60s and 70s) would probably not associate themselves
with constructivist art of the 1930s and 40s in Uruguay and Argentina
(illustration 6). Nonetheless, the artistic transformations of the visual
landscape of the Spanish and Portuguese-speaking Americas that
took place prior to the second half of the century undoubtedly set
the stage for a wide variety of options for abstraction later on.
Geometric art has retained its hold on artists throughout the
Americas well into the twenty-first century. Thanks to the efforts of
de su herencia cultural de Europa del Este. Gurvich estaba fascinado
por el misticismo judío, si bien no era un hombre que demostrara
una profunda religiosidad, y algunas de sus obras reflejan una
hibridación única de formas geométricas basada en un interés por
los patrones prehispánicos con temas relacionados a las tradiciones
cabalísticas (ilustración 4).
Es importante subrayar el legado perdurable del arte constructivista
de Torres-García que se extendió hasta finales del siglo XX (y con
artistas que quizás no siempre reconocieron su deuda con el maestro
uruguayo de manera directa). Los miembros de estos grupos artísticos
innovadores y experimentales como los participantes argentinos y
uruguayos de Madí o Arte Concreto Invención rechazaban en su
obra de mediados de los años 1940 en adelante cualquier atisbo
de figuración en sus lienzos y construcciones. Sin embargo, su
preocupación por la geometría que forma la subestructura de su
36 GESTO Y GEOMETRÍA: APUNTES SOBRE LA ABSTRACCIÓN EN LAS AMÉRICAS
a number of younger scholars from both South and North America,
the achievements of a wide variety of post 1960s adherents to the
principals of geometry have been examined and are slowly making
inroads into the often hard-to-penetrate canon of “important”
contemporary art. The Colombian art historian Ana Franco has
written eloquently on the work of Édgar Negret (1920-2012) and
Eduardo Ramírez Villamizar (1922-2004).35 Ramírez’s dynamic
sculptures and enigmatic paintings (illustration 7) as well as the
monumental constructivist-based pieces by Negret speak both the
language of international geometric abstraction (related to that
of their contemporaries and friends such as Ellsworth Kelly, Jack
Youngerman and Louise Nevelson) but inflected by reminiscences
of the places where they were born. This is especially true in the
case of Negret who first encountered three-dimensional form in
the colonial churches he frequented as a boy in the Andean city
of Popayán.
estética habría sido impensable sin antes haber incorporado las
lecciones de Torres-García.33
Al experimentar con la construcción abstracta pura en muchas de
sus piezas a gran escala en madera y en otros objetos encontrados,
el artista argentino Marcelo Bonevardi (1929-1994) llegó más allá de
los parámetros de Torres-García, aunque su arte, como la de tantos de
sus colegas, se encontraba profundamente sumido en los lenguajes
visuales esenciales que él desarrolló (ilustración 5). Bonevardi agregó
nuevas dimensiones a las formas totémicas de la producción visual
de Torres-García. Las pinturas y los objetos construídos por Bonevardi
a menudo se asemejan a emblemas de una civilización desconocida
o símbolos con significados oscuros y a la vez potentes.
En un número de artistas latinoamericanos que han concitado
gran atención en toda América y Europa en la última década se
The contemporary language of hard-edged abstraction in Illustration 7
Colombia has been developed to its most refined point by Fanny EDUARDO RAMÍREZ
Sanín (b. 1938). Trained in New York (where she has resided VILLAMIZAR
for several decades) and Mexico, her early work was squarely b. 1923, Pamplona, Colombia
d. 2004, Bogotá, Colombia
within the abstract expressionist mode.36 Some of Sanín’s first
works were done in the spirit of those of her compatriot Lola Composición mecánica
(Mechanical Composition), 1957
Fernández (b. 1926) whose 1964 abstraction Petróleo 4am oil on canvas
(cat. no. 41) is in the current exhibition.37 However, Sanín’s 39 1⁄2 x 79 in. (100 x 200 cm)
most characteristic production represents a vision to which she OAS AMA | Art Museum of
has remained faithful for decades (illustration 8). Her paintings the Americas Collection
and hundreds of drawings in watercolor and acrylic reflect a
constant, obsessive striving for technical perfection, the widest
possible forms of experimentation in color combined with
veiled recollections of monumental shapes, often suggested by
pyramidal archetypes.
pueden también hallar marcas de la obra de Torres-García en su Illustration 8
interés por la forma geométrica y la manipulación del espacio FANNY SANÍN
construído. Los brasileños Lygia Clark y Hélio Oiticica (quienes b. 1938, Bogotá, Colombia
pronto tendrán muestras de importancia en instituciones de Lives and works in New York,
New York
EE. UU.34) o artistas constructivistas y cinéticos venezolanos
como Carlos Cruz-Diéz y Jesús Rafael Soto (cuyos experimentos Composition No. 2, 2009
acrylic and pencil on paper
con la quinética captaron el espíritu de la modernidad de la 35 x 27 in. (88.9 x 68.58 cm)
sociedad petrolera de los años 1950 y resultaron codiciados Frederico Sève Gallery
por las élites políticas y sociales de los años 1960 y 1970) © 2009 Fanny Sanín
tal vez no desearían asociarse con el arte constructivista de
los años 1930 y 1940 de Uruguay y Argentina (ilustración 6).
Sin embargo, las transformaciones artísticas en el panorama
visual de los países latinoamericanos que tuvieron lugar antes
de la segunda mitad del siglo sin dudas abrieron luego el
camino para una amplia variedad de opciones en lo relativo
a la abstracción.
GEOMETRY AND GESTURE: NOTES ON ABSTRACTIONS IN THE AMERICAS 37
An exquisite sense of color as well as controlled, stable forms
often characterizes the work of Japanese-born Brazilian artist
Tomie Ohtake (b. 1913). Although her art is far from the controlled
geometry of many of the artists cited above, she nonetheless infuses
her compositions with a sense of permanence and contemplation
doubtlessly derived from forms of art that permeated the Brazilian
art scene after mid-century when many painters and artists of
other media came to Brazil from Japan (illustration 9). While these
Japanese Brazilian artists (who included, among others, the gestural
abstractionist Flavio Shiró) did not represent a homogeneous group
they helped create vibrant links with the new post-World War II
art scene in both Tokyo and Kyoto, thus internationalizing even
more a Brazilian art world that has traditionally been one of the
most open sites in the hemisphere to new trends and experimental
forms of visual expression.
MYTHOLOGICAL ABSTRACTIONS
Within the context of the present exhibition, the Guatemalan artist
Rodolfo Abularach (b. 1933) is one of many artists who has practiced
a form of abstraction rooted, at least in part, within the panorama of
myth and the pervasive presence (in his native country) of structures
and signs from the ancient past. One of the forgers of a new artistic
ground in Central America in the mid-twentieth century Abularach
has, nonetheless, received relatively little attention outside his native
country. He emerged from a traditional training in Guatemala City
to extend his frame of reference to New York in 1960 (where he has
spent his mature career). Studies at the Art Students League and his
contacts with his New York contemporaries opened his eyes to new
possibilities and his art changed in the direction of the experimental.
Although best known for his many surrealist-related studies of the
human eye in both paint and charcoal drawing, there are many
instances, such as in the untitled ink on paper composition in Illustration 9
this exhibition from 1964 (see cat. no. 40) in which he seems to TOMIE OHTAKE
ruminate on the solidity and monumentality of timeless ancient b. 1913, Kyoto, Japan
structures from the country of his birth. Although by no means Lives and works in São Paulo, Brazil
should we assign specific “mythological” or archaizing content Number 9, 1975
to this and related pieces by Abularach, I am convinced that his acrylic on canvas
39 1⁄2 x 39 1⁄2 in. (100 x 100 cm)
art lies within the territory occupied by certain major figures of OAS AMA | Art Museum of the
American abstraction who in the 1950s and 60s created non- Americas Collection
objective works with an overlay of both evanescent spiritual © 1975 Tomie Ohtake
content and a strong suggestion of rootedness in the past. In
his travels around Guatemala, Abularach could hardly have been
unimpressed by that nation’s outstanding architectural heritage
of the Maya and other indigenous groups. Such structures as the
great pyramids as well as the more modest yet equally substantial
monuments that comprise the grand complex known as Tikal
come to our minds as we view this work.

El arte geométrico se ha mantenido vivo en el interés de los artistas
de toda América ya entrado el siglo XXI. Gracias a los esfuerzos de
un número de académicos jóvenes de Norte y Sudamérica, se han
examinado los logros de una amplia variedad de adherentes a los
principios de la geometría del período posterior a los años 1960 y poco
a poco se realizan avances hacia el canon del arte contemporáneo
“importante” al que tantas veces es difícil ingresar. La historiadora de
arte colombiano Ana Franco ha escrito con elocuencia sobre la obra
de Édgar Negret (1920-2012) y Eduardo Ramírez Villamizar (1922-
2004).35 Las esculturas dinámicas y las pinturas enigmáticas de Ramírez
(ilustración 7) junto con las monumentales piezas constructivistas de
Negret presentan el lenguaje de la abstracción geométrica internacional
(conectada con la de contemporáneos y amigos suyos tales como
Ellsworth Kelly, Jack Youngerman y Louise Nevelson) pero lo hacen
marcadas por los recuerdos de los lugares en los que nacieron. Esto es
en especial cierto en el caso de Negret, quien encontró por primera vez
formas tridimensionales en las iglesias coloniales a las que frecuentaba
de niño en la ciudad andina de Popayán.
Fanny Sanín (nacida en 1938) ha llevado el lenguaje contemporáneo
de la abstracción geométrica en Colombia a su mayor refinamiento.
Formada en Londres, México y Nueva York, donde reside desde
hace varias décadas, su trabajo temprano correspondía al
expresionismo abstracto.36 Algunas de las primeras obras de
Sanín fueron realizadas siguiendo el estilo de su compatriota Lola
Fernández (nacida en 1926) cuya obra abstracta de 1964 Petróleo
4 a.m. (cat. no. 41) forma parte de la presente muestra.37 Sin
embargo, la producción más característica de Sanín representa una
visión a la que se ha mantenido fiel durante décadas (ilustración 8).
Sus pinturas y cientos de dibujos en acuarela y acrílico reflejan un
esfuerzo constante y obsesivo por alcanzar la perfección técnica,
las formas posibles más amplias de experimentación con el color
y reminiscencias veladas de formas monumentales, a menudo
sugeridas por arquetipos piramidales.
Un sentido exquisito de color además de formas estables y
controladas a menudo caracterizan la obra de la artista brasileña
de origen japonés Tomie Ohtake (nacida en 1913). Aunque su
arte se aleja bastante de la geometría controlada de muchos de
los artistas antes citados, la artista le infunde a sus composiciones
un sentido de permanencia y contemplación que sin dudas deriva
de formas de arte que atravesaban la escena artística brasileña
durante la segunda mitad del siglo cuando muchos pintores y
artistas de otros medios llegaron desde Japón a Brasil (ilustración
9). A pesar de que estos artistas japonés-brasileños (que incluían
entre otros al abstraccionsita de la pintura gestual Flavio Shiró)
no representaban un grupo homogéneo, contribuyeron a crear
vínculos dinámicos con la escena artística posterior a la Segunda
Guerra Mundial de Tokio y Kioto, para de este modo internacionalizar
aun más el mundo artístico brasileño (tradicionalmente uno de los
más abiertos del hemisferio) y abrirlo a nuevas tendencias y formas
experimentales de expresión visual.
ABSTRACCIONES MITOLÓGICAS
En el contexto de la esta exhibición, el artista guatemalteco Rodolfo
Abularach (nacido en 1933) es uno de los muchos artistas que ha
practicado una de las formas de abstracción enraizada (al menos en
parte) en el panorama del mito y la presencia constante en su país
natal de estructuras y signos del pasado antiguo. No obstante el
hecho de ser uno de los forjadores de nuevos horizontes artísticos
en Centroamérica a mediados de siglo, Abularach ha recibido
relativamente poca atención crítica fuera de su tierra. Más allá de su
formación tradicional en la ciudad de Guatemala, luego extendió su

38 GESTO Y GEOMETRÍA: APUNTES SOBRE LA ABSTRACCIÓN EN LAS AMÉRICAS GEOMETRY AND GESTURE: NOTES ON ABSTRACTIONS IN THE AMERICAS 39
One of Abularach older contemporaries, the Peruvian artist
Fernando de Szyszlo (b. 1925) has made an even more overt career
and political statement in his references to ancient structures and
places in a visual language that incorporates gestural abstraction
and coloristic experimentation. The art historian Natalia Majluf has
commented that “de Szyszlo can truly be called the true founder [of
abstraction] in Peru and the catalyst for the emergence of an entire
social group searching for a renovation of modern art.”38 Szyszlos’
first exhibition in which works of total abstraction appeared occurred
in 1951. Since that time he has made references to the ancient
history and civilizations of the Inca in virtually all of his compositions,
many of which are done in series. Szyszlo’s sense of color is one
of the salient facets of his oeuvre; utilizing a highly personal form
of deep, brooding tones juxtaposed with shocking jewel-like colors
to intimate the atmosphere of lost things emerging, dream-like,
from our subconscious (illustration 10). Syzszlo’s art has remained
marco de referencia a Nueva York en 1960, donde ha transcurrido
su carrera madura. Sus estudios en elArt Students League y sus
contactos con contemporáneos de Nueva York le abrieron nuevas
posibilidades y su arte dio un giro hacia lo experimental.
Aunque se conoce más por sus numerosos estudios surrealistas
del ojo humano tanto en pintura como en dibujos a carbón,
existen muchos ejemplos, como la obra sin título en tinta sobre
papel de 1964 (cat. no. 40) expuesta en esta muestra en la que
parece reflexionar sobre la solidez y monumentalidad de antiguas
estructuras atemporales de su tierra natal. Aunque de ningún modo
se le debería asignar ningún contenido “mitológico” o arcaizante
específico a esta u otras piezas de Abularach, creo que su obra se
ubica dentro del territorio ocupado por algunas de las figuras más
importantes de la abstracción americana quienes en los años 1950 y
1960 crearon obras no figurativas revestidas tanto de un contenido
40 GESTO Y GEOMETRÍA: APUNTES SOBRE LA ABSTRACCIÓN EN LAS AMÉRICAS
stylistically and thematically consistent throughout his long years
as Peru’s most well-known modern classic painter.39 While he has
undoubtedly created a visual vocabulary that could be described
as upholding a (perhaps by now faded) national identification with
ancient civilizations, he nonetheless is among the most distinguished
representatives of a group of abstract artists from Latin America who
seek to evoke lost glories and diminished memories of a celebrated
edenic existence prior to the contact with western civilizations from
across the ocean.
Another of these grand figures of mythological abstraction is
the Mexican painter Gunther Gerszo (1915-2000).40 The son of
Hungarian and German immigrants to Mexico, Gerszo’s career was
enormously varied and included a lengthy stint as a designer of theatre
and film sets both in Mexico and the U.S. Widely traveled, Gerszo
made the acquaintance of a large group of artists and intellectuals
espiritual evanescente como de fuertes referencias a las raíces del
pasado. A lo largo de sus viajes por Guatemala, resulta difícil pensar
que Abularach no se viera afectado por el riquísimo patrimonio
arquitectónico maya y de otros grupos indígenas. Cuando vemos
su obra, nos vienen a la mente estructuras como las grandes
pirámides o los monumentos más modestos y aun así sustanciales
que comprenden el gran complejo conocido como Tikal.
El peruano Fernando de Szyszlo (nacido en 1925), uno de los
contemporáneos de más edad que Abularach, ha realizado una
declaración profesional y política aun más abierta con sus referencias
a estructuras y lugares antiguos a través de un lenguage visual que
incorpora la pintura gestual y la experimentación con el color. La
historiadora de arte Natalia Majluf ha comentado que “de Szyszlo
puede considerarse el verdadero fundador [de la abstracción] en Perú
y catalizador del surgimiento de todo un grupo social que busca una
in Paris and elsewhere, many of whom were participants in the Illustration 10
surrealist movement. He re-established relations with some of FERNANDO DE SZYSZLO
them, including the Austrian Wolfgang Paalen and Alice Rahon b. 1925, Lima, Peru
when they fled Europe during World War II for Mexico. Both Cajamarca, 1959
Paalen and Rahon were principally abstract artists and their visual oil on canvas
experiments had a certain impact on Gerszo, who only began 50 x 36 in. (127 x 91.4 cm)
OAS AMA | Art Museum of the
painting full time after the1960s. Americas Collection
© 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS),
Gerszo became known for his canvases in which a strong New York / APSAV, Lima
suggestion of ancient structures was present (illustration 11).
It was most often the built environments of the pre-Hispanic
peoples of the Americas that left their mark on him, but travels
to Greece allowed reminiscences of classical antiquity to make
their appearance as well. Gerszo’s compositions generally have
a strong architectonic, even geometric sub-structure, but in no
case are they representative of a specific moment or place. They
renovación artística”.38 La primera muestra de de Szyszlo en la que Illustration 11
se expusieron obras de abstracción total se llevó a cabo en 1951. GUNTHER GERZSO
Desde entonces, ha hecho referencias a la historia y civilización b. 1915, Mexico City, Mexico
antigua inca en virtualmente todas sus composiciones, mucha de d. 2000, Mexico City, Mexico
las que realizó en series. El sentido de color de de Szyszlo es una de Dos personajes (Two Characters),
las facetas sobresalientes de su obra debido a la utilización de tonos 1956
oil on canvas
taciturnos y profundos de una naturaleza muy personal yuxtapuestos 36 5⁄8 x 26 3⁄4 in. (93 x 67.9 cm)
con colores impactantes y vivaces para crear la atmósfera de cosas Santa Barbara Museum of Art,
perdidas que surgen, como entre sueños, de nuestro subconciente Gift of Charles A. Storke
(ilustración 10). El arte de de Szyzszlo se ha mantenido constante © John Michael Gerzso
desde lo estilístico y temático a lo largo de todos sus años como el
pintor clásico moderno más conocido de Perú.39 A pesar de que
sin dudas creó un vocabulario visual que podría describirse como
defensor de una identificación nacional (quizás ahora descolorida)
con las civilizaciones, se encuentra entre los representantes más
distinguidos de un grupo de artistas abstractos de Latinoamérica
GEOMETRY AND GESTURE: NOTES ON ABSTRACTIONS IN THE AMERICAS 41
are, rather, abstractions in which the artist (not unlike Fanny Sanín,
discussed above) evinces his dreams of long-forgotten essences
of places that never really existed but lived more in the collective
imagination than any other concrete venue.
RUPTURAS
Gunter Gerszo is nominally connected with a specific movement
in Mexican art that developed after c. 1950 that has been called
La Ruptura (the Rupture). This is a very loosely defined faction of
artists who, in general, felt alienated from the dogmatism of the late
manifestations of muralism and what they perceived as its strangle
hold on creativity in their country. It should be remembered that
David Alfaro Siqueiros, the youngest of the so-called tres grandes or
three most powerful mural artists (the other two were Diego Rivera
and José Clemente Orozco) famously stated that “there is no other
route than ours,” indicating the hegemony of not only muralism
but the so-called “Mexican School” of artists whose subjects were
principally the landscape and everyday life of urban and rural
dwellers of the country. The Ruptura had, in fact, no unifying style.
Nonetheless, the majority of artists associated with it practiced some
form of abstract painting, sculpture and graphic art. This ranged
from the free-form gestural work of Manuel Felguérez to the more
geometrically-oriented series by Spanish-born artist Vicente Rojo.
Many artists of La Ruptura had studied abroad after the end of World
War II. Their art offered a dramatic and contemporary antidote to
the surrealist-related imagery of such famous figures as Frida Kahlo,
Leonora Carrington, María Izquierdo or Remedios Varo, all of whom
were still painting in 1950. As was true of the surrealist painters of the
1930s and 1940s, some of the most outstanding figures of the Ruptura
were women. Cordelia Urueta (1908-1995) became famous for her
lush studies of color in abstract washes across the canvas. Lilia Illustration 12
Carrillo (1930-1974) was perhaps the most exceptional gestural LILIA CARRILLO
abstract painter of her time. Although her career was sadly short b. 1930, Mexico City, Mexico
(she died at age 44) she produced a prodigious body of work that d. 1974, Mexico City, Mexico
often suggests oneiric spaces created with diaphanous application Seradis, 1963
of contrasting colors that played one against the other (illustration oil on canvas
39 1⁄4 x 47 1⁄8 in. (99.7 x 119.7 cm)
12). There are similarities to the abstract painting of the émigré Gift of Esso Inter-America, Inc.,
artist Wolfgang Paalen, mentioned as pertaining to the group of 70.024.027
foreigners who had established surrealism in Mexico.41 In fact, © 1963 Lilia Carrillo
Carrillo was indeed inspired by the “smoky” quality of Paalen’s
paintings (many of which were literally done incorporating smoke
from a candle). Nonetheless, it was Carrillo’s deeply personal
synthesis and abstraction of the art she most admired during her
years in Paris in the early 1950s (including that of Matisse and
Picasso) that accounted for her rejection of the figuration which
she had been trained to do as a student and the development

que busca evocar las glorias pasadas y los recuerdos empequeñecidos
de una celebrada existencia edénica anterior al contacto con las
civilizaciones occidentales del otro lado del océano.
Otra de las grandes figuras de la abstracción mitológica es el pintor
mexicano Gunther Gerszo (1915-2000).40 Hijo de inmigrantes
húngaros y alemanes que llegaron a México, la carrera de Gerszo
resultó tremendamente variada e incluyó un largo período como
diseñador de escenografías de teatro y cine en México y los Estados
Unidos. Gerszo, quien era un viajero ávido, conoció a un gran grupo
de artistas e intelectuales, muchos de los cuales participaban en el
movimiento surrealista en París y otros sitios. Volvió a establecer
relaciones con algunos de ellos, incluyendo a los austríacos
Wolfgang Paalen y Alice Rahon, cuando huyeron de Europa a México
durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Tanto Paalen como Rahon
eran principalmente artistas abstractos y sus experimentos visuales
afectaron en cierta forma a Gerszo, quien se dedicó unicamente a
pintar después de los años 1960.
Gerszo se hizo conocido por sus lienzos en los que se hacían fuertes
referencias a estructuras antiguas (ilustración 11). Muy a menudo
eran los entornos construídos por los pueblos prehispánicos de
América los que dejaban una marca en él, pero sus viajes a Grecia le
permitieron también otorgarles referencias de la antigüedad clásica
a sus obras. Las composiciones de Gerszo en general poseen una
fuerte subestructura arquitectónica y hasta geométrica, pero en
ningún caso son representativas de un momento o lugar específico.
Se trata más bien de abstracciones en las que el artista (de manera
similar a Fanny Sanín como se consideró anteriormente) presenta sus
sueños de aquello que considera esencial de lugares olvidados de
hace tiempo que nunca existieron en la realidad pero que habitaban
el imaginario colectivo en lugar de un sitio concreto.
RUPTURAS
Nominalmente, Gunther Gerszo estaba conectado con un
movimiento artístico mexicano específico que se desarrolló
después de 1950 denominado La Ruptura. Esta era una facción
de artistas definida de manera vaga, artistas que en general se
sentían alejados del dogmatismo de las manifestaciones últimas
del muralismo y que percibían que este asfixiaba la creatividad
de su país. Se debe recordar que David Alfaro Siqueiros, el más
joven de los tres grandes muralistas (los otros dos eran Diego
Rivera y José Clemente Orozco), pronunció la frase célebre “no
hay otro camino que el nuestro” al indicar la hegemonía no solo
del muralismo sino además de la “Escuela mexicana” de artistas
cuyos temas eran principalmente los paisajes y la vida cotidiana
de los habitantes urbanos y rurales del país. De hecho La Ruptura
no tenía ningún estilo unificador. Sin embargo, la mayoría de
los artistas asociados con ella practicaban algún tipo de pintura,
escultura o arte gráfico abstracto. Estos iban desde la abstracción
gestual libre de Manuel Felguérez a las series más orientadas hacia
lo geométrico del artista español Vicente Rojo.
Muchos de los artistas de La Ruptura habían estudiado en el extranjero
luego de terminada la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Su arte ofrecía un
antídoto dramático y contemporáneo a las imágenes surrealistas de
figuras reconocidas como Frida Kahlo, Leonora Carrington, María
Izquierdo o Remedios Varo, quienes todavía estaban pintando en
1950. Del mismo modo que sucedió con los pintores surrealistas
de los años 1930 y 1940, algunas de las figuras más destacadas
de La Ruptura eran mujeres. Cordelia Urueta (1908-1995) se hizo
famosa por sus suntuosos estudios de color en maretas abstractas
desplegadas sobre el lienzo. Lilia Carrillo (1930-1974) fue quizás
la pintora abstracta gestual más excepcional de su época. Aunque

42 GESTO Y GEOMETRÍA: APUNTES SOBRE LA ABSTRACCIÓN EN LAS AMÉRICAS GEOMETRY AND GESTURE: NOTES ON ABSTRACTIONS IN THE AMERICAS 43
of one of the most distinguished and distinctive bodies of gestural
abstract work in mid-century Latin America.42
THE SPECIAL CASE OF THE CARIBBEAN
The last series of comments, in this admittedly idiosyncratic choice
of “American abstractions,” concerns the Caribbean. In the section
devoted to abstraction in the Pan American Modernism exhibition,
Caribbean artists hold pride of place; Cuba and Puerto Rico are
present with at least nine works. Why do I refer to the ‘special case’
of the region? Taking the title from an important essay written in
1988 by Puerto Rican scholar Marimar Benítez who underscored the
anomalies of Puerto Rican art within a larger Latin American context,43
I wish to suggest the uniqueness of all approaches to abstract form
in Caribbean art, given the long-standing dominance in the region
of representational art, especially landscape and genre compositions.
su carrera fue desgraciadamente corta (ya que falleció a los 44
años), produjo una obra cuantiosa en la que a menudo se sugieren
espacios oníricos creados a partir de la aplicación diáfana de colores
contrastantes que se enfrentan entre sí (ilustración 12). Existen
similitudes en su obra con la de la pintura abstracta del artista
emigrado Wolfgang Paalen que, como se mencionó, pertenecía
al grupo de extranjeros que habían fundado el surrealismo en
México.41 De hecho, Carillo se inspiraba en cierto toque “nebuloso”
de las pinturas de Paalen (mucho del cual se realizaba literalmente
incorporando humo de una vela). Sin embargo, es la profunda
síntesis personal y la abstracción del arte que más admiró durante
sus años en París a principios de los años 1950 (incluyendo el
de Matisse y Picasso) lo que explica el rechazo de Carrillo por la
figuración que como estudiante le habían enseñado y el desarrollo
de una de las obras más distinguidas y distintivas de arte abstracto
gestual en Latinoamérica de mediados de siglo.42
44 GESTO Y GEOMETRÍA: APUNTES SOBRE LA ABSTRACCIÓN EN LAS AMÉRICAS
Although a detailed examination of approaches to abstraction in
the anglophone, francophone, and Dutch-speaking islands would
obviously enhance our vision of the multiple meanings of abstract
art in the Caribbean, I will confine myself to some representative
examples from the Spanish-speaking islands: Cuba, the Dominican
Republic and Puerto Rico.
The Pan American Modernism exhibition contains an important
work in oil and collage by Luis Hernández Cruz (b. 1936), one of
the major exponents of abstract art in Puerto Rico. There are, in fact,
a number of points of contact between the art of Hernández Cruz
and some of the painters discussed above, especially Fernando de
Szyszlo, whose penetrating color the Puerto Rican artist very much
admired. Hernández Cruz was one of the most active abstractionists
on the island, serving as a co-founder in the late 1970s of the
artists group known as Frente (the same name, incidentally, as a
EL CASO ESPECIAL DEL CARIBE
La última serie de comentarios de esta selección sin dudas idiosincrática
de “abstracciones americanas” corresponde al Caribe. En la sección
dedicada a la abstracción en la muestra Pan American Modernism,
los artistas caribeños ocupan un lugar privilegiado: Cuba y Puerto
Rico se encuentran presentes con al menos nueve obras. ¿Por qué
hablar de un “caso especial” de la región? Tomando el título de
un ensayo de importancia escrito en 1988 por la investigadora
puertorriqueña Marimar Benítez, quien enfatizó las anomalías del
arte puertorriqueño dentro del gran contexto latinoamericano,43
deseo sugerir el carácter único de las aproximaciones a la forma
abstracta en el arte caribeño dada la larga dominación del arte
figurativo en la región, en especial en las composiciones de paisaje
y género.
significant Brazilian abstract artists group from the 1950s). The
work in the Lowe Art Museum’s collection is entitled Subsuelo
(Subsoil) (cat. no 36) and it indeed defines a variety of levels,
suggesting, particularly in its lower portion, a telluric sense of
rocky substances (see cat. no. 36). Other images by Hernández
Cruz from the 1960s, including his extensive series called Paisajes
(Landscapes) also attest to his intense interest in structured form
and rich texture.
Intimately related to Hernández Cruz’s work is that by Olga
Albizu (1924-2005), another leading (but much less well known)
abstractionist from Puerto Rico. Crecimiento (Growth) (cat. no. 35),
an oil-on-canvas from around 1960 also suggests movement and
germination. A clear hint of burgeoning life about to surge through
the confines of the canvas is present here as in many other works
by Albizu. Nonetheless this painting (which displays the artist’s
Aunque un estudio detallado de los acercamientos de las islas
anglófonas, francófonas y neerlandesas hacia la abstracción
significaría ampliar nuestra visión de los significados múltiples
del arte abstracto en el Caribe, me restringiré a algunos ejemplos
representativos de las islas hispanoparlantes: Cuba, la República
Dominicana y Puerto Rico.
Pan American Modernism cuenta con obras en óleo y collage
de Luis Hernández Cruz (nacido en 1936), uno de los mayores
exponentes del arte abstracto en Puerto Rico. Existen, sin embargo,
un gran número de puntos de contacto entre el arte de Hernández
Cruz y el de algunos de los pintores ya discutidos, en especial de
Fernando de Szyszlo, cuyo trabajo con colores penetrantes era
bien admirado por el puertorriqueño. Hernández Cruz fue uno
de los abstraccionistas más activos de la isla y fue cofundador a
fines de los años 1970 del grupo de artistas conocido como Frente
GEOMETRY AND GESTURE: NOTES ON ABSTRACTIONS IN THE AMERICAS
Illustration 13
OLGA ALBIZU
b. 1924, Ponce, Puerto Rico
d. 2005, New York, New York
900-50-80, 1978
oil on canvas
58 x 66 in. (147.3 x 167.6 cm)
Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico
Collection
© 1978 Olga Albizu
(el mismo nombre que utilizó, de hecho, un significativo grupo de
artistas brasileños de los años 1950). La obra en la colección del Lowe
Art Museum se titula Subsoil (Subsuelo) (cat. no. 36), que de veras
define una variedad de niveles al sugerir, en particular en su parte
inferior, una sensación telúrica de sustancias rocosas (cat. no. 36).
Otras imágenes de Hernández Cruz de los años 1960, incluyendo su
extensa serie denominada Paisajes también da cuenta de su fuerte
interés por la forma estructurada y las texturas ricas.
Íntimamente relacionada con la obra de Hernández Cruz, Olga Albizu
(1924-2005) es otra de las abstraccionistas principales de Puerto Rico
(si bien mucho menos conocida). Crecimiento (cat. no. 35), un óleo
sobre lienzo se alrededor de 1960 también sugiere movimiento y
germinación. Un claro indicio de vida floreciente a punto de estallar
en los márgenes del lienzo se observa aquí, como en muchos otros
trabajos de Albizu. Sin embargo, esta pintura, en la que la artista
45
characteristic intensity of color with its vibrant contrasts of searing
yellow, deep oranges and rich blacks) also contains a specific structure as
well as what Hans Hofmann (whose painting Nightfall of 1958 is also in
the present exhibition) would call the effect of “push and pull” (cat. no.
34). The eye is lead into the depths of the canvas and is then propelled
outward as it observes the totality of the image (illustration 13).
There is, in fact, a direct correlation between Albizu and Hofmann
in the person of Albizu’s Spanish-born teacher at the University
of Puerto Rico, Esteban Vicente. Vicente (1903-2001) figures
prominently in the story of the first generation of New York abstract
expressionists (he was its only Spanish-born member). In the 1950s
he was in close contact with Hofmann and worked for a time in
his studio. He had also spent two formative years in Puerto Rico in
1945 and 1946 (the year Albizu, his pupil, received her Bachelor
of Arts degree) where he taught at the university (and started to
despliega su característica intensidad de colores con contrastes vivos
de amarillo abrasador, anaranjados intensos y negros exquisitos,
también contiene una estructura específica además de lo que Hans
Hofmann (cuya pintura Nightfall [Atardecer] de 1958, también se
encuentra presente en la muestra) llamaría el efecto de “ir y venir”
(cat. no. 34). El ojo se dirige a las profundidades del lienzo y luego
se ve expulsado hacia afuera al observar la totalidad de la imagen
(ilustración 13).
Existe, de hecho, una correlación directa entre Albizu y Hofmann
a través del maestro español de Albizu de la Universidad de Puerto
Rico, Esteban Vicente. Vicente (1903-2001) figura de manera
prominente en la historia de la primera generación de expresionistas
abstractos de Nueva York (y el único miembro nacido en España).
En los años 1950, mantenía contacto fluído con Hofmann y trabajó
durante cierto tiempo en su atelier. Asimismo había pasado dos años
46 GESTO Y GEOMETRÍA: APUNTES SOBRE LA ABSTRACCIÓN EN LAS AMÉRICAS
develop his abstract manner there). Albizu and Vicente continued
their contact and both of them were active in Manhattan in the
60s where Albizu’s work demonstrated her continued admiration
for both her teacher’s work as well as for that of Hofmann who
was known as the great pedagogue of the Abstract Expressionist
movement44 (illustration 14). Albizu is principally remembered for
the many record album covers she designed in the 1960s and 70s,
but her painting is currently receiving a re-evaluation and should
become much better known in the future when her seminal role in
Caribbean abstraction will become clearer.45
There are many more recent (and significant) advances in the
expressionist forms of abstract art in Puerto Rico and it is important
to signal the ongoing role of another individual whose activities as a
teacher (at the Universidad Interamericana in San Germán) have also
served as a beacon of inspiration for many younger artists. Noemí
formativos en Puerto Rico, en 1945 y 1946 (el año en que Albizu,
su estudiante, recibió su diploma universitario), donde enseñó en la
universidad (y comenzó a desarrollar su estilo abstracto). Albizu y
Vicente permanecieron en contacto y ambos se mantuvieron activos
en Manhattan en los años 1960, donde la labor de Albizu demostró
su admiración contínua tanto por la obra de su maestro como por
la de Hofmann, quien era reconocido como un gran pedagogo del
movimiento Expresionista Abstracto44 (ilustración 14). Albizu se
recuerda principalmente por las numerosas portadas de álbumes de
discos del maestro de jazz Stan Getz que diseñó en los años 1960 y
1970, pero en la actualidad, sus pinturas están siendo reevaluadas y
en el futuro deberían recibir mucho mayor reconocimiento, cuando
su papel trascendental en la abstracción caribeña quede más claro.45
Existen muchos más avances recientes (y significativos) en las formas
expresionistas del arte abstracto en Puerto Rico y es importante
Ruiz (b. 1931) studied in Puerto Rico and received her MFA from Illustration 14
New York University in 1956. While in New York, she had ample ESTEBAN VICENTE
opportunity to observe the latest trends in abstract art and she b. 1903, Turégano, Spain
incorporated many of these lessons into her painting. Since the d. 2001, Bridgehampton, New York
1960s her art has dealt with dynamic forms, rhythms and strong Number 3, 1958
color alternations, evidencing the intense contrasts of tone and oil on canvas
48 1⁄8 x 60 1⁄8 in. (122.2 x 152.7 cm)
the defining nature of light in a tropical climate (illustration 15). Whitney Museum of American Art,
Ruiz was celebrated with a major retrospective exhibition at the New York; purchase, and gift of
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico (MAC) in San Dr. and Mrs. John Alfred Cook, by
Juan in 2007 which attested to her place of importance in the exchange
© The Harriet and Esteban Vicente
history of contemporary Puerto Rican art.46 Foundation
Digital Image © Whitney Museum
Dominican artist Ada Balcácer (b. 1930) demonstrates a shared of American Art
sensibility with that of Ruiz in that her abstract paintings deal
principally with light and the extremes of Caribbean color and
the effects of the tropical sun’s glare (which, in effect, often
subrayar el papel contínuo de otra persona cuya labor docente Illustration 15
(en la Universidad Interamericana de San Germán) también ha NOEMÍ RUIZ
servido como fuente de inspiración para muchos artistas jóvenes. b. 1931, Mayagüez, Puerto Rico
Noemí Ruiz (nacida en 1931) estudió en Puerto Rico y recibió su Lives and works in San Juan, Puerto
Rico
maestría en bellas artes de New York University en 1956. Mientras
se encontraba en Nueva York, tuvo numerosas oportunidades de Impromptu, 1976
acrylic on masonite
observar las últimas tendencias en el arte abstracto e incorporó 48 x 60 in (122 x 152.5 cm)
muchas de estas lecciones en su obra. Desde los años 1960, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo,
su arte ha tratado con formas dinámicas, ritmos y alteraciones San Juan, Puerto Rico
de colores fuertes, marcando contrastes intensos de color y la Collection of R. J. Reynolds
Tobacco Co.
naturaleza clave de la luz en un clima tropical (ilustración 15). © 1976 Noemí Ruiz
Ruiz fue celebrada en una muestra retrospectiva de importancia
en el Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico (MAC) en
San Juan en 2007, la cual dio fe de su lugar de relevancia en la
historia del arte contemporáneo puertorriqueño.46
GEOMETRY AND GESTURE: NOTES ON ABSTRACTIONS IN THE AMERICAS 47
tends to erase color completely) (illustration 16). Balcácer has had an
immensely varied career, beginning in Santo Domingo in the 1950s
(a time of artistic efflorescence yet political instability), continuing
in New York (where she worked in the fashion industry) and, more
recently, in Miami where she has done some of her largest and most
experimental abstract canvases and murals. Balcácer, whose 2011
retrospective show at the Centro Cultural Eduardo León Jiménez
in Santiago (Dominican Republic) demonstrated the breadth of
her work (which includes a large series devoted to paintings that
reference ancient myths of the ancient Caribbean Taíno peoples)
and underscored her significance for the development of younger
Dominican artists such as Scherezade García and many others who
are carrying the experiments of their teacher into new directions.47
Pan American Modernism contains three important works by
Cuban artists active in the developing forms of abstraction just
La artista dominicana Ada Balcácer (nacida en 1930) demuestra
una sensibilidad compartida con la de Ruiz en el sentido de que sus
pinturas abstractas tratan principalmente con la luz, los extremos
del color caribeño y los efectos del reflejo del sol tropical (que, en
efecto, a menudo tiende a borrar el color por completo) (ilustración
16). Balcácer ha tenido una carrera variada: comenzó en Santo
Domingo en los años 1950 (en una época de florecimiento artístico
en medio de la inestabilidad política); continuó en Nueva York (donde
trabajó en la industria de la moda), y, más recientemente, en Miami
donde ha realizado algunos de sus lienzos y murales más grandes y
experimentales. Balcácer tuvo una muestra retrospectiva en el 2011
en el Centro Cultural Eduardo León Jiménez de Santiago (República
Dominicana) donde se demonstró la amplitud de su obra, que incluye
una serie dedicada a pinturas que hacen referencia a mitos primitivos
de los pueblos caribeños taínos antiguos, y se subrayó la importancia
dada por la artista al desarrollo de los artistas dominicanos más
48 GESTO Y GEOMETRÍA: APUNTES SOBRE LA ABSTRACCIÓN EN LAS AMÉRICAS
prior to and after the Cuban Revolution that started in 1959. Raúl
Millián, Antonio Vidal and Hugo Consuegra were members of a
loosely knit group called Los Once (The Eleven) who exhibited their
work together on several occasions from the mid-1950s to the
early 60s, when many of them left the country. While figurative
compositions such as those by Wifredo Lam (well known as a
member of international avant-garde surrealist and cubist circles)
or the striking still lifes of Amelia Peláez may characterize Cuban
art of the mid-twentieth century in the mind of many, there was
a remarkably healthy and highly original series of abstract options
practiced by artists working in Havana, one of the most productive
and generative art centers of the Americas. Recent research by
American, Cuban and European scholars has begun to underline
the importance of (principally gestural) abstraction in Cuba from
the 1950s onward.48 Guido Llinás (1923-2005) was one of the
most outstanding members of the group of Los Once. He moved
jóvenes como Scherezade García, entre muchos otros, que llevan la
experimentación de su maestra en nuevas direcciones.47
Pan American Modernism contiene tres obras importantes de artistas
cubanos activos en el desarrollo de las formas de la abstracción
apenas antes y después de la Revolución Cubana que comenzó en
1959. Raúl Milián, Antonio Vidal y Hugo Consuegra eran miembros
de un grpo un tanto disímil llamado Los Once, y exhibieron su obra
juntos en varias oportunidades a mediados de los años 1950 y
principios de los años 1960, cuando muchos de ellos abandonaron el
país. A pesar de que para muchos, las composiciones figurativas de
artistas como Wifredo Lam (conocido como miembro perteneciente
a círculos de la vanguardia surrealista y cubista en el mundo) o
las sorprendentes naturalezas muertras de Amelia Peláez pueden
caracterizar el arte cubano de mediados del siglo XX, existían
una serie de opciones dentro de la abstracción muy saludables y
to Paris in 1953 and remained there until his death. Throughout Illustration 16
his career, his work was characterized by vigorous gesture. ADA BALCÁCER
Deriving inspiration from both New York Abstract Expressionism b. 1930, Dominican Republic
and its Parisian counterpart tachisme, Llinás consistently made Lives and works in Miami, Florida
reference to Afro-Cuban iconography (taking at least a partial La anunciación de la luz con
clue from Lam), especially in his extensive series collectively micrófono from the series Ensayos
de luz tropical (1986-2003)
called the Pinturas negras (Black Paintings) (illustration 17). (Day Break Light with Microphone
Totemic shapes, semi-defined figural specters that appear to from the series Essays of Tropical
emerge from a Lam-like jungle setting (minus the jewel like Light), 1993
color of the older painter) define a body of work that is unique mixed media and relief on canvas
60 5⁄8 x 70 7⁄8 in. (154 x 180 cm)
within the panorama of Caribbean abstraction that draws its Collection of Doña Margarita
roots back to a time prior to the mid-twentieth century.49 García Arevalo viuda Martínez,
Santo Domingo, Dominican
The themes that interested Llinás (references to Afro-Cuban Republic
© 1996 Ada Balcácer
spirituality executed with a vigorous brush work and a rich
palette of colors) also attracted the attention of Carlos Alfonzo
originales que practicaban los artistas de La Habana, uno de Illustration 17
los centros artísticos más productivos y prolíficos de América. GUIDO LLINÁS
Estudios recientes realizados por académicos estadounidenses, b. 1923, Pinar del Río, Cuba
cubanos y europeos han comenzado a subrayar la importancia d. 2005, Paris, France
de la abstracción (principalmente gestual) en Cuba desde los Untitled from the series Pinturas
años 1950.48 Guido Llinás (1923-2005) fue uno de los miembros negras (Black Paintings), 1978
oil on canvas
de Los Once más sobresalientes. Se trasladó a París en 1953 y 51 1⁄8 x 39 3⁄8 in. (130 x 100 cm)
permaneció allí hasta su muerte. A lo largo de su carrera, su obra Essex Collection of Art from Latin
se caracterizó por una gestualidad vigorosa. Tomando como base America, University of Essex, Donated
de inspiración el Expresionismo Abstracto de Nueva York y su by Ruta Correa, 1996
© 1978 Guido Llinás.
contraparte parisino, Tachisme, Llinás hizo referencias constantes Image © ESCALA.
a la iconografía afrocubana (adoptando al menos en parte las
ideas de Lam), en especial en su extensa serie denominada
Pinturas negras (ilustración 17). Las formas totémicas, espectros
figurativos semidefinidos que parecen surgir de una selva similar
a las de Lam (excepto por los colores vivaces de aquel pintor),
GEOMETRY AND GESTURE: NOTES ON ABSTRACTIONS IN THE AMERICAS 49
(1950-1991). Alfonzo is the youngest of the artists in the ‘abstract
expressionism’ section of this show and most of his mature work
was done in Miami. A graduate of the San Alejandro Academy in
Havana, he departed from his conservative training to devote himself
to investigations of Afro-Caribbean spirituality (with sometimes
clear references to the syncretistic religious practices of Santería),
which he painted in his highly personal visual vocabulary and vivid
colors. These compositions may be linked directly with a new form
of expressive abstraction that dominated much of American and
European art at the time Alfonzo’s career was at its high point. The
late 1970s and 80s witnessed the development of a new form of
abstract expressionism (often mixed with extorted figuration) that
came to be known by the catch-all phrase “neo expressionism.”
Alfonzo probably did not wish to be associated with any particular
group and his work represents an originality that makes it more
memorable than a great many others who were highly successful
definen una obra que resulta única dentro del panorama de la
abstracción caribeña que nutre sus raíces de una época anterior al
siglo XX.49
Los temas que resultaban de interés para Llinás (referencias a la
espiritualidad afrocubana ejecutada con pinceladas vigorosas y una
paleta de colores intensos) también llamaron la atención de Carlos
Alfonzo (1950-1991). Alfonzo es el más joven de la sección de
“expresionistas abstractos” de esta muestra y la mayor parte de su
trabajo maduro se realizó en Miami. Graduado de la Academia San
Alejandro de La Habana, se alejó de su formación tradicional para
dedicarse a investigar la espiritualidad afrocaribeña (con ocasionales
referencias claras a las prácticas religiosas sincréticas de la Santería), que
pintó con un vocabulario visual muy personal y colores vívidos. Estas
composiciones pueden vincularse de manera directa con una nueva
forma de abstracción expresiva que dominó mucho del arte americano
50 GESTO Y GEOMETRÍA: APUNTES SOBRE LA ABSTRACCIÓN EN LAS AMÉRICAS
in the over-heated art market of the time. His art, especially the
large-scale canvases of the later 1980s, stand as monuments to a
unique approach to the use of aggressive line and forceful color50
(illustration 18).
CONCLUSION
The Pan American Modernism exhibition plays an important role in
questioning and analyzing trans-national dialogues within a wide
variety of modernist forms of art. In terms of abstraction it allows
us a glimpse into the complexities of the hemispheric response to
the non-objective image and to the discourses of expressive form.
It also serves as a platform for questioning notions of influence,
originality and dissemination of modes of artistic expression. The
preceding essay is, as stated at the beginning, a partial summation
of some of these themes. There are many more areas of research to
y europeo en la época en que la carrera de Alfonzo se encontraba
en su cúspide. Los finales de los años 1970 y los años 1980 fueron
testigo del desarrollo de una nueva forma de expresionismo abstracto
(a menudo combinado con una figuración retorcida) que recibió el
nombre amplio de “neoexpresionismo”. Alfonzo quizás no desea
verse vinculado con ningún grupo en particular y su obra representa
una originalidad que la hace más memorable que la de muchos otros
que tuvieron gran éxito en el mercado artístico recalentado de la
época. Su arte, en especial sus lienzos de gran tamaño de finales de
los años 1980, se vuelven monumentos de un enfoque único en lo
relativo al uso de líneas agresivas y colores enérgicos50 (ilustración 18).
CONCLUSIÓN
La muestra Pan American Modernism tiene un papel importante en la
disquisición y análisis de los dialogos trasnacionales de una variedad
be accomplished in the area of abstraction in the work of artists Illustration 18
throughout the Americas. The present exhibition will certainly CARLOS ALFONZO
stimulate both scholars and lovers of art to think more carefully b. 1950, Havana, Cuba
about the complexities of these issues. d. 1991, Miami, Florida
Curso de la vida (Lifetime), 1988
oil on linen
84 x 96 in. (213.4 x 243.8 cm)
Gift of Friends of Art in honor of
Ira Licht’s 10th Anniversary at the
Lowe Art Museum, 88.0004
de formas artísticas modernistas. En términos de abstracción,
nos permite una mirada hacia las complejidades de la respuesta
en el hemisferio a las imágenes no figurativas y a los discursos
de la forma expresiva. Asimismo, sirve como plataforma para
cuestionar nociones de influencia, originalidad y diseminación de
modos de expresión artística. Este ensayo representa, como se
indicó al principio, un resumen parcial de algunos de estos temas.
Existen muchas otras áreas de investigación por abordar en el
área de la abstracción en la obra de artistas de toda América. La
presente muestra sin dudas estimulará tanto a académicos como
a los amantes del arte para pensar las complejidades de estos
temas con mayor atención.
GEOMETRY AND GESTURE: NOTES ON ABSTRACTIONS IN THE AMERICAS 51
BODY OF EVIDENCE: “Photography has its limits. What is important for a photographer is
to know them, understand them precisely, and give them a personal
THE MODERNISMS OF MANUEL ÁLVAREZ BRAVO interpretation. Reality itself is one limit that presents photography with
specific problems.” — Manuel Álvarez Bravo51
EL CUERPO DEL DELITO:
LOS MODERNISMOS DE MANUEL ÁLVAREZ BRAVO “Everything tends to make us believe that there exists a certain point of the
mind at which life and death, the real and the imagined, past and future, the
communicable and the incommunicable, high and low, cease to be perceived
as contradictions. Now, search as one may one will never find any other
Heather Diack motivating force in the activities of the Surrealists than the hope of finding
and fixing this point.” — André Breton52

“La fotografía tiene sus límites. Lo que es importante para un fotógrafo es

conocerlos, comprenderlos con precisión y darles una interpretación personal.
La realidad en sí misma es un límite que se le presenta a la fotografía con
problemas específicos” — Manuel Álvarez Bravo51

“Todo tiende a hacernos creer que existe un cierto lugar en la mente en

que la vida y la muerte, lo real y lo imaginario, el pasado y el futuro, lo
comunicable y lo incomunicable, lo elevado y lo bajo, se dejan de percibir
como contradicciones. Ahora bien, por más que uno busque, nunca encontrará
ninguna otra fuerza motivadora en las actividades de los surrealistas más que
la esperanza de hallar y fijar este punto” — André Breton52

52 BODY OF EVIDENCE: THE MODERNISMS OF MANUEL ÁLVAREZ BRAVO 53

The ties that bind photography to the real in the analog world
secure for the viewer a temporal and credible sense of what Roland
Barthes called “that-has-been.”53 An assuredness exists, despite
whether uncertainty lurks regarding what transpired before and
after the actual shot under consideration. Somehow what is pictured
in the photograph indeed not simply depends upon reality but in
fact represents reality in that it is a part of reality. As a complicated
nexus of “the real,” it seems obvious why, as Andrea Noble has
expressed it, “Photography was the privileged medium of modern
representation and was, moreover, used to alter the very image of
modernity.”54 Certainly, thinking through the layers of the real in
relation to representation has always been key to the modernist
project. The advent of photography in the nineteenth century itself
attests to a zeitgeist centered on capturing images as a means of
further understanding human experience. Arguably photography’s
crucial relationship to the real is in part what makes it the central
Los lazos que vinculan la fotografía con lo real en el mundo análogo
le aseguran al espectador una sensación temporal y creíble de lo que
Roland Barthes ha denominado “esto ha sido”.53 Existe una cierta
seguridad, más allá de si la inseguridad merodea lo que aconteció
antes y después de la toma que se observa. De algún modo, lo que se
representa en la fotografía de hecho no depende solo de la realidad
sino que de hecho representa la realidad misma puesto que ES
parte de la realidad. Como un nexo complicado de “lo real”, parece
obvio por qué (como ha indicado Andrea Noble) “La fotografía fue
el medio privilegiado de la representación moderna e incluso se la
utilizó para modificar la imagen misma de la modernidad”.54 Por
cierto, pensar a través de las capas de lo real en relación con la
representación siempre ha sido clave en los proyectos modernistas.
La aparición de la fotografía en el siglo XIX da cuenta de un espítiru
de la época que giraba en torno a la captura de imágenes como
medio para comprender mejor la experiencia humana. Es posible
54 EL CUERPO DEL DELITO: LOS MODERNISMOS DE MANUEL ÁLVAREZ BRAVO
medium of modernism and modern art. Additionally, due to
photography’s “direct relation to what was present at the time the
lens opened, and because it could reproduce reality with more fidelity
to appearance, its essence was really about representation per se.”55
The overwhelming sense of fragmented consciousness observed
as a phenomenon of modernity, in the face of vast technological
changes and political upheaval, made the camera the decisive device
for probing a new sense of being in the world. To call on André
Breton’s words from the epigraph, regarding the desire to “fix”
“perceived contradictions,” it seems apt that the camera would be
called into service.
I would like to address some of the complexities that were purportedly
both resolved and instigated by photography as a vehicle of modernity
and modernism. Moreover, my analysis will be grounded in a case
study that puts pressure on many of the categorical distinctions that
que la relación crucial de la fotografía con lo real sea en parte lo
que la convierte en el medio central del modernismo y del arte
moderno. Asimismo, por la “relación directa [de la fotografía] con lo
que se encontraba frente al lente al momento en que este se abría, y
debido a que podía reproducir la realidad con mayor fidelidad en lo
relativo a la apariencia, su esencia era de hecho la representación en
sí misma”.55 El sentido sobrecogedor de la conciencia fragmentada
observado como fenómeno de la modernidad, frente a los vastos
cambios tecnológicos y la agitación política, convirtió a la cámara en
un artefacto decisivo para investigar un nuevo devenir en el mundo.
Pensando las palabras de André Breton del epígrafe en cuanto al
deseo de “fijar” “las contradicciones percibidas”, parece natural
que la cámara entrara en juego.
Me gustaría discutir algunas de las complejidades que se supone que
resolvió y despertó la fotografía como vehículo de la modernidad y
have frequently been directed at photography and modernism Illustration 1
more broadly, including the tendency to separate documentary MANUEL ÁLVAREZ BRAVO
practices from artistic ones, and thus in many ways, to view b. 1902, Mexico City, Mexico
politics apart from aesthetics. The case in point is the work of d. 2002, Mexico City, Mexico
the Mexican photographer Manuel Álvarez Bravo (1902-2002), Obrero en huelga,
which evidences a stark contrast to the dominant discourses of asesinado (Striking Worker,
Assassinated), 1934
European and American modernist formalism, and demonstrates (printed 1974)
the fixedly unstable synthesis of aesthetics and politics. gelatin silver print
7 1⁄2 x 9 5⁄8 in. (19.1 x 24.4 cm)
Overwhelmingly considered the defining practitioner of Mexican Gift of The American
Foundation for the Arts,
photography, his highly circulated photographs have in some 84.0190.13
ways become occluded by the “celebratory weight” of his status © Colette Urbajtel/Archivo
as “the greatest Mexican photographer.”56 As a participant in Manuel Álvarez Bravo, SC
the cultural renaissance in Mexico that followed the country’s
revolution of the 1910s, Álvarez Bravo’s experiments with form
and subject amount to a body of work that cannot be subsumed
del modernismo. Asimismo, mi análisis se basará en un estudio Illustration 2
de caso que afecta muchas de las distinciones categóricas que MANUEL ÁLVAREZ BRAVO
con frecuencia han permeado a la fotografía, y al modernismo b. 1902, Mexico City, Mexico
de manera más amplia, incluyendo la tendencia de separar las d. 2002, Mexico City, Mexico
prácticas documentales de las artísticas y de muchas maneras ver La buena fama, durmiendo
así a la política separada de la estética. El caso a revisar es la obra (Good Reputation, Sleeping),
1938 (printed 1974)
del fotógrafo mexicano Manuel Álvarez Bravo (1902-2002), quien gelatin silver print
evidencia un marcado contraste con los discursos dominantes del 7 3⁄8 x 9 5⁄8 in. (18.7 x 24.4 cm)
formalismo modernista europeo y estadounidense y demuestra Gift of The American
la síntesis siempre inestable de la estética y la política. Foundation for the Arts,
84.0190.03
© Colette Urbajtel/Archivo
Considerado en general como el artista más paradigmático Manuel Álvarez Bravo, SC
exponente más acabado de la fotografía mexicana, a pesar
de la alta difusión que han recibido sus fotografías, de algún
modo estas se han visto opacadas por el “peso laudatorio” de
su estatus como “el fotógrafo más grande de México”.56 Como
BODY OF EVIDENCE: THE MODERNISMS OF MANUEL ÁLVAREZ BRAVO 55
by a singular category, particularly if that category depends on a
stylistic concept for self-definition. Literally and figuratively bridging
a gap between various versions of Latin American modernism and
Euro-North American modernism, a palpable confrontation between
aesthetics and politics, regionalism and universalism, and, in terms
of historiographic accounts, between mainstream modernist studies
and the critical edge of art from Latin America, occurs in Álvarez
Bravo’s photographs. Xavier Villaurrutia praised Álvarez Bravo’s
ability to create unforeseen potentials in art, photography, and
judgment, explaining he made “it possible that, standing before
his best photographs, we find ourselves facing true representations
of the unrepresentable, facing true evidence of the invisible.”57
This feat of straddling evidence and invisibility is a provocative
description; one that I will argue deserves to be taken seriously as a
mode of modernist “truth” which is always somehow out of reach
or untenable, even in the moment it is presented or professed.
miembro del renacimiento cultural de México que se produjo en el
país tras la revolución de la década de 1910, Álvarez Bravo llevó
a cabo diversos experimientos con formas y temas que hacen que
su obra no pueda resumirse en una única categoría, en especial
si esa categoría depende de un concepto estilístico para definirse.
Literal y figurativamente zanjando las diferencias entre diversas
versiones del modernismo latinoamericano y el modernismo euro-
norteamericano, en las fotografías de Álvarez Bravo se produce una
confrontación palable entre estética y politica, entre regionalismo y
universalismo y (en cuanto a las narraciones historiográficas) entre
los estudios modernistas convencionales y el lado crítico del arte de
Latinoamérica. Xavier Villaurrutia ha alabado la capacidad de Álvarez
Bravo de crear potenciales inesperados en el arte, la fotografía y la
razón al indicar que el artista hizo “posible que, cuando nos paramos
frente a sus mejores fotografías, nos enfrentemos a representaciones
verdaderas de lo irrepresentable, a evidencias verdaderas de lo
56 EL CUERPO DEL DELITO: LOS MODERNISMOS DE MANUEL ÁLVAREZ BRAVO
Two key bodies famously stand out in Álvarez Bravo’s oeuvre, in
part because of their formal coincidence: focally, they are both lying
down. One titled Obrero en huelga, asesinado (Striking Worker,
Assassinated, 1934) (illustration 1) and the other La Buena fama,
durmiendo (Good Reputation, Sleeping, 1938-1939, illustration
2). It is meaningful to bring them into dialogue with one another
as much for their similarities as for their apparent contrasts. Each
provides a sensation of an out-of-body experience to the viewer.
They suggest a place beyond the frame, thus calling attention to
exactly what they can and cannot represent. As a pair, indeed they
can function as a parable regarding the limits of representation as
well as a litmus test of the fine and often porous lines separating
documentary photography from art. Together they propose a crucial
example of the various modes of visuality Álvarez Bravo invested in
and investigated.
invisible”.57 Esta hazaña de alternar invisibilidad y evidencia resulta
una descripción provocativa que merece tomarse en serio como una
forma de “verdad” modernista que resulta siempre de algún modo
inalcanzable o inasequible, incluso en el momento en el que se la
presenta o profesa.
En la obra de Álvarez Bravo hay dos cuerpos en particular que se
destacan en parte por su coincidencia formal: ambos se encuentran
recostados. Uno titulado Obrero en huelga, asesinado (1934)
(ilustración 1) y el otro La buena fama, durmiendo (1938-1939)
(ilustración 2). Resulta significativo ponerlos en diálogo tanto pos sus
similitudes como por sus aparentes contrastes. Ambos le transmiten
al espectador una sensación extracorpórea. Sugieren un lugar más
allá del cuadro y, de este modo, llaman la atención a lo que pueden
y no pueden representar. Juntos de hecho, funcionan como una
parábola sobre los límites de la representación además de como una
Separated by four years, the Striking Worker, Assassinated precedes
Good Reputation, Sleeping, and shows a bloody corpse, eyes open,
laying face up on the ground. The subject matter, a close-up of a
victim of violence, connects the image to a long lineage of crime
photography. Reminiscent of memorable and contemporaneous
images by Weegee58, the legendary free-lance tabloid photographer
of New York City’s “dark side” throughout the 1930s and 1940s,
the viewer is directed to the scene of the crime. In stark black
and white, the death clearly pictured is as real as it gets, at least
in representational terms. Leonard Folgarait has insightfully
referred to this photograph as a flat lifeless image exemplifying “a
representation of death as further deadened.”59 The rhetorical first
impression is indeed as pointed evidence rather than artifice. The
fact of death before one’s eyes is arresting in its concrete impact, an
impact made only more substantial and stony by the ground upon
which the body lies.
prueba de fuego de la delgada (y a menudo porosa) línea que separa
la fotografía documental del arte. Los dos proponen un ejemplo
crucial de los diversos modos de visualidad a los que se dedicó y que
investigó Álvarez Bravo.
Separados por cuatro años, Obrero en huelga, asesinado es anterior
a La buena fama, durmiendo, y muestra un cuerpo ensangrentado
tendido de espaldas sobre el suelo con los ojos abiertos. Su tema,
el primer plano de una víctima de la violencia, sitúa la imagen
en el extenso contexto de la fotografía criminal. Al evocar con
esta fotografía las imágenes memorables y contemporáneas de
Weegee58, el legendario fotógrafo sensacionalista independiente
que retrataba el “lado oscuro” de Nueva York en los años 1930 y
1940, el espectador se dirige hacia la escena del crimen. En blanco
y negro severo, la muerte que se retrata con claridad retiene toda
su realidad, el menos en términos representativos. Con inteligencia,
BODY OF EVIDENCE: THE MODERNISMS OF MANUEL ÁLVAREZ BRAVO
The tone of the photograph here is one of statement rather than
symbolic contemplation. And yet, this photograph has nevertheless
been accounted for by a number of art historians and art critics as
less about specificity or social ideology and more about a kind of
“symbolic visual vernacular,” which is often associated with the
idea of the victim/martyr that is transcendental, harkening back to
the rites of human sacrifice in ancient Mexico.60 In Nissan Perez’s
words, the Director of Photography at the Israel Museum, “What
matters is the act [of assassination] and its significance for the image
rather than its obvious social connotations.”61 Read in this way, as an
aesthetic representation of timeless themes, arguably the “obvious
social connotations” are no longer so obvious. Rather, they are
elided by the high modernist impulse for considering the work of
art on its own terms, as centripetally contained by its frame and
demarcated apart from its social context.
Leonard Folgarait se ha referido a esta fotografía como una imagen
directa y sin vida, ejemplo de “una representación de la muerte aun
más muerta”.59 La primera impresión retórica de esta imagen es por
cierto de evidencia más que de artificio. El hecho de presentar la
muerte ante nuestra mirada resulta cautivador por el efecto que
provoca, un efecto que se hace aun más sustancial y duro por el
suelo sobre el que yace el cuerpo.
El tono de la fotografía es aquí declarativo más que de contemplación
simbólica. Sin embargo, una cantidad de historiadores y críticos
de arte han considerado que esta fotografía tiene menos que ver
con la especificidad o la ideología social y más con algún tipo de
“lenguaje visual vernáculo simbólico”, que a menudo se asocia con
la idea de la víctima/mártir que resulta trascendente y retrotrae a
los ritos de sacrificio humano del México antiguo.60 Como indica
Nissan Perez, director de fotografía del Israel Museum, “Lo que
57
A key question here would be whether the image asks the viewer to
read inwards or outwards, to see this photograph as a whole or as
a fragment? In her discussion of grids as the emblematic structure
of modernist ambition within the visual arts, Rosalind Krauss makes
important observations regarding the ambiguity of these two kinds
of readings. On the one hand, the centripetal reading affirms the
idea of the image as autonomous, thereby encouraging modernist
introspection, or more powerfully and ideologically “an introjection
of the boundaries of the world into the interior of the work.”62 By
contrast, a centrifugal reading would see the image as a fragment
“cropped from an infinitely larger fabric […] compelling our
acknowledgement of a world beyond the frame.”63 Both approaches
are credible and considering the traditional rectangle encasement
of the photograph – they are provocative ways of thinking within
or through the boundaries of the framing device. The first method
emphasizes an aesthetic that is at a remove from the real, while
importa es el acto [de asesinato] y su significado para la imagen
más que sus obvias connotaciones sociales”.61 Leído de este modo,
como una representación estética de temas atemporales, es posible
que las “obvias connotaciones sociales” ya no resulten tan obvias.
En cambio, se desvanecen por la fuerte impronta modernista que
considera las obras de arte en sí mismas, contenidas hacia el interior
por el cuadro que las delimita y fuera de su contexto social.
Una pregunta clave para plantear en este caso sería si la imagen le
pide al espectador que la lea hacia adentro o hacia afuera, que la
vea como un todo o como un fragmento. En su discusión sobre el
cuadro como estructura emblemática de la ambición modernista en
las artes visuales, Rosalind Krauss ofrece observacionaes importantes
en lo relativo a la ambigüedad de estos dos tipos de lectura. Por un
lado, la lectura hacia el interior afirma la idea de la imagen como
autónoma, por lo que alienta la introspección modernista o, con una
58 EL CUERPO DEL DELITO: LOS MODERNISMOS DE MANUEL ÁLVAREZ BRAVO
the second brings the real to bear on the image as a work of not
simply art, but, moreover, documentary. However, particularly in
this case, the centrifugal reading is compelling by virtue of the
fact that it takes all of the parts of the image into consideration as
evidence, including interdependent relations between the caption,
the composition, and the context. Álvarez Bravo himself admitted
to the complimentary possibilities of combining the poetic with the
documentary,64 thereby creating “documentary fictions that invent
and tell the truth, mimetically capture and abstract the subjects
they contain.”65 In other words, faced with the photographic box
containing the body here, the subject nevertheless exceeds that
which is presented and visible.
This is true in formal as well as conceptual terms. Notice the arm of
the fallen man, as it stretches out languidly towards the viewer on
the lower left, and the blood which courses over his face without
visión más potente e ideológica, “una incorporación subconsciente
de los límites del mundo al interior de la obra”.62 En cambio, la lectura
centrífuga vería la imagen como un fragmento “recortado de un
lienzo sin fin más grande […] que nos obliga a reconocer un mundo
más allá del cuadro”.63 Ambos enfoques son creíbles y, teniendo
en cuenta los límites rectangulares tradicionales de la fotografía,
constituyen maneras provocativas de pensar hacia adentro o más allá
de las fronteras delimitadas por el marco. El primer método enfatiza
una estética que se aleja de lo real, mientras que el segundo aporta
la realidad para que dé cuenta de la imagen como una obra, no solo
de arte sino documental. Sin embargo, en especial en este caso, la
lectura hacia afuera resulta atractiva por el hecho de que toma en
cuenta todas las partes de la fotografía como evidencia, incluyendo
las relaciones interdependientes entre el epígrafe, la composición y
el contexto. El mismo Álvarez Bravo ha admitido las posibilidades
complementarias de combinar lo poético con lo documental,64 para
an identifiable source, seeps around his head, and runs straight out
the lower frame to the right. Such details within the image – the
arm and the blood – reach beyond the photograph, thereby alluding
to our living space outside the frame even as the “that-has-been”
of the image alienates our connection to the moment captured.
These two elements have been observed as crucial counterpoints
by Folgarait, in his reflective attempt “to articulate a meaningful
relationship between the social dynamic of the historical moment
and the expressive content” of images.66 In his close reading of this
particular photograph, Folgarait astutely observes that though the
arm reaches, the worker’s fingers retract. As though to “assert his
power of agency even in death,”67 his fingers curl back towards
his own body. The framing of the body gives the viewer proximity
and privilege as a voyeur, while maintaining a distance in which the
viewer is always at an inevitable and interminable remove.
de este modo crear “ficciones documentales que inventan y cuentan
la verdad, captando de manera mimética y abstracta los temas que
contienen”.65 En otras palabras, frente a la caja fotográfica que aquí
contiene el cuerpo, el tema sin embargo excede lo presentado y
visible.
Esto es cierto tanto en términos formales como conceptuales.
Nótese el brazo del hombre tendido que se extiende en el extremo
inferior izquiero lánguido hacia el espectador, y la sangre que corre
sobre su rostro, sin que se identifique su fuente, y cae por su cabeza
y se mueve desde la parte inferior del cuadro hacia la derecha.
Estos detalles de la imagen, el brazo y la sangre, se proyectan más
allá de la fotografía, y de este modo aluden al espacio en que
habitamos fuera del cuadro incluso a pesar de que el “esto ha
sido” de la imagen nos aleja del momento captado. Folgarait ha
considerado estos dos elementos como contrapuntos cruciales en
BODY OF EVIDENCE: THE MODERNISMS OF MANUEL ÁLVAREZ BRAVO
The title Álvarez Bravo attributes to this photograph is itself deliberate
– namely, Striking Worker, Assassinated, is concise in its delivery and
punctuated in its explanation. What can we make of the comma,
the temporal interruption that separates the “Striking Worker” from
the fate of his being “Assassinated”? Why not simply title the image
“Assassinated Striking Worker,” or drop the comma, as a number
of published reproductions of this particular photograph have?
Something is indeed lost in translation. Poetic titles and attention to
literary detail are among Álvarez Bravo’s signature maneuvers.
The importance of political context to Álvarez Bravo, additionally
evidenced by the inclusion of a fragment of the Mexican flag in
the background, in this instance seems to exceed the desire to
conscript the dead youth as an icon of elusive martyrdom. It is worth
noting that Álvarez Bravo was already an established photographic
artist by the time of this image’s creation, and as such it is truly
su intento reflexivo de “articular una relación significativa entre la
dinámica social del momento histórico y el contenido expresivo” de
las imágenes.66 En su lectura crítica de esta fotografía en particular,
Folgarait observa con astucia que, aunque el brazo se extiende,
los dedos del trabajador se retraen. De algún modo, se “afirma
su empoderamiento incluso en la muerte”67 ya que los dedos se
contraen hacia el propio cuerpo. La composición del cuerpo le da al
espectador la proximidad y la prerrogativa de ser voyeur, mientras
que mantiene una distancia en la que el espectador se encuentra
siempre alejado de forma inevitable e interminable.
El título que Álvarez Bravo le da a su fotografía, Obrero en huelga,
asesinado, es en sí mismo deliberado, conciso y explicativo. ¿Cómo
podemos interpretar la coma, esa interrupción temporal que separa
al “Obrero en huelga” de su destino al ser “asesinado”? ¿Por qué
no titular la imagen “Asesinan obrero en huelga”, o dejar de lado
59
ahistorical to consider this photograph entirely outside the political
and social realities of its time or of Álvarez Bravo’s larger oeuvre.
Álvarez Bravo has described his trip to Tehuantepec, which resulted
in this photograph, stating his intention to “make a counterpoint
between labor and the picturesque.”68 Though he could not have
precisely anticipated the sugar mill workers strike he encountered,
and this particular body, strikes were increasingly prevalent at the
time. The intensity of worker protests in 1934 escalated to 202 with
approximately 14,685 workers participating.69 The Liga de Escritores
y Artistas Revolucionarios (the League of Revolutionary Writers and
Artists), of which Álvarez Bravo was a member, included the image
in their publication Frente a Frente in 1936. First as part of a two-
page photo spread, prepared by Álvarez Bravo in collaboration with
Heinrich Gutmann,70 and again as the cover piece, montaged with
portraits of Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Plutarco Elias Calles,
two issues later.71 In both cases Striking Worker, Assassinated is used
la coma, como lo hacen algunas reproducciones publicadas de esta
fotografía en particular? Algo de hecho se perdería en el camino.
Los títulos poéticos y la atención a los detalles literarios son algunas
de las maniobras características de Álvarez Bravo.
La importancia del contexto político para Álvarez Bravo, que se
pone de manifiesto además al incluir una porción de la bandera
de México en segundo plano, parece en este caso ir más allá
del deseo de transformar al joven muerto en ícono del martirio
esquivo. Vale subrayar que Álvarez Bravo ya era un fotógrafo
consumado cuando creó esta fotografía, y por lo tanto resulta de
veras ahistórico considerar esta fotografía del todo fuera de las
realidades políticas y sociales de su época o de la obra de Álvarez
Bravo en general. Álvarez Bravo ha descrito su viaje a Tehuantepec,
que dio como fruto esta fotografía, indicando su intención de
“realizar un contrapunto entre el trabajo y lo pintoresco”.68
60 EL CUERPO DEL DELITO: LOS MODERNISMOS DE MANUEL ÁLVAREZ BRAVO
in the service of demonstrating a dialectic class conflict and arguably
“a timely protest against the tyranny of specific dictators and rulers”
as opposed to a “an apolitical, modernist metaphor of a timeless
“ritual sacrifice to the gods of society.”72
In his provocative study of the archives of the celebrated Mexican
photographic agency Agencia Fotográfica Nacional (also known
as the Casasola Archive), Jesse Lerner analytically takes up the
complicated relationship between crime and photography in Mexico
City in the 1920s and 1930s, the years following the Mexican
Revolution (1910-1920).73 Lerner refers to this iconic image by
Álvarez Bravo in terms of its relationship to contemporary judiciales74
images. For Lerner, this work is exemplary of the overlap between
the “two seeming distinct photographic practices, the tabloid and
the high modernist.”75 Striking Worker, Assassinated demonstrates
a sophisticated literacy of modernist visual language, including the
Aunque no pudo haber anticipado la huelga específica de los
trabajadores azucareros que halló y este cuerpo en particular, las
huelgas eran cada vez más comunes por entonces. La cantidad
de protestas obreras aumentó en 1934 a 202 con la participación
de unos 14.685 trabajadores.69 La Liga de Escritores y Artistas
Revolucionarios, de la que Álvarez Bravo era miembro, incluyó la
imagen en su publicación Frente a Frente en 1936. Primero como
parte de un ensayo fotográfico de dos hojas que preparó Álvarez
Bravo en colaboración con Heinrich Gutmann, 70 y luego como
portada, montada con retratos de Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini
y Plutarco Elias Calles dos números después.71 An ambos casos,
Obrero en huelga, asesinado se utilizó para demostrar un conflicto
dialéctico de clase y, se podría decir, como “una protesta oportuna
contra la tiranía de dictadores y gobernantes específicos” en lugar
de como “la metáfora modernista apolítica de un sacrificio ritual
atemporal a los dioses de la sociedad”.72
tight cropping, the sharp focus, and the abstracted context, however
it is also visibly aware of not simply the rhetoric of photojournalism but
moreover the particularities of the narrative pictured. Álvarez Bravo’s
consciously avant-garde use of “a modernist sensibility emphasizing
sharp definition, everyday subject matter and a purist formal rigor,”76
does not preclude his ability to involve himself in a highly politicized
reportage regarding real life in Mexico. The pressure Álvarez Bravo
has placed on the dead man’s chest here by virtue of cutting the
image close to the body creates a claustrophobic space; a desire
for a way out of the demarcated arena is palpable and stressed.
As an advocate of straight photography in the vein of Paul Strand
and Tina Modotti,77 Álvarez Bravo famously disavowed any act of
manipulation in the printing process. Visible, for example, in works
such as Strand’s Mexican Portfolio from the 1930s, a direct shot with
a clearly centered subject is a shared modernist strategy (see cat.
no. 54). Such images could even be described as confrontational;
En su estimulante estudio sobre la celebrada Agencia Fotográfica
Nacional de México (conocida también como el Archivo Casasola),
Jesse Lerner realiza un análisis de la complicada relación entre el crimen
y la fotografía en la ciudad de México en los años 1920 y 1930, los
años posteriores a la Revolución Mexicana (1910-1920).73 Lerner
hace referencia a esta imagen icónica de Álvarez Bravo en relación
con las imágenes judiciales74 de la época. Para Lerner, este trabajo
es un ejemplo de la superposición de “dos prácticas fotográficas en
apariencia diferentes, la amarillista y la modernista”.75 Obrero en
huelga, asesinado demuestra un conocimiento sofisticado del lenguaje
visual modernista, incluyendo el encuadre recortado, la nitidez del
enfoque y el contexto abstracto; sin embargo, también está conciente
no solo de la retórica del periodismo fotográfico sino además de las
particularidades de la narrativa presentada. La conciente utilización
vanguardista que hace Álvarez Bravo de “una sensibilidad modernista
que enfatiza la definición nítida, los temas cotidianos y la búsqueda
BODY OF EVIDENCE: THE MODERNISMS OF MANUEL ÁLVAREZ BRAVO
meanings might be obscure, however the framing is always decisive
in appearance. Similarly, what is literally laid bear before the viewers
is crucial for Álvarez Bravo.
The photograph Striking Worker, Assassinated is often referred to
as “one of Álvarez Bravo’s few “documentary” images.”78 However,
I contend that particularly after spending time thinking about his
early work, the social documentary strain that indeed characterized
Mexican art during the Cárdenas regime becomes visible in other
works by the artist. Olivier Debroise refers to such occurrences as
evidence of a particularly Mexican “complex perception of the world
that is translated in the photographs through an emphasis on the
invisible, on what is left out of the picture and yet is indispensable
to its existence.”79 This description sounds strikingly similar to words
used by Esther Gabara when she discusses what she calls “visible
photographs of invisible bodies.”80 Álvarez Bravo’s work operates
del rigor formal”76 no descarta su habilidad de comprometerse en
un ensayo fotográfico con fuertes tintes políticos sobre la vida real
en México. La presión que Álvarez Bravo ha depositado aquí sobre
el pecho del hombre muerto al cortar la imagen cerca del cuerpo
crea un espacio claustrofóbico: el deseo de hallar una salida del área
demarcada resulta palpable y pronunciado. Como defensor de la
fotografía directa al estilo de Paul Strand y Tina Modotti,77 Álvarez
Bravo rechazaba con vigor cualquier acto de manipulación en el
proceso de impresión. Por ejemplo, en obras como Mexican Portfolio
(Portafolio mexicano), de Strand, de los años 1930, se presenta una
toma directa con un sujeto centrado con claridad, una estrategia
compartida por los modernistas (ver n.° cat. 54). Se podría describir
estas imágenes incluso como combativas; aunque los significados
pueden resultar poco claros, el encuadre siempre tiene un aspecto
decisivo. De forma similar, lo que se desnuda frente a los espectadores
es crucial para Álvarez Bravo.
61
somewhere between the news journal and the art gallery, as a
model for the ways in which there is no convincing way to talk about
a singular ‘Mexican photography.’ As curator Jessica S. McDonald
of the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco has explained,
citing Álvarez Bravo as the touchstone, “There is no one ‘Mexican
photography,’ but one strand that runs throughout is a synthesis of
aesthetics and politics.”81 The photographs themselves are replete
with contentious and competing multivalences.
The year 1933 was a significant year for Álvarez Bravo. He exhibited at
the Julien Levy Gallery in New York alongside Henri Cartier-Bresson and
Walker Evans, as well as in Mexico City’s Palacio de Bellas Artes. Cartier-
Bresson and Evans’ emphasis on finding the compelling mysteries
present in everyday scenes had affinities with Álvarez Bravo’s approach
to photography.82 Certainly his membership in the avant-garde circle
of photographic art was confirmed by his public alignment with such
A menudo se refieren a la fotografía Obrero en huelga, asesinado
como “una de las pocas imágenes ‘documentales’ de Álvarez Bravo”.78
Sin embargo, creo que, especialmente luego de pensar en su obra
temprana, la veta documental social que de hecho caracterizó el arte
mexicano durante el régimen de Cárdenas, se hace más evidente en
otros trabajos del artista. Olivier Debroise se refiere a tales eventos
como evidencia de una “percepción compleja (particularmente
mexicana) del mundo que se traduce a las fotografías a través de
un énfasis en lo invisible, en lo que queda fuera de la imagen y
que sin embargo resulta indispensable para su existencia”.79 Esta
descripción suena extremadamente similar a las palabras que utilizó
Esther Gabara al hablar de lo que ella denomina “fotografías visibles
de cuerpos invisibles”.80 La obra de Álvarez Bravo opera en algún
lugar entre el periódico noticioso y la galería de arte como modelo
de las formas en las que no existe manera convincente de hablar
acerca de un tipo único de ‘fotografía mexicana’. La curadora
62 EL CUERPO DEL DELITO: LOS MODERNISMOS DE MANUEL ÁLVAREZ BRAVO
figures. His association with modern European and American artists
who professed their dedication to being aesthetically revolutionary
yet apolitical83 has frequently provided justification for viewing his
work through a particularly symbolic and formal lens. This strain is
absolutely essential to Álvarez Bravo’s work. However, his fascination
with “unlocking the riddles of iconography”84 does not sufficiently
account for the unsettling character of many of his works. Álvarez
Bravo’s connection to the surrealist strategy of making strange (or
ostranie) is never completely dissociated from the political charge of
confounding habitual seeing in everyday life and accessing news ways,
truly sur-real ways, of thinking through social relationships. Arguably,
even when a solitary person is pictured in Álvarez Bravo’s photographs,
a social dimension is nevertheless implicated. Additionally, inanimate
objects in his work take on multiple identities, as characters of sorts,
who prod viewers into considering a world that is defamiliarized, yet
interdependent rather than isolated.
Jessica S. McDonald del Museum of Modern Art (Museo de Arte
Moderno) de San Francisco ha indicado, poniendo a Álvarez Bravo
como ejemplo, que “no existe una ‘fotografía mexicana’ única sino
que una veta que la recorre es una síntesis de estética y política”.81
Las fotografías en sí mismas están repletas de una multiplicidad de
significados que compiten y se enfrentan entre ellos.
El año 1933 fue significativo para Álvarez Bravo. Tuvo una muestra
en la Julien Levy Gallery de Nueva York junto a Henri Cartier-Bresson
y Walker Evans además de otra en el Palacio de Bellas Artes de la
ciudad de México. El énfasis de Cartier-Bresson y de Evans por hallar
los misterios esenciales presentes en escenas cotidianas poseía ciertas
afinidades con el enfoque de Álvarez Bravo hacia la fotografía.82
Sin duda su pertenencia al círculo vanguardista del arte fotográfico
se vió confirmado por su cercanía pública con estas figuras. Su
asociación con artistas modernos europeos y estadounidenses que se
The kind of latency and liminality I am describing here is paramount
to Good Reputation, Sleeping. Here again a body lies along the
picture plane, but it is “striking” in a different way. What is laid bare
in this instance seems at first glance to be less about evidence and
more about reverie. The woman depicted rests on the ground, atop
a striped blanket, lounging. A group of star cacti at her side threaten
to impale her if she were to inadvertently roll over, and their prickly
thorns literally and figuratively impede onlookers from getting too
close.
Mostly nude, parts of her body are conspicuously bandaged in
white, her wrists, her feet, her hips and thighs, with her pubic area
exposed. The image is overt and subtle, lending itself immediately
to an eroticized reading, but also to a sense that this is about
more than the body as a subject of desire. This staged scene
speaks of estrangement. In part because of the depth of field, the
dedicaban a ser revolucionarios desde lo estético empero apolíticos83
con frecuencia ha justificado que su trabajo se vea desde un punto
de vista en especial simbólico y formalista. Esta veta es del todo
esencial en la obra de Álvarez Bravo. Sin embargo, su fascinación
por “desentrañar los acertijos de la iconografía”84 no justifica lo
suficiente el carácter inquietante de tantos de sus trabajos. La
conexión de Álvarez Bravo con la estrategia surrealista de hacer lo
extraño (ostranie) nunca se disocia por completo de la carga política
de confundir la forma habitual de ver lo cotidiano y encontrar nuevas
maneras (de veras surrealistas) de pensar a través de las relaciones
sociales. Se podría decir que incluso cuando se fotografía a una sola
persona en los trabajos de Álvarez Bravo, queda de todas formas
implicada una dimensión social. Asimismo, los objetos inanimados
en sus fotografías adquieren múltiples identidades, como especies de
personajes, que hacen que los espectadores consideren un mundo
desfamiliarizado y a la vez interdependiente en vez de aislado.
BODY OF EVIDENCE: THE MODERNISMS OF MANUEL ÁLVAREZ BRAVO
viewer’s distance from the body is further than in Striking Worker,
Assassinated. This bizarre proximity positions the viewer as a voyeur,
and by extension, an outsider. On the one hand this angle enhances
the idea that this image evidences the pre-Cortesian erotic and exotic
dream of Mexican Eden, affirming Sergei Eisenstein’s attraction to
what he referred to as Mexico’s “bodies outside of history,” or what
Lerner describes in his Maya of Modernism as an “undifferentiated,
languid sexuality [which] inhabits a place outside history – a timeless
paradise in southeastern Oaxaca whose portrayal resonates with
depictions of that region created by Miguel Covarrubias, Manuel
Álvarez Bravo, and more recently, Graciela Iturbide.”85
The dream is not all it seems to be. A darkness lurks in the image
that harkens back to Striking Worker, Assassinated, and which
detours escapist fantasies. Notice the gritty realism of the wall that
forms the backdrop of this theater. The concrete wall is dirty, worn,
La especie de latencia y liminalidad que describo aquí reviste vital
importancia en La buena fama, durmiendo. Una vez más, aquí se
encuentra un cuerpo tendido en el plano de la imagen, pero resulta
“llamativo” de un modo diferente. Lo que en este caso se expone
parece a primera vista tener menos que ver con lo evidencial y más
con la ensoñación. La mujer retratada descansa en el suelo sobre
una manta a rayas. Un grupo de cactus a su lado amenazan hincarla
si, por ejemplo, fuera a girar sobre sí sin darse cuenta, y las espinas
impiden que los espectadores se acerquen demasiado, literal y
figurativamente.
En su mayoría desnudo, algunas partes de su cuerpo se ven cubiertas
con vendas blancas: sus muñecas, sus pies, su cadera y sus muslos,
pero la región púbica está expuesta. La imagen es manifiesta y sutil,
y se presta a una lectura erótica inmediata, pero también a la idea de
que se trata más que de un cuerpo como objeto del deseo. Esta escena
63
scratched, filled with suspicious holes and other wounds. A heavy
black seeping line runs unevenly and oppressively down the wall,
intersecting the woman’s chest perpendicularly. In a noir twist this
may be an allusion to the idea that she may not be asleep at all, but
rather a beautiful corpse. The dark stains on the vertical wall answer
the blood in Striking Worker, Assassinated, and similarly push the
inquest outside the picture’s frame. Uncannily, by contrast to the
worker’s open eyes, the subject here has her eyes closed, though
the former image is the only photograph in Álvarez Bravo’s oeuvre
that is explicitly of a dead body. The in-between and exchangeable
existential states summoned to mind may reflect Xavier Villaurrutia’s
writing in 1932, claiming that, “what we can call an obsession, a
preoccupation with death, is present in the work of Manuel Álvarez
Bravo.”86 The bizarre bandages reinforce this reading, alluding as
much to mummification as adornment.
Good Reputation, Sleeping was originally created for inclusion in
a surrealist exhibition curated by André Breton.87 Álvarez Bravo
claimed that the bandages were inspired by “the way dancers in
Anna Sokolow’s company bound their feet during rehearsals.”88
The paradox of drawing on the habits of dancers to picture such a
still, inanimate figure is provocative. The subject’s motionlessness is
crucial to the image. There is something of her stillness that again
plays to the idea of this as a vision of a “timeless” Mexico, passive
and ritualistic. A counter position however would be to consider
that the photograph is staged as a “vision,” a fantastical one, that
is entirely aware of the codes with which it is both playing with and
tempting the viewer’s gaze. As yet another understated interruption,
the young woman’s far right leg crosses over her body to the left.
A curious irony is suggested and confounded by the words Good
Reputation, Sleeping. The comma gives pause once more. The
image is puzzling and purposefully disorienting.
The distance between Striking Worker, Assassinated and Good Illustration 3
Reputation, Sleeping could perhaps be bridged by a third body MANUEL ÁLVAREZ BRAVO
by Álvarez Bravo: Gorrión, claro (Sparrow, Skylight, 1938-1939) b. 1902, Mexico City, Mexico
(illustration 3). In this photograph, a partially nude young woman’s d. 2002, Mexico City, Mexico
body is again pictured. She emerges from the lower edge of the Gorrión, claro (Sparrow,
frame vertically, though she is shown lying horizontally on a Skylight),
1938-1939
roof-like structure. Her lower body is missing. Cut in half by this gelatin silver print
perspectival reversal, the oddity of her “sleeping” is augmented. 7 3⁄16 x 9 1⁄2 in.
Her outline against the cracked surface of the skylight veritably (18.26 x 24.13 cm)
combines the language of documentary and crime scene © Colette Urbajtel/Archivo
Manuel Álvarez Bravo, SC
photography from Striking Worker, Assassinated, with the
surreal poetry of Good Reputation, Sleeping. The possibility of
imagining her as either dead or alive, as either reportage or
art, exists simultaneously. The allusion to the sparrow in the
title alludes to the idea of a fallen bird. The photograph here
is at once documentary forensics and surrealist fantasy. As with

montada habla del distanciamiento. Debido en parte a la profundidad
del campo, la distancia del espectador con el cuerpo es más llamativa
que en Obrero en huelga, asesinado. Esta extraña proximidad ubica
al espectador como voyeur y, por extensión, lo excluye. Por un lado,
este ángulo intensifica la idea de que esta imagen evidencia el sueño
precortesiano erótico y exótico del Edén mexicano, y confirma la
atracción por lo que Sergei Eisenstein llamaba “los cuerpos fuera
de la historia” de México, o lo que Lerner describe en su Maya of
Modernism (Maya del modernismo) como “una sexualidad lánguida
e uniforme [que] habita un espacio fuera de la historia, un paraíso
atemporal en el sudeste de Oaxaca cuya descripción tiene ecos de
las narraciones de la región creadas por Miguel Covarrubias, Manuel
Álvarez Bravo y, mas recientemente, Graciela Iturbide.”85
El sueño no es todo lo que parece. Una cierta oscuridad amenaza la
imagen y recuerda Obrero en huelga, asesinado y desvía las fantasías
escapistas. Nótese el crudo realismo de la pared que forma el telón
de fondo de esta escena. La pared de concreto está sucia, desgastada
y llena de orificios sospechosos y otras heridas. Una pesada rajadura
negra se extiende de forma irregular y opresiva por la pared, e
intersecta el pecho de la mujer de manera perpendicular. En un giro
negro, puede tratarse de una alusión a la idea de que la mujer puede
no estar dormida sino ser un cadaver hermoso. Las manchas negras
en la pared vertical le responden a la sangre de Obrero en huelga,
asesinado y de forma similar llevan a buscar fuera del encuadre de la
foto. De manera llamativa, en contraposición con los ojos abiertos
del obrero, el sujeto aquí tiene los ojos cerrados, aunque la imagen
anterior es la única fotografía en toda la obra de Álvarez Bravo de
un cadaver retratado de forma explícita. Los estados existenciales
intermedios e intercambiables que evocan pueden reflejar las ideas
de 1932 de Xavier Villaurrutia, quien escribió que “lo que podemos
llamar obsesión, una preocupación por la muerte, se encuentra
presente en el trabajo de Manuel Álvarez Bravo”.86 Los vendajes Illustration 4
extraños refuerzan esta lectura y aluden tanto a la momificación MANUEL ÁLVAREZ BRAVO
como al adorno del cuerpo. b. 1902, Mexico City, Mexico
d. 2002, Mexico City, Mexico
La buena fama, durmiendo fue creada en principio para incluirse Umbral (Threshold), 1947
en una muestra surrealista curada por André Breton.87 Álvarez gelatin silver print
9 5⁄8 x 7 11⁄16 in.
Bravo sostenía que los vendajes fueron inspirados por “la forma (24.45 x 19.53 cm)
en que las bailarinas de la compañía de Anna Sokolow se © Colette Urbajtel/Archivo
envolvían los pies en los ensayos”.88 La paradoja de inspirarse Manuel Álvarez Bravo, SC
en los hábitos de bailarinas para presentar una figura tan inmóvil
e inanimada resulta provocativa. La falta de movimiento del
sujeto es crucial para la imagen. Hay algo en su quietud que
una vez más juega con la idea de que se trata de una visión de
un México “atemporal”, pasivo y ritualista. Sin embargo, sería
una contraposición considerar que la fotografía está montada
como una “visión” fantástica que está del todo conciente de los

64 EL CUERPO DEL DELITO: LOS MODERNISMOS DE MANUEL ÁLVAREZ BRAVO BODY OF EVIDENCE: THE MODERNISMS OF MANUEL ÁLVAREZ BRAVO 65
other photographs by Álvarez Bravo, such as Umbral (Threshold,
1947) (illustration 4) in which we see truncated feet, apprehensively
positioned on a cold floor, surrounded by liquid that is either as
innocent as water or as incriminating as blood, there is more than
one way to understand the image and any reading will always be
only one aspect of what is before us. In Threshold the upper body
is absent and the title itself suggests the tentative sensation of
being in-between. This kind of uncanny duplicity recurs throughout
Álvarez Bravo’s career, and functions as a means of suspending and
combining various modernist avant-garde strategies.
Esther Gabara’s contribution to this mode of analysis is crucial. In
her 2008 study of photography in Mexico and Brazil, entitled Errant
Modernism, she evokes the concept of “ethos” to perform “a
mediatory function between ethics and aesthetics,” and further to
demonstrate how modernism in Latin America is “a philosophy of
art situated in a real space between representation and action.”89
The ethics Gabara refers to involve a social imperative that is never
entirely superseded by the drive for art or abstraction. Evidence for
this approach is found throughout Álvarez Bravo’s photographs.
Numerous scenes in Álvarez Bravo’s work picture walls and storefronts,
thereby drawing connections between the context of socialist
murals (in the tradition of Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros,
for example)90 and the documentary potential of the camera. Such
choices reinforce an ethos that functions through the conjunction
of social content with abstract form. Álvarez Bravo calls attention
to the urban billboard and by extension the prominence of new
relationships with products in the metropolis in works such as Dos
pares de piernas (Two Pairs of Legs, 1928-1929) (illustration 5) and
Parabola óptica (Optical Parable, 1931) (illustration 6). In Two Pairs
of Legs fragmented body parts above the word “inimitable” draw
our attention to cropped signage and partial reference points. As Illustration 5
Roberto Tejada describes it, “Álvarez Bravo explores the contrast MANUEL ÁLVAREZ BRAVO
between two patterns: the imperfect grid of the advertisement b. 1902, Mexico City, Mexico
and the rickety slats and windows of the Mexico City building d. 2002, Mexico City, Mexico
behind it. With characteristic irony, he makes use of the divided Dos pares de piernas
plane to create a modern theme: the difference between the (Two Pairs of Legs),
1928-1929
concrete world and its copies, as represented in a painted imitation gelatin silver print
or in the quasi-mirror likeness of a photograph.”91 Optical Parable 9 1⁄4 in. x 7 3⁄16 in.
further challenges the epistemology that associates seeing with (23.5 cm x 18.26 cm)
knowing, in other words, the promise of Western modernity, as it © Colette Urbajtel/Archivo
Manuel Álvarez Bravo, SC
plays with temporal and spatial discontinuity in the public arena
and in perceptual experience. Other photographers of the time
similarly sought to test the viewer’s optical sensitivity. Consider
Edward Weston’s Nude Floating (1939, cat. no. 53) for example.
Included in the exhibition Pan American Modernism alongside
works by Álvarez Bravo, Weston’s photograph cunningly taunts

códigos con los que juega y a la vez tienta la mirada del espectador.
Incluso como otra interrupción discreta, la pierna derecha de la joven
cruza sobre su cuerpo hacia la izquierda. Las palabras La buena
fama, durmiendo sugieren y trastocan una curiosa ironía. Una vez
más la coma otorga una pausa. La imagen resulta enigmática y
adrede desconcertante.
La distancia entre Obrero en huelga, asesinado y La buena fama,
durmiendo se podría quizás sortear con un tercer trabajo de Álvarez
Bravo: Gorrión, claro (1938-1939) (ilustración 3). En esta fotografía
una vez más se presenta el cuerpo semidesnudo de una joven. Emerge
del ángulo inferior del cuadro de manera vertical, aunque se la presenta
tendida horizontalmente sobre una estructura que parece ser un techo.
La parte inferior de su cuerpo no aparece. Cortada en dos en esta
inversión de la perspectiva, lo extraño de su “sueño” se potencia.
Su silueta recortada contra la superficie resquebrajada del tragaluz
verdaderamente combina el lenguaje documental y la fotografía La contribución de Esther Gabara a este modo de análisis es Illustration 6
criminal de Obrero en huelga, asesinado con la poesía surrealista de La crucial. En su estudio del año 2008 titulado Errant Modernism MANUEL ÁLVAREZ BRAVO
buena fama, durmiendo. Coexiste en la foto la posibilidad de imaginarla (Modernismo errante) sobre la fotografía en México y Brasil, b. 1902, Mexico City, Mexico
tanto viva como muerta, como ensayo fotográfico o arte. La alusión al evoca el concepto de “ethos” que cumple “una función d. 2002, Mexico City, Mexico
gorrión que se hace en el título remite a la idea de un pájaro caído. La mediadora entre la ética y la estética” y demuestra cómo el Parabola óptica (Optic Parable),
fotografía es tanto documental forense como fantasía surrealista. Como modernismo latinoamericano es “una filosofía de arte situada 1931 (printed 1974)
gelatin silver print
en otras fotografías de Álvarez Bravo como Umbral (1947) [ilustración en un espacio real entre la representación y la acción”.89 La 9 3⁄8 x 7 1⁄8 in.
4], en la que vemos pies truncados, colocados aprensivamente sobre un ética a la que se refiere Gabara implica un imperativo social que (23.8 x 18.1 cm)
piso frío, rodeados de un líquido que resulta inocente como el agua o nunca se sustituye por completo con el impulso del arte o la Gift of The American
incriminador como la sangre, hay más de una manera de comprender abstracción. Se puede hallar evidencia de este enfoque en las Foundation for the Arts,
84.0190.01
la imagen y cualquier lectura será solo un aspecto parcial de lo que fotografías de Álvarez Bravo. © Colette Urbajtel/Archivo
encontramos frente a nosotros. En Umbral, el torso se encuentra Manuel Álvarez Bravo, SC
ausente y el título sugiere la sensación tentativa de encontrarse entre En numerosas escenas de las imágenes de Álvarez Bravo se
dos espacios. Este sorprendente tipo de duplicidad es recurrente en observan paredes y frentes de tiendas, por lo que se establecen
toda la carrera de Álvarez Bravo y funciona como medio para suspender conexiones entre el contexto de los murales socialistas (por
y combinar varias estrategias vanguardistas del modernismo. ejemplo al estilo de Diego Rivera y David Alfaro Siqueiros)90 y el

66 EL CUERPO DEL DELITO: LOS MODERNISMOS DE MANUEL ÁLVAREZ BRAVO BODY OF EVIDENCE: THE MODERNISMS OF MANUEL ÁLVAREZ BRAVO 67
the viewer to make visual sense of varying surfaces and weights as
they are formally suspended.
I would argue that Álvarez Bravo’s Optical Parable however, exceeds
the formal considerations of visuality and more importantly,
even politically, “obliges us to become conscious of the act of
looking, here and now.”92 Strategies of modernist abstraction
and defamiliarization for Álvarez Bravo seem to be about more
than a game of looking for the sake of looking. The name of the
business “La Óptica Moderna” imaged in the photograph is literally
translated into “the modern optician” but can also be interpreted
as “the modern viewpoint.”93 Such a viewpoint here is explained
as far from coherent or singular but rather endlessly disjointed and
complicated. Such a viewpoint possesses the self-referentiality so
often demanded of modernism. However, it also has the capacity to
flip one’s sense and be infinitely contrary.
potencial documental de la cámara. Tales decisiones refuerzan un
ethos que funciona a través de la conjunción del contenido social
con las formas abstractas. Álvarez Bravo dirige la atención a los
carteles públicos, y por extensión a la prominencia de las nuevas
relaciones con los productos en las metrópolis, en trabajos como
Dos pares de piernas (1928-1929) (ilustración 5) y Parábola óptica
(1931) (ilustración 6). En Dos pares de piernas, partes fragmentadas
del cuerpo sobre la palabra “inimitable” dirigen nuestra atención
a la señalización recortada y a puntos de referencia parciales.
Como describe Roberto Tejada, “Álvarez Bravo explora el contraste
entre dos patrones: la grilla imperfecta de la publicidad y las
pizarras destartaladas, y las ventanas del edificio de la ciudad de
México detrás de ella. Con ironía característica, utiliza un plano
dividido para crear un tema moderno: la diferencia entre el mundo
concreto y sus copias, como se representa en la imitación pintada
o en la similitud casi de espejo de una fotografía.91 Parábola óptica
68 EL CUERPO DEL DELITO: LOS MODERNISMOS DE MANUEL ÁLVAREZ BRAVO
Further hauntings of social relationships, in “an adulterated sphere in Illustration 7 Illustration 8
which ethics and aesthetics are edgily interdependent and mutually MANUEL ÁLVAREZ BRAVO MAN RAY
disruptive”94 recur in these photographs when one begins to search b. 1902, Mexico City, Mexico b. 1890, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
beneath appearances. While Las lavanderas sobreentendidas (The d. 2002, Mexico City, Mexico d. 1976, Paris, France
Washerwoman Implied, 1932) (illustration 7) seems to share a formal Las lavanderas The Enigma of Isadore Ducasse
sobreentendidas (L’Enigme d’Isidore Ducasse),
coincidence with Man Ray’s Enigma of Isadore Ducasse (1920) 1920/replica 1971
(The Washerwoman Implied),
(illustration 8) for example, it is significant to note that the washerwoman 1932 Published in La Révolution
who is insinuated beneath the sheet is a worker. Employed against gelatin silver print surréaliste, 1, December, 1924
assemblage: sewing machine,
reification, even if only in the form of such ghostly allusions, labor and 9 9⁄16 x 6 1⁄2 in.
blanket, strings, and wooden base
the realities of labor continuously make their appearance in Álvarez (24.3 x 16.5 cm)
17 x 22 1⁄2 x 8 5⁄8 in. (43 x 57 x 22 cm)
© Colette Urbajtel/Archivo
Bravo’s photographs. In The Washerwoman Implied, the message is Manuel Álvarez Bravo, SC
The Israel Museum, Jerusalem
The Vera and Arturo Schwarz
all the more resounding despite its disguise, by virtue of the subject Collection of Dada and Surrealist
being depicted as a kind of apparition. Such figures ask the viewer to Art in the Israel Museum
look beneath the opacity of surface and summon a specifically post- © 2013 Man Ray Trust / Artists
Rights Society (ARS), NY / ADAGP,
revolutionary Mexican psychology that though fascinating to outsiders Paris. Scan © The Israel Museum,
at this time, could never be fully appreciated or emulated. Jerusalem by Shira Tabachnik
desafía la epistemología que asocia el ver con el saber; en otras abstracción y desfamiliarización modernistas para Álvarez Bravo Illustration 9
palabras, la promesa de la modernidad occidental que juega con parecen tener que ver con algo más que el juego de mirar por MANUEL ÁLVAREZ BRAVO
la discontinuidad espacial y temporal en la esfera pública y en la el simple hecho de mirar. El nombre de la tienda “La Óptica b. 1902, Mexico City, Mexico
experiencia perceptiva. De modo similar, otros fotógrafos de la época Moderna” presente en la fotografía se puede interpretar como “el d. 2002, Mexico City, Mexico
buscaron poner a prueba la sensibilidad óptica del espectador. Vale punto de vista moderno”.93 Este punto de vista aquí no se presenta Juego de papel
considerar por ejemplo Nude Floating (Desnudo flotando,1939, n.° comocoherente o único sino desdoblado y complicado al infinito. (Paper Games),
1926-1927
cat. 53), de Edward Weston. Incluido en la muestra Pan American Tal punto de vista posee la autorreferencialidad que tan a menudo gelatin silver print
Modernism (Modernismo panamericano) junto a trabajos de Álvarez se requiere del modernismo. Sin embargo, también posee la 8 x 10 in. (20.3 x 25.4 cm)
Bravo, la fotografía de Weston se burla con astucia del espectador al capacidad de invertir nuestro sentido y ser por completo contrario. © Colette Urbajtel/Archivo
hacer que este le dé sentido visual a diversas superficies y pesos que Manuel Álvarez Bravo, SC
se encuentran formalmente suspendidos. Otras evocaciones de las relaciones sociales en una “esfera adulterada
en la que la ética y la estética se vuelven interdependientes hasta la
Sin embargo, me atrevería a afirmar que Parábola óptica, de Álvarez crispación y mutuamente perturbadoras”94 se hacen recurrentes
Bravo, excede las consideraciones formales desde lo visual y, lo que en estas fotografías cuando uno comienza a indagar debajo de
es más importante, incluso desde lo político “nos obliga a tomar las apariencias. A pesar de que Las lavanderas sobreentendidas
conciencia del acto de mirar aquí y ahora”.92 Las estrategias de (1932) (ilustración 7) parece compartir una coincidencia formal por
BODY OF EVIDENCE: THE MODERNISMS OF MANUEL ÁLVAREZ BRAVO 69
This sort of tension is also present in works that are seemingly less
figurative. Juego de papel (Paper Games, 1926-1927) (illustration
9) is a group of photographs often highlighted in Álvarez Bravo’s
practice for their formal innovation and exemplification of the
tendency towards modernist abstraction.95 Though there is a
resemblance to Edward Weston’s sensualized studies, in which
close-ups of vegetables for example become suggestive bodies, it
is important to note that the paper pictured is in fact cash register
tape (illustration 10). These aestheticized receipts incite a direct
connection to economic realities and, again, to labor. They are not
simply to be looked at. They exemplify the mediated “ethos” Gabara
discusses. Even a photograph such as Álvarez Bravo’s Magueyes
heridos (Wounded Agaves, 1950) (illustration 11) offers a radical
interpretation of modernist visual play. Showing agave plants cut
bluntly at their edges, these images connote violence on the body,
rather than pure optic pleasure. Such photographs are perhaps
ejemplo con Enigma of Isadore Ducasse (Enigma de Isadore Ducasse,
1920), de Man Ray (ilustración 8), resulta significativo notar que la
lavandera que se insinúa debajo de la sábana es una trabajadora.
Utilizados contra la cosificación, aunque más no sea como alusiones
fantasmagóricas, el trabajo y las realidades laborales aparecen
continuamente en las fotografías de Álvarez Bravo. En Las lavanderas
sobreentendidas el mensaje resulta aun más resonante a pesar de su
disfraz gracias a que el sujeto es presentado como una especie de
aparición. Tales figuras le piden al espectador que mire debajo de la
opacidad de la superficie y evoque una psicología posrevolucionaria
mexicana específica que aunque resultara fascinante a los extranjeros
en la época jamás podría ser apreciada o emulada.
Este tipo de tensión se encuentra también presente en trabajos que
en apariencia son menos figurativos. Juego de papel (1926-1927)
(ilustración 9) es un grupo de fotografías que a menudo se destacan
70 EL CUERPO DEL DELITO: LOS MODERNISMOS DE MANUEL ÁLVAREZ BRAVO
closer to Albert Renger Patzsch’s New Objectivity than Weston’s Illustration 10 Illustration 11
formalism (illustration 12) . Their ambiguity similarly brings to mind EDWARD WESTON MANUEL ÁLVAREZ BRAVO
Walter Benjamin’s quoting of Bertoldt Brecht in his “Short History of b. 1886, Chicago, Illinois b. 1902, Mexico City, Mexico
Photography” (1931), as a means of critique the limits of how much d. 1958, Big Sur, California d. 2002, Mexico City, Mexico
critical information an image can convey. Benjamin writes: Pepper, 1930 Magueyes heridos
gelatin silver print (Wounded Agaves), 1950
9 1⁄2 x 7 9⁄16 in. gelatin silver print
“The situation is complicated by the fact that less than ever (24.1 x 19.2 cm) 6 9⁄16 x 8 3⁄8 in.
does the mere reflection of reality reveal anything about reality. © The Lane Collection, (16.7 x 21.2 cm)
A photograph of the Krupp works or the AEG tells us next to Courtesy, Museum of © Colette Urbajtel/Archivo
nothing about these institutions. Actual reality has slipped into Fine Arts, Boston Manuel Álvarez Bravo, SC
© 2013 Center for Creative
the functional. The reification of human relations—the factory, Photography, Arizona Board
say—means that they are no longer explicit. So something of Regents / Artists Rights
must in fact be built up, something artificial, posed.”96 Society (ARS), New York
Photographs may suggest readings that bring social realities such as
labor to bear on aesthetics, however the risk of aestheticizing and
en la práctica de Álvarez Bravo por su innovación formal y como las ideas que Walter Benjamin cita de Bertoldt Brecht en su “Short Illustration 12
ejemplo de la tendencia hacia la abstracción modernista.95 Aunque History of Photography” (Breve historia de la fotografía) (1931) ALBERT RENGER-PATZSCH
se parecen en cierta medida a los estudios sensualizados de Edward como medio para criticar los límites de cuánta información clave b. 1897, Würzburg, Germany
Weston en los que los primeros planos de vegetales por ejemplo puede transmitir una imagen. Benjamin escribe: d. 1966, Wamel, Germany
sugieren cuerpos humanos, es importante notar que el papel que Flatirons for Shoe
se muestra es en realidadpapel de caja registradora (ilustración “La situación se complica debido al hecho de que ahora Manufacture, ca. 1926
gelatin silver print
10). Estos recibos estilizados incitan una conexión directa con las menos que nunca el solo reflejo de la realidad revela 9 x 6 5⁄8 in. (22.9 x 16.8 cm)
realidades económicas y, una vez más, con el trabajo. No están nada de la realidad. Una fotografía de la fundición Krupp The J. Paul Getty Museum,
solo para verse. Ejemplifican el “ethos” mediado del que habla o de la AEG nos dice casi nada de estas instituciones. La Los Angeles
Gabara. Incluso una fotografía como Magueyes heridos (1950) de realidad en sí ha pasado a ser funcional. La cosificación de © Albert Renger-Patzsch
Archiv / Ann u. Jürgen Wilde,
Álvarez Bravo (ilustración 11) ofrece una interpretación radical del las relaciones humanas (digamos por ejemplo la fábrica) Zülpich / Artists Rights Society
juego visual modernista. Al mostrar plantas de agave cortadas sin significa que estas ya no son explícitas. Por lo que de (ARS), New York
delicadeza en los bordes, estas imágenes connotan violencia sobre el hecho algo debe construirse, algo artificial propuesto”.96
cuerpo en lugar de puro placer óptico. Tales fotografías se asemejan
quizás más a la Nueva Objetividad de Albert Renger Patzsch que al Las fotografías pueden sugerir lecturas que hacen que realidades
formalismo de Weston (ilustración 12). Su ambiegüedad recuerda sociales como el trabajo pesen sobre la estética; sin embargo, el
BODY OF EVIDENCE: THE MODERNISMS OF MANUEL ÁLVAREZ BRAVO 71
thus removing the real from its actual conditions of production is
also a contentious possibility.
Once asked by John Mraz if he had ever taken “political” photographs
other than Striking Worker, Assassinated, Álvarez Bravo responded by
referring to Los agachados (Crouched Ones, 1934) (illustration 13).97
The photograph depicts five seated workers from behind, each on
a stool, all chained together at the base, within the storefront of a
typical Mexican comedor. At this modest lunch counter which caters
to the working and middle-classes, the sun bears down obliquely
casting dramatic, even ominous, shadows upon an ordinary scene.
The title suggests the crouching their bodies perform in the act of
work, but also seemingly inescapably, even during the down time
of a meal. Freedom of movement is not a luxury available to these
subjects. And yet there is also evidence in the photograph, in their
actual bodies, that this is not entirely the case either. For they in fact
riesgo de estetizar, y así quitar lo real de las actuales condiciones de
producción, es también una posibilidad polémica.
Cuando John Mraz le preguntó si alguna vez había tomado
fotografías “políticas” además de Obrero en huelga, asesinado,
Álvarez Bravo se refirió a Los agachados (1934) (ilustración 13).97 La
fotografía muestra a cinco obreros de espaldas, cada uno sentado
sobre un taburete, todos encadenados en la base, en el frente de un
comedor típico mexicano. En esta modesta barra de almuerzo para
la clase trabajadora y la clase media, el sol cae oblicuo, lo que le da a
esta escena común un tinte dramático, casi de mal agüero. El título
sugiere la manera en que se agachan para trabajar, pero también
cómo lo hacen, casi sin poder evitarlo, durante su descanso para
comer. La libertad de movimiento no es un lujo que tengan estos
sujetos. Y sin embargo hay también evidencia en la fotografía, en
sus cuerpos reales, de que este no es tampoco del todo el caso. Esto
72 EL CUERPO DEL DELITO: LOS MODERNISMOS DE MANUEL ÁLVAREZ BRAVO
are not crouched, but actually seated upright. The dynamic of stark
light and shadow creates the impression of oppression, but again
there seems to be more to the eye. The workers are decapitated
figuratively by noonday shadows and yet the image may be more
of a challenge to the partial vision of the viewer, both optically and
ideologically, who is demarcated outside of the space of the iron roll-
up door, curtaining the top of the frame.
Real bodies are at a stake in Manuel Álvarez Bravo’s practice. These
bodies evidence the necessity of grappling with the real as it exists
between an ethical and an aesthetic position, as they summon
thoughts of social documentary and modern art combined. The fact,
moreover that a photograph, however real, is always an abstraction
is reinforced. The very possibility of an abstraction only exists in
relation to a real referent, a referent to be “abstracted.” This tense
interdependence between abstraction and objective reality finds a
se debe a que no están agachados sino en realidad sentados erectos.
La dinámica del claroscuro severo crea la impresión de opresión,
pero una vez más parece que hay más de lo que se ve. Los obreros
están figurativamente decapitados por las sombras del mediodía; no
obstante, su imagen puede resultar un desafío para la visión parcial
del espectador, tanto desde lo óptico como desde lo ideológico, ya
que este se encuentra fuera del espacio de la persiana de metal que
demarca la parte superior del cuadro.
En la práctica de Manuel Álvarez Bravo están en juego los cuerpos
reales. Estos cuerpos evidencian la necesidad de lidiar con lo real tal
como existe entre una posición ética y una estética ya que evocan
pensamientos combinados de documental social y arte moderno. De
hecho, se subraya la idea de que una fotografía, sin importar cuán real
sea, es siempre una abstracción. La posibilidad de una abstracción
solo existe en relación con un referente real, un referente que se
productive and problematic arena in the photograph, one which Illustration 13
was mined extensively in Álvarez Bravo’s oeuvre. Staging the MANUEL ÁLVAREZ BRAVO
difficulties of the real subject with and against an abstracted b. 1902, Mexico City, Mexico
sense of presence is particular to photography in a manner that d. 2002, Mexico City, Mexico
painting, though struggling with shared issues, does not possess Los agachados
as intimate or innate a connection. Álvarez Bravo’s modernisms (The Crouched Ones),
1934 (printed 1974)
challenge the ways in which post-revolutionary aesthetics in gelatin silver print
Mexico have too often been blindly read as autonomous and 7 1⁄4 x 9 1⁄2 in.
instead reasserts their deeply self-aware contingency. (18.4 x 24.1 cm)
Gift of The American
Foundation for the Arts,
84.0190.11
© Colette Urbajtel/Archivo
Manuel Álvarez Bravo, SC
“abstraerá”. Esta tensa interdependencia entre la abstracción y la
realidad objetiva encuentra una esfera productiva y problemática
en la fotografía, una realidad explotada de manera extensa en
la obra de Álvarez Bravo. Poner en escena las dificultades del
sujeto real con y contra un sentido abstracto de presencia es
una característica peculiar de la fotografía, ya que la pintura, a
través de su debate con problemáticas compartidas, no posee
una conexión tan íntima o innata. Los modernismos de Álvarez
Bravo desafían las formas en que las estéticas posrevolucionarias
de México tan a menudo se han observado como autónomas
sin cuestionamientos y, en cambio, reafirman su contingencia
conscientes de sí mismos.
BODY OF EVIDENCE: THE MODERNISMS OF MANUEL ÁLVAREZ BRAVO 73
C ATA L O G U E
LIST OF CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS:
Gabriella Abdelnour (G. A.)
Harriet Ashton (H. A.)
Diego Da Silva (D. D.)
Cory Dunn (C. D.)
Sarah Fischer (S. F.)
Kari Hecker (K. H.)
Sophie Isacowitz (S. I.)
Amanda Lemos (A. L.)
Katie Mato (K. M.)
Adys Mendizábal (A. M.)
Yoruba Mitchell (Y. M.)
74
Albert J. Monreal (A. J. M.)
Natascha Rincón (N. R.)
Gainya St. Clair (G. S. C.)
Anaïs Sánchez (A. S.)
Ryan Simone (R. S.)
Jessica Tellería (J. T.)
Nathan J. Timpano (N. T.)
Nikita van Dijk (N. V. D.)
Fabiola Vélez (F. V.)
Fiona Yakubu (F. Y.)
75
PART 1: DIALOGUES

76
1
77
 1
ANTONIO GATTORNO
b. 1904, Havana, Cuba
d. 1980, Acushnet, Massachusetts
Untitled, 1919
pencil on paper
11 7⁄8 x 8 5⁄8 in. (30.2 x 21.9 cm)
Donation from the Cuban Museum of the Americas,
Gift of Eduardo Avilés Ramírez, 99.0009.041
© 1919 Antonio Gattorno

Antonio Gattorno was a prominent member of the first

generation of Cuban modernists who, along with fellow
artists Wifredo Lam and Amelia Peláez, studied at Havana’s
Academy of San Alejandro in the early twentieth century.
In this untitled drawing, Gattorno depicts an Afro-Cuban
woman who appears to be dancing. One “discerns” that
Gattorno’s subject is a black woman through the artist’s use
of exaggerated, stereotypical facial features: the woman has
a large nose and lips, and a short-cropped hairstyle.

THE FEMALE MUSE: If not an Afro-Cuban dancer, the subject of the drawing
could represent a mulata, or half black, half white

CLASS, GENDER, RACE Cuban woman. The drawing includes a sensual element,
communicated through the semblance of the woman’s
breasts, as well as a sense of movement, conveyed by her
The female subject has long persisted as a popular genre within the history of art. Nearly every period since the prehistoric era has produced raised arms and flowing scarf. It is likely that the woman is
images of women and for various means, be those allegorical, historical, mythological/religious, symbolic, sensual, or as an exploration of dancing the rumba, a popular Afro-Cuban dance, or some
abstraction. The twentieth century was no exception, as the female subject continued to serve as a “muse” for artists working in the modern other form of musical genre representative of Cuban culture
and postmodern eras. By examining the international and intercultural interest in the female form during the early to mid-twentieth century, during this period.
objects in this module propose commonalities among disparate works via subject matter, rather than stylistic, nationalistic, or cultural constructs.
A. M. & N. T.
Notions of race, artistic “primitivism,” and class distinction equally develop as motifs alongside the overarching theme of gender. Photographs
by Lola Álvarez Bravo and Man Ray exemplify these themes alongside paintings and drawings by the Cuban vanguardia, who explored the
female body through the visual language of naturalism, surrealism, cubism, or a combination of divergent styles. The Colombian modernists
Enrique Grau and Guillermo Wiedemann similarly reveal their interest in (but divergence from) European representations of the female muse,
offering images that convey a strong sense of aesthetic hybridity.

78 THE FEMALE MUSE: CLASS, GENDER, RACE 79

 2 3
EDUARDO ABELA CARLOS ENRÍQUEZ
b. 1889, San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba b. 1900, Zulueta, Cuba
d. 1965, Havana, Cuba d. 1957, Havana, Cuba
a | Mujer (Woman), late 1920s b | El triunfo de la rumba (Triumph Mulata, 1947
oil on canvas of the Rumba), ca. 1928 oil on canvas
25 5⁄8 x 19 3⁄8 in. (65.1 x 49.2 cm) oil on canvas 19 1⁄8 x 14 5⁄8 in. (48.6 x 37.1 cm)
Donation from the Cuban Museum 25 1⁄2 x 21 1⁄4 in. (65 x 54 cm) Donation from the Cuban Museum of the Americas, Bequest of the Rafael
of the Americas, Gift of Eduardo Avilés Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Casalins Estate, 99.0009.013
Ramírez, 99.0009.040 Havana, Cuba © 1947 Carlos Enríquez
© 1928 Eduardo Abela
In Carlos Enríquez’s painting Mulata, one can see the
In Mujer, the Cuban modern artist Eduardo Abela presents the
representation of a nude Afro-Cuban woman. She is
viewer with an allegorical image of his country, represented by a
surrounded by vivid strokes of green and yellow, which
woman surrounded by different elements that represent Cuban
represent Cuba’s tropical landscape. By placing this female
culture and its landscape. Abela places his female subject in the
subject at the center of the canvas, Enríquez seems to
center of the composition encircled by lush fruits and seashells,
suggest that she is symbolically at the heart of the island. This
indicative of Cuba as a Caribbean island. In the background, the
notion that the female body is symbolically and symbiotically
viewer can observe the sea and clear blue skies. These island
tied to the land is also evident in the subject’s left breast,
elements can be compared to his renowned painting, El triunfo
which is depicted with veins and arteries of a human heart,
de la rumba (ca. 1928), which includes representations of the sea,
or alternatively, the veins of a plant or leaf. As such, she
exotic shells, fish, and Royal Palm trees, as well as other elements
nurtures the land by holding her breast and providing for the
that were meant to symbolize Cuban folklore and culture.
land, just as a mother nourishes her newborn child.
It is important to note Abela’s use of vibrant colors in this painting,
a The use of bold, lush colors in the painting is of particular
many of which are utilized to highlight aspects of the native
interest, since Enríquez does not confine color to specific
landscape: the bright blue sky that merges with the glassy sea,
lines, but rather, incorporates colors of various gradients and
and the rich reddish brown hues of the Cuban soil. The mujer
tones throughout the canvas. The predominance of green
rests on a wheeled cart, perhaps representative of the wagons
overtakes the viewer’s visual field, reinforcing the tropical
used on Cuban sugar cane plantations in the late nineteenth
essence of the piece.
and early twentieth centuries. Abela paints the woman with a
caramel colored skin tone, perhaps an indication that she is a A. M. & N. T.
mulata and thus a symbol of Cuba’s diversified racial makeup.

A. M. & N. T.

80 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES THE FEMALE MUSE: CLASS, GENDER, RACE 81
 4 5
WIFREDO LAM
b. 1902, Sagua la Grande, Cuba
d. 1982, Paris, France
Portrait of Helena, 1941
ink and watercolor on paper
12 5⁄8 x 9 3⁄4 in. (32.1 x 24.8 cm)
Bequest of Lydia Cabrera, 91.0295.04
© 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
One of the most celebrated Cuban avant-gardists of the
twentieth century, Wifredo Lam was born in Cuba in 1902
to an Afro-Cuban mother and a Chinese father. He left for
Europe in 1923, where he met his mentor, Pablo Picasso, as
well as the Surrealist leader André Breton, and eventually
his second wife, Helena Holzer. In Portrait of Helena, Lam
depicts his wife holding an oil lamp – an iconographic
element which was perhaps meant to bring visual form to a
poem written by Breton in 1941 for Helena’s birthday. Breton
wrote: “I have never lit a candle whose flame was as many-
colored as are your lips when they leap from one language
to another.”98
Conversely, or in addition to, the aestheticizing of Breton’s
prose, the lit flame might also serve as a symbol of the
inspirational light that Helena provided Lam as his artistic
muse, particularly if one considers that the years of their
marriage (1939-1950) correspond with the development
of his most significant artistic period. One can also see
references to Afro-Cuban primitivism in the piece, specifically
through Lam’s subtle reference to a non-European mask in
Helena’s cubistic face and headdress.
K. M. & N. T.
82 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
ENRIQUE GRAU
b. 1920, Panama City, Panama
d. 2004, Bogotá, Colombia
Portrait of a Woman, 1955
gouache on paper
30 5⁄8 × 19 1⁄4 in. (77.8 × 48.9 cm)
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Harper, 2012.23
© 1955 Enrique Grau
Enrique Grau is often affiliated with other well-known
Colombian modernists, including Alejandro Obregón, Édgar
Negret, Fernando Botero, Guillermo Wiedemann, and Eduardo
Ramírez Villamizar. Along with Grau, the latter three artists
represent the Colombian avant-garde in this exhibition. Despite
being an autodidactic painter, and therefore did not train at the
School of Fine Arts in Bogotá, Grau notably won an Honorable
Mention award at the First Annual Salon of Colombian Artists
in 1940. This early acclaim garnered him a government
scholarship that allowed him to study at the Art Students
League in New York between 1941 and 1943. Four years after
his return to Bogotá, Grau became a professor of art at the
National University of Colombia, a position he held until 1954.
Grau painted Portrait of a Woman one year later, when he
left Colombia for Italy. In terms of iconography, it is apparent
that Grau’s work shares certain stylistic affinities with portraits
produced by Pablo Picasso in the mid-1950s, as both artists
were independently exploring a post-cubist visual language at
this time. Portrait of a Woman is a recent gift to the Lowe Art
Museum and importantly makes its public debut as part of the
Pan American Modernism exhibition.
N. T.
THE FEMALE MUSE: CLASS, GENDER, RACE 83
 6 7
WIFREDO LAM
b. 1902, Sagua la Grande, Cuba
d. 1982, Paris, France
Untitled, ca, 1943
ink on tracing paper
7 3⁄8 x 7 1⁄4 in. (18.7 x 18.4 cm)
Bequest of Lydia Cabrera, 91.0295.10
© 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
Throughout his career, Wifredo Lam often infused various artistic
genres and styles, such as surrealism, cubism, and automatism,
along with traditional African and Oceanic motifs, in an effort to
revive the Afro-Cuban culture in his native country. Lam began
his studies in Havana at the Escuela de Bellas Artes and later at
the studio of Fernando Álvarez de Sotomayor in Madrid, Spain,
before moving to Paris to work alongside Pablo Picasso and
French Surrealists in the 1930s. He returned to Havana in 1941
where his Afro-Cuban heritage served as his main inspiration,
seeking to synthesize Cuba’s indigenous culture with a sense of
European modernism.
In this drawing, Lam presents the viewer with an image of a
nude woman, perhaps Venus (the ancient Greek goddess of love,
beauty, and procreation) at her toilette. When Lam’s female muse
gazes into her mirror, her reflection surprisingly reveals an image of
Lam’s femme cheval, or “horse-headed woman,” or alternatively,
Yemalla, the Santeria goddess of the ocean, moon, and magic.
Symbolically, Yemalla is characterized by her long flowing hair
(representing the ocean), a mirror (representing her vanity), and
the belief that mortals could not look upon her directly. Lam’s
drawing recalls divination images drawn by Santería priests and
priestesses during their Afro-Cuban rituals, as well as the Western
artistic interest in African masks, as seen in Man Ray’s photograph
Noire et blanche (Black and White, cat. no. 8).
C. D. & N. T.
84 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
LOLA ÁLVAREZ BRAVO
b. 1907, Lagos de Moreno, Jalisco, Mexico
d. 1993, Mexico City, Mexico
Frida Kahlo Looking in Mirror with Two Hairless Dogs, ca. 1944
gelatin silver print
8 7⁄8 x 4 1⁄4 in. (22.5 x 10.8 cm)
Museum purchase, 2007.22.1
© 2013 Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona Founda-
tion / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
This image of the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo was taken by her
friend and photographer Lola Álvarez Bravo, who, at this time,
was the ex-wife of Manuel Álvarez Bravo. In this image, Kahlo’s
back is turned toward the viewer, so that her face (and identity)
is shown only in the mirror’s reflection. Given that Álvarez
Bravo took this photograph five years after Kahlo’s divorce
from Diego Rivera, her reflection may be intended to present
the (male) viewer with an indirect vision of the “feminized,”
yet autonomous, female artist, who is nevertheless dressed in a
black and white traditional dress.
The stone sculpture that is partially visible, yet present in the lower
left side of the composition, is seemingly included to visually
and symbolically connect Kahlo (and perhaps even Álvarez
Bravo) to a bygone, yet culturally-relevant, pre-Columbian
heritage. Álvarez Bravo and Kahlo maintained a close personal
and professional relationship throughout the 1940s and 1950s,
as Álvarez Bravo, who served as the director of photography
at the National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature while at the
same time owned her own gallery, was the first art dealer to
exhibit Kahlo’s work in Mexico City.
K. H. & N. T.
THE FEMALE MUSE: CLASS, GENDER, RACE 85
 8 9
MAN RAY
b. 1890, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
d. 1976, Paris, France
Noire et blanche (Black and White), 1926 (printed 2007)
gelatin silver print
11 1⁄8 x 15 1⁄4 in. (28.3 x 38.7 cm)
Museum purchase through the Beaux Arts Endowment Fund, 2007.32
© 2013 Man Ray Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY / ADAGP, Paris
In this canonical surrealist photograph by the U.S. artist Man
Ray, Kiki of Montparnasse, who was a well-known Parisian
model, as well as Man Ray’s lover, holds an African mask. The
image was first published in the May 1926 issue of Vogue
magazine. By juxtaposing Kiki’s face with that of the African
mask, Man Ray alludes to the concept of primitivism as a
modernist theme. The woman’s face shows a certain level of
sophistication, which is visible through her makeup, her very
thin eyebrows, as well as her neatly coiffed hair. Here, the
African mask is elevated to the same level of sophistication
as the woman, given that it is positioned on the same visual
plane as her head, and yet the mask (in its vertical position)
ostensibly serves as a surrogate human subject, while Kiki’s
face is relegated to the role of artistic object.
In terms of hierarchy, this trope may suggest that the African
mask is privileged above the European figure, and yet Kiki
is holding the mask, perhaps an allusion to the European/
colonialist control of the primitive. The viewer is left to
question whether or not she (Kiki) is attempting to hide
behind the mask – perhaps as a social commentary on race –
or whether this dichotomy is meant to highlight the belief that
“primitive” non-European bodies were seen as the new form
of beauty in early twentieth-century art.
A. M. & N. T.
86 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
JOSÉ MIJARES
b. 1921, Havana, Cuba
d. 2004, Coral Gables, Florida
Untitled, ca. 1945
oil on wood
9 1⁄2 x 7 3⁄8 in. (24.1 x 18.7 cm)
Gift of Martha Frayde Barraqué Collection of Hispanic Art and Culture,
2007.9.2
Although he was initially trained as an academic oil painter at
the Academy of San Alejandro in Havana in the late 1930s, the
Cuban modern artist José Mijares later worked in various styles
and media throughout his artistic career. This brilliantly colored
composition is a prime example of Mijares’ more figurative
paintings of the 1940s and 1950s, which often took female
portraits as their subject. This untitled work is further indicative
of his preference for using strong lines to create form, and – as
was the case with many of his Cuban contemporaries working
in the 1940s – presents the viewer with a mixture of stylistic
elements, ranging from constructivism, surrealism, and cubism.
Considered an important figure in the Cuban avant-garde
movement, Mijares blended traditional colonial iconographies
with modernist elements. Most striking about the present
painting is Mijares’ use of intense blues and greens, which are
reminiscent of the various stained glass windows that dominate
Cuba’s colonial architecture. As in many of his pieces, Mijares
incorporates the Cuban landscape – in this instance, a Havana
street scene – as the setting for his female muse.
N. V. D. & N. T.
THE FEMALE MUSE: CLASS, GENDER, RACE 87
 10
RAFAEL SORIANO
b. 1920, Cidra, Matanzas, Cuba
Lives and works in Miami, Florida
Mujer (Woman), 1941
oil on canvas
9 3⁄4 x 7 3⁄4 in. (24.8 x 19.7 cm)
Donation from the Cuban Museum of the Americas, Bequest of the Rafael
Casalins Estate, 99.0009.025
© 1941 Rafael Soriano
This early painting by the Cuban-born U.S. artist Rafael Soriano
was finished while he was still a student at the Academy of
San Alejandro in Havana, Cuba. Soriano is part of the third
generation of Cuban modernists, and later became affiliated
with geometric abstraction and the concrete art movement.
Mujer represents Soriano’s exploration of figuration alongside
geometric abstraction, as seen through his use of basic geometric
shapes, such as the circle, to represent the woman’s face.
Soriano’s work is also known for its use of Oneiric Luminism, a
term coined by Ricardo Pau-Llosa to describe the use of “light
as a symbol” and a “vehicle for tropological expression” in
Soriano’s paintings.99 In this work, the viewer can observe
the visual tension that exists between light and dark on
the subject’s visage. Although Soriano’s style is generally
believed to break with regional or folkloric Cuban themes, the
iconography and style of Mujer is seemingly in dialogue with
Victor Manuel’s portraits of tropical “gypsies,” as represented
in this exhibition by Manuel’s 1955 ink drawing of a young
woman (cat. no. 11). Soriano had met Manuel during his
studies in Havana, and was purportedly drawn to the older
artist’s style and ideas.
A. M., N. R. & N. T.
88 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
11
VICTOR MANUEL
b. 1897, Havana, Cuba
d. 1969, Havana, Cuba
Untitled, ca. 1955
ink on paper
21 3⁄8 x 16 in. (54.3 x 40.6 cm)
Gift of Martha Frayde Barraqué Collection of Hispanic Art and Culture,
2007.9.42
This drawing, created by the Cuban modernist Victor Manuel,
blends European and Latin American avant-gardist elements
into a single work. Manuel’s subject is depicted in lush
tropical vegetation, drawing an allusion to the verdant Cuban
landscape. The central figure closely resembles Manuel’s most
popular work La gitana tropical (The Tropical Gypsy, 1929) in
its style, composition, and subject matter. The composition – a
portrait of an anonymous female sitter – is equally reminiscent
of European portraiture; yet Manuel’s “gypsy” girl offers a
more modernized take on historical portraits like Leonardo
da Vinci’s Mona Lisa (ca. 1503-1506). In Manuel’s drawing,
as in the Mona Lisa, the subject’s penetrative stare reinforces
her presence within the composition, while simultaneously
acknowledging her viewer’s gaze. Interestingly, this particular
figure type is often referred to as “la Giaconda americana,” or
the “American Mona Lisa.”
G. S. C. & N. T.
THE FEMALE MUSE: CLASS, GENDER, RACE 89
 12
RENÉ PORTOCARRERO
b. 1912, El Cerro, Havana, Cuba
d. 1985, Havana, Cuba
Untitled, 1963
ink on paper
22 3⁄8 x 14 in. (56.8 x 35.6 cm)
Gift of Martha Frayde Barraqué Collection of Hispanic Art and Culture,
2007.9.15
Unlike most of his contemporaries, the Cuban artist René
Portocarrero remained in his native country following the Cuban
Revolution of 1959. Although Portocarrero initially trained at the
Academy of San Alejandro in the late 1920s, he soon abandoned
his formal education in order to pursue a career outside the
traditions of the institution. Accordingly, Portocarrero, along
with Wifredo Lam and Amelia Peláez, is considered a key
figure in the development of the Cuban vanguardia. Most of
Portocarrero’s work primarily deals with Cuba, focusing on the
native landscape, culture, and people.
The whimsical nature of this untitled drawing – which depicts
a female sitter with an elongated neck, wearing a headdress
of leafy foliage – is characteristic of the artist’s method of
portraying his subjects in a theatrical, stylized manner. In terms
of symbolism, the present drawing thus subsists a fantastical
representation of a Cuban woman, as well as a metaphorical
representation of Cuba’s tropical landscape and vibrant culture.
N. V. D. & N. T.
90 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
13
AMELIA PELÁEZ
b. 1897, Yaguajay, Cuba
d. 1968, Havana, Cuba
Untitled, 1963
gouache on cardstock
22 3⁄4 x 14 1⁄8 in. (57.8 x 35.9 cm)
Gift of Martha Frayde Barraqué Collection of Hispanic Art and Culture,
2007.9.7
© 1963 Amelia Peláez. Courtesy of the Amelia Peláez Foundation.
Having entered the Academy of San Alejandro in Havana in
1916 as a rather non-traditional student (she was 20 at the
time), Amelia Peláez eventually emerged as one of Cuba’s
most significant artists of the early twentieth century. In 1927,
Peláez left Cuba to study painting in Paris, where she became
acquainted with cubism and the works of Pablo Picasso, whose
heavily outlined, flat organic shapes she greatly admired. When
Peláez returned to Cuba in 1934, her style had matured and her
signature trait of placing thick black outlines around her cubistic
figures distinguished her paintings from those being produced
by other Cuban avant-garde artists working in the 1930s (see,
for example, Eduardo Abela’s Mujer; cat. no. 2).
The use of her signature black outlines can be seen in this late
untitled painting, executed just five years before her death
in 1968. In terms of iconography, she dedicated most of her
oeuvre to modernist representations of iron balconies, gates,
and stained glass windows that she observed in colonial and
bourgeois Cuban architecture. This particular piece presumably
features a woman in a long dress seated on a highly ornate
armchair that has been placed on a skewed red carpet (note
the contrasting use of aerial perspective), or which alternatively
stands before a vertical red door or stained-glass window.
A. S. & N. T.
THE FEMALE MUSE: CLASS, GENDER, RACE 91
 14
WIFREDO LAM
b. 1902, Sagua la Grande, Cuba
d. 1982, Paris, France
Untitled, 1950
watercolor on paper
9 5⁄8 x 11 3⁄8 in. (24.4 x 28.9 cm)
Gift of Martha Frayde Barraqué Collection
of Hispanic Art and Culture, 2007.9.3
© 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
Wifredo Lam’s oeuvre is often understood as a combination
of disparate, artistic elements drawn from European, African,
Afro-Cuban, and American cultures. Some of his work can be
categorized as surrealist; and at times, can be seen to intertwine
cubist elements with surrealist subject matter. Lam spent the
majority of his artistic career in Europe, studying in the 1930s
alongside Pablo Picasso, and befriending Parisian Surrealists,
such as André Breton. Between 1940 and 1941, Lam provided
illustrations for Breton’s surrealist poem Fata Morgana, which
presented readers with Lam’s popular motif of the femme cheval
(or “horse-headed woman”) for the first time.
Following his return to Cuba in 1941, Lam produced his best-
known work, a painting titled La jungla (The Jungle, 1943),
which presents the viewer with a densely-populated tropical
scene, replete with hybrid figures that recall iconographies
found in Afro-Cuban or Oceanic sculptural works. Elements
from La jungla can be seen in a number of Lam’s paintings from
the 1940s and 1950s, including this small watercolor, which
quizzically depicts a “deflated” female body draped in the mouth
of a monstrous creature. Alternatively, features associated with
the femme cheval can be seen in Lam’s 1943 untitled drawing
included in this exhibition (cat. no. 6).
F. Y. & N. T.
92 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
15
ROBERTO DIAGO
b. 1920, Havana, Cuba
d. 1955, Madrid, Spain
Untitled, 1947
ink, watercolor and colored pencil on paper
13 1⁄2 x 10 1⁄8 in. (34.3 x 25.7 cm)
Donation from the Cuban Museum of the Americas,
Bequest of the Rafael Casalins Estate, 99.0009.010
© 1947 Roberto Diago
Roberto Juan Diago was an Afro-Cuban artist who, like many
Cuban painters of the early twentieth century, received his
formal training at Havana’s Academy of San Alejandro. By the
late 1930s, Diago had become a prominent member of the
Free Studio of Painting and Sculpture, and is often credited with
revitalizing engraving into the Cuban art scene. According to art
historian Sara Cooper, Diago’s oeuvre can be seen to illustrate
“obvious pride in his Blackness,” yet as an artist, he tended to
emphasize “race-based controversy” in his native Cuba.100
This idea resonates in Diago’s untitled watercolor of 1947. The
stark contrast between white and black/positive and negative
space in the image recalls the iconography of a silhouette,
which in turn, ostensibly symbolizes the tension Diago may
have observed between white and black races in Cuba. What
is more, the central figure appears to have transformed into
an anthropomorphized Santería figurine that is strained, yet
sonorously elegant in its arabesque pose. Jarring spikes – scissor-
like in appearance – surround the figure’s distorted body, yet
there is nevertheless a morphed sense of unity in Diago’s work.
A. J. M. & N. T.
THE FEMALE MUSE: CLASS, GENDER, RACE 93
 16
a | GUILLERMO WIEDEMANN
b. 1905, Munich, Germany
Lived and worked in Bogotá, Colombia
d. 1969, Key Biscayne, Florida
Untitled (Figure at Carnival), 1948
watercolor on paper
26 1⁄4 x 30 in. (66.7 x 76.2 cm)
Bequest of Cristina Wiedemann,
91.0476.42
b | ROGIER VAN DER WEYDEN
b. 1399/1400, Tournai, Belgium
d. 1464, Brussels, Belgium
Portrait of a Lady, ca. 1460
oil on panel
13 3⁄8 x 10 1⁄16 in. (34 x 25.5 cm)
Courtesy National Gallery of Art,
Washington, Andrew W. Mellon
Collection, 1937.1.44

In viewing Guillermo Wiedemann’s Untitled (Figure at Carnival),
one notices that the artist constructs an expressionistic portrait
of an Afro-Colombian woman dressed in a brightly colored
Carnival costume. The figure’s long, thin body appears slightly
disproportionate, particularly the hands and forearms. Her small,
downcast eyes, large nose, red lips, and unrealistic bluish-grey
skin tone give the sitter an almost caricature-like quality.
In terms of style and iconography, the piece is seemingly a
modern interpretation of Old Master portrait types, such as
Rogier van der Weyden’s Portrait of a Lady (ca. 1460). Unlike van der Weyden’s Renaissance
panel painting – which idealized the female form, while calling attention to her piety, via her
downcast gaze – Wiedemann’s watercolor piece highlights the anti-classical, non-European
black body. Given his training at the Akademie der Kunst in Munich, Germany in the 1920s,
one is left to wonder whether or not Wiedemann is deliberately drawing a visual allusion to
Weyden’s fifteenth-century exploration of ideal female beauty. Having immigrated to Colombia
in 1939, it is likely that this “studio” portrait was drawn from first-hand observation of a black
Colombian woman attending the festivities of the 1948 carnival season.
Y. M. & N. T.

94 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES THE FEMALE MUSE: CLASS, GENDER, RACE 95
 17
GUILLERMO WIEDEMANN
b. 1905, Munich, Germany
Lived and worked in Bogotá, Colombia
d. 1969, Key Biscayne, Florida
Untitled (Portrait of a Woman), 1961
ink on paper
22 1⁄2 x 17 7⁄8 in. (57.2 x 45.4 cm)
Bequest of Cristina Wiedemann, 91.0476.36
The German-born Colombian artist Guillermo Wiedemann
executed this ink drawing of a female torso in a manner that
recalls the visual language of cubism and German expressionism.
The artist was reportedly mesmerized by the surroundings of his
newly adopted country, and was particularly intrigued by the
customs of the indigenous Colombian population. The woman
is depicted carrying a basket on her head, while her nude left
breast is exposed. The use of ink allows the artist to explore
delicate lines and traces, though there is no definitive outline
to the figure, which presents a hurried, yet expressive style to
the piece.
S. F. & N. T.
96 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
18
GUILLERMO WIEDEMANN
b. 1905, Munich, Germany
Lived and worked in Bogotá, Colombia
d. 1969, Key Biscayne, Florida
Untitled (Surreal Woman), 1960s
watercolor on paper
25 1⁄2 x 22 1⁄8 in. (64.8 x 56.2 cm)
Bequest of Cristina Wiedemann, 91.0476.26
During his early studies at the Akademie der Kunst in Munich,
Guillermo Wiedemann trained under the well-known Bavarian
portraitist Hugo von Habermann, whose genre of painting left a
lasting impression on Wiedemann. Following his formal training,
he moved to Berlin in 1936, and, like other modern artists
working in Germany during this period, fell victim to National
Socialism’s persecution of so-called “degenerate art.” In 1939
he immigrated to South America, arriving first in Buenaventura,
Colombia, and later Bogotá. He immediately began painting,
drawing inspiration from the tropical environment and
exhibiting a strong preference for Afro-Colombian themes. He
was particularly intrigued by the native Colombian inhabitants
and subsequently painted this work in a cubist/surrealist style,
filling the heavily outlined figure with bold colors.
D. D. & N. T.
THE FEMALE MUSE: CLASS, GENDER, RACE 97
 19
MANUEL ÁLVAREZ BRAVO
b. 1902, Mexico City, Mexico
d. 2002, Mexico City, Mexico
Obrero en huelga, asesinado (Striking Worker, Assassinated), 1934 (printed 1974)
gelatin silver print
7 1⁄2 x 9 5⁄8 in. (19.1 x 24.4 cm)
Gift of The American Foundation for the Arts, 84.0190.13
© Colette Urbajtel/Archivo Manuel Álvarez Bravo, SC

Manuel Álvarez Bravo, who was born in Mexico City in 1902,

came from a family of painters and photographers, as both
his father and grandfather were artists. This notwithstanding,
he initially studied accounting and worked in the Mexican
Treasury Department until 1918, when he formally entered
the Academy of San Carlos to study art. He did not, however,
take photography classes at the Academy, which means he
was largely self-taught in this particular medium. He was well
acquainted with several artists, collectors, and connoisseurs
throughout his lifetime, including André Breton, Diego Rivera,

MEXICAN MURALISM AND ITS LEGACY Frida Kahlo, Tina Modotti, Lola Álvarez Bravo, Henri Cartier-
Bresson, and Edward Weston, who encouraged Álvarez
Bravo in the 1920s to continue to explore photography as
Twentieth-century modern art in Mexico was largely, though not uniformly, a response to the Mexican Revolution, which gripped the country an artistic career.
between 1910 and 1920. In 1921, the government began to fund public art projects – namely murals – as a means of building a strong sense
of nationalism among the people by reinforcing the importance of Mexican and Mesoamerican identity and cultural history through art. Populist The present work, easily one of Álvarez Bravo’s most canonical
artists working in post-revolution era Mexico, such as José Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, and David Alfaro Siqueiros, soon became known as photographs, was shot during a trip to Tehuantepec,
“the big three” painters within the Mexican mural movement, a widespread, though loosely-defined art movement that was strongest from Mexico, where a worker was killed during a protest. In many
the 1920s through the 1950s. ways, this image brings material form to the social interests
explored by artists working in post-revolution Mexico,
Other Mexican artists such as José Luis Cuevas and Rufino Tamayo principally rejected the nationalistic overtones and the social realist style of including the Mexican muralists. Within the pages of this
Mexican muralism. Together, Cuevas’ and Tamayo’s respective works offer a “counterpoint” to the dominance of muralism within the history of catalogue, Heather Diack provides further analysis of this
Mexican modernism. Unlike Cuevas and Tamayo, however, U.S. artists Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence, and Ben Shahn (who assisted Rivera in image in her essay “Body of Evidence: The Modernisms of
New York during the 1930s) each separately expressed their interest in Mexican muralism, and admired the possibility for social reform through Manuel Álvarez Bravo.”
this form of art. F. V. & N. T.

98 MEXICAN MURALISM AND ITS LEGACY 99

 20 21
JOSÉ CLEMENTE OROZCO DIEGO RIVERA
b. 1883, Ciudad Guzmán, Jalisco, Mexico b. 1886, Guanajuato, Mexico
d. 1949, Mexico City, Mexico d. 1957, Mexico City, Mexico
a | Untitled, ca. 1945 b | Prometheus (Central Panel), 1930 Untitled, 1940s
etching fresco mural ink on paper
11 1⁄8 x 16 in. (28.3 x 40.6 cm) 20 x 28 ½ ft. (7 x 8.7 m) 5 x 7 5⁄8 in. (12.7 x 19.4 cm)
Gift of Martha Frayde Barraqué Frary Hall Gift of Kenneth and Helyne Treister, 94.0037.02
Collection of Hispanic Art and Pomona College, © 2013 Banco de México Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico,
Culture, 2007.9.23 Claremont, California D.F. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
© 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS), © 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS),
New York / SOMAAP, Mexico City New York / SOMAAP, Mexico City
This untitled drawing, presumably a preparatory sketch for a
larger painting, depicts an industrial or agricultural building,
This highly expressive etching by the social realist Mexican
perhaps a factory, mill or barn, set within a bucolic landscape.
artist José Clemente Orozco, is based on his earlier mural
In this work, the Mexican artist Diego Rivera contrasts the
Prometheus (1930) at Pomona College. According to ancient
trunks of the trees with the tall structure of the factory’s
Greek mythology, Prometheus was a Titan who was eternally
chimney, a reminder of Mexico’s industrial advancements
punished for stealing fire from the gods to give to mankind.
in the early twentieth century. The impact of mankind is
In the early twentieth century, he became a heroic symbol of
therefore juxtaposed with a natural, peaceful environment.
the communist and socialist movements. This work reflects
Orozco’s classical training at the Academy of San Carlos Rivera’s European artistic education is evident in the
in Mexico City, both in its academic subject matter and geometric, almost cubist structure of the drawing, and
its European artistic conventions. The aggressive lines and seemingly recalls images of pollard trees painted by Vincent
a strong tonal contrasts, both signature traits of Orozco’s style, van Gogh in the late nineteenth century. One wonders,
translate well into the medium of etching. however, if these trees are instead meant to represent native
H. A. & N. T. Mexican cacti. According to Dawn Ades, it is nevertheless
clear that Rivera celebrated rural Mexico as “vital and
picturesque rather than backward and poverty-stricken.”101

H. A. & N. T.

100 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES MEXICAN MURALISM AND ITS LEGACY 101
 22
BEN SHAHN
b. 1898, Kaunas, Lithuania
d. 1969, New York, New York
Monroe Wheeler, 1958
ink on paper
15 7⁄8 x 12 in. (40.3 x 30.5 cm)
Museum purchase, 65.027.000
Art © Estate of Ben Shahn/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
Ben Shahn was a Lithuanian-born U.S. artist who was best
known for his social realist artworks. Embracing the style of
U.S. social realism, Shahn often depicted important social
themes and figures of the period. In New York in the 1930s,
Shahn was affiliated with such artists as Walker Evans,
Dorothea Lange, and Diego Rivera, who Shahn assisted in
1933 with his infamous Rockefeller Center mural Man at the
Crossroads (1932-1934).
In this image, Shahn represents the art publisher Monroe
Wheeler who, starting in 1935, was an integral (and
influential) figure at the Museum of Modern Art in New
York. In this portrait of Wheeler, the sitter appears to be
pensive and deep in thought. His expressive facial features,
with his crinkled forehead, ostensibly reinforce his persona
as a prominent intellectual figure in the art world.
S. F. & N. T.
102 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
23
DAVID ALFARO SIQUEIROS
b. 1896, Chihuahua, Mexico
d. 1974, Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico
Jesus from The Mexican Suite, 1968
lithograph
21 1⁄4 x 15 3⁄4 in. (54 x 40 cm)
Gift of Mrs. Benjamin Kresberg, 78.024.016
© 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / SOMAAP, Mexico City
This piece comes from a series of lithographs created in
the 1960s by the well-known Mexican artist David Alfaro
Siqueiros. Here, the artist depicts an emotional portrayal of
the suffering Christ, perhaps reflecting the spiritual ideals
conveyed in his Catholic upbringing. The dripping ink in the
lithograph recalls blood and tears pouring down Christ’s face,
a human expression of his pain and sorrow, while the dark
contours of the body serve to further emphasize the intensity
of his anguish. The angular, geometric features of Christ’s face
and closed eyes appear to be inspired by “primitive” masks,
perhaps illustrating a link between Spanish Catholicism and
indigenous (pre-Columbian) Mexican motifs.
H. A. & N. T.
MEXICAN MURALISM AND ITS LEGACY 103
 24
CARLOS MÉRIDA
b. 1891, Guatemala City, Guatemala
d. 1984, Mexico City, Mexico
Abstract with Three Figures, 1961
oil, sand and pencil on wood
28 3⁄8 x 35 in. (72.1 x 88.9 cm)
Gift of ExxonMobil Corporation, 2006.28.1
Carlos Mérida, a Guatemalan artist of Mayan-Quiché descent,
is best remembered as a muralist and printmaker. In 1912,
he traveled to Europe to study painting and was acquainted
with individuals like Pablo Picasso and Amedeo Modigliani. He
returned to Guatemala in 1914, but settled in Mexico in 1919,
where he became active in the Mexican mural movement.
Throughout the 1920s, Mérida worked alongside Diego
Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros
on a number of government-sponsored projects. Like most
of the Mexican muralists, Mérida’s early work was politically
oriented and executed in a figurative, social realist style. After
1927, when Mérida took a second trip to Europe, his art
became less representational and eventually developed into
his characteristic abstract style of geometric forms, which are
present in Abstract with Three Figures.
In this work, Mérida blended sand into his oil paint, perhaps
as a nod to European primitivism – as this practice is similar
to Pablo Picasso’s use of sand in paintings from the 1930s, as
well as Jean Dubuffet’s combination of materials in his art brut
works – or as reference to organic materials utilized by Mérida’s
pre-Columbian/Mayan ancestors. Mérida equally draws upon
the principles of the cubist grid, which are emphasized by the
deconstructed geometric forms that visually synthesize into
three humanoid figures within the composition.
F. V. & N. T.
104 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
25
ROMARE BEARDEN
b. 1914, Charlotte, North Carolina
d. 1988, New York, New York
The Family from An American Portrait,
1776-1976: Part 1 Your Huddled Masses, 1976
photo-etching and aquatint
19 3⁄8 x 26 in. (49.2 x 66 cm)
Gift of Kenneth and Helyne Treister, 94.0037.06.07
Art © Romare Bearden Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
The African-American artist Romare Bearden is perhaps best
known for his collage works of the 1960s. Having studied
at the Art Students League in New York in the late 1930s
under the German expatriate artist George Grosz, Bearden
also became interested in the Mexican muralists, particularly
Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco, whose social
realist style he admired for its exploration of race and class.
Following a period of abstraction in the 1950s, Bearden
turned to the medium of collage in the 1960s during the
height of the civil rights movement in the United States, and
thus created a body of work that almost uniformly promotes
a positivistic view of African American progress.
In The Family, Bearden offers a bold, brightly colored
portrait of a black American family preparing a meal. Their
style of dress indicates that they are probably Southern
sharecroppers. The image thus tells a story of racial and
artistic gazes: in 1776 they were gazed upon as inferior
individuals, but in 1976, they dare to gaze back at their
(white) viewers, presumably as an act of empowerment.
Y. M. & N. T.
MEXICAN MURALISM AND ITS LEGACY 105
 26 27
JACOB LAWRENCE RUFINO TAMAYO
b. 1917, Atlantic City, New Jersey b. 1899, Oaxaca de Juárez, Mexico
d. 2000, Seattle, Washington d. 1991, Mexico City, Mexico
Confrontation at the Bridge from An American Portrait, Dos cabezas from Las Mujeres Portfolio (Two Heads from
1776-1976: Part 2 Not Songs of Loyalty Alone, 1975 The Women Portfolio), 1969
screen print lithograph
19 3⁄8 x 25 7⁄8 in. (49.2 x 65.7 cm) 20 7⁄8 x 23 3⁄8 in. (53 x 59.4 cm)
Gift of Kenneth and Helyne Treister, 94.0037.07.05 Gift of Kenneth and Helyne Treister, 93.0035.37
© 2013 The Jacob and Gwendolyn Lawrence Foundation, Art © Tamayo Heirs/Mexico/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
Seattle/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
The Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo is often associated with the
Jacob Lawrence was an African-American artist whose work
Mexican mural movement of the 1920s and 1930s, though
often dealt with the history of black emigrants in the United
unlike fellow artists Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and
States during the first half of the twentieth century. He is
David Alfaro Siqueiros – who were interested in forging a new
perhaps best known for his Migration series, a collection
Mexican identity through art and political activism – Tamayo
of sixty paintings created between 1940 and 1942 that
contrastingly explored the balance between pre-Columbian
depict the African-American “Great Migration” from the
and European-inspired iconographies. Strongly stirred by
southern United States to the North. Having described
prehistoric artifacts, his paintings are generally devoid of
his personal style as Dynamic Cubism, Lawrence sought
the pro-revolutionary stance adopted by the other Mexican
to convey emotion through his use of rich colors, moving
muralists. As a result of his “outsider” status, Tamayo left
iconographies, and bold compositions. His early interest in
Mexico for New York City in 1926. In Tamayo’s Dos cabezas,
the social realism of the Mexican muralists, including works
the artist emulates prehistoric painting and sculpture with
by Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco, which he saw
the use of simplified, geometric figuration. This work comes
in New York in the 1930s, is equally evident in this image
from a series titled Las mujeres, in which Tamayo explores
celebrating social activism. Confrontation at the Bridge – an
the female Mexican identity, blending notions of the Nahua
image that visually resembles work from the Migration series
people with cubistic, or even surrealist, formulations of the
– depicts a group of civil rights activists who marched from
female body.
Selma, Alabama to Montgomery in 1965. Here, Lawrence’s
use of color is able to evoke feelings of unsettlement and N. R. & N. T.
danger, or even fear of what lies ahead.

F. Y. & N. T.

106 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES MEXICAN MURALISM AND ITS LEGACY 107
 28 29
ARNOLD NEWMAN JOSÉ LUIS CUEVAS
b. 1918, New York, New York b. 1934, Mexico City, Mexico
d. 2006, New York, New York
Mujer (Woman), 1962
Rufino Tamayo, New York City, 1949 lithograph
gelatin silver print 21 7⁄8 x 16 in. (55.6 x 40.6 cm)
7 3⁄8 x 9 1⁄4 in. (18.7 x 23.5 cm) Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Allan A. Kaplan, 73.026.006
Gift of the Estate of the Artist, 2007.31.7 © 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / SOMAAP, Mexico City
© Estate of Arnold Newman
Largely active in Mexico City in the 1950s and 1960s, José
U.S. photographer Arnold Newman was considered the
Luis Cuevas was a leading member of the Generación de
father of environmental portraiture, wherein the subject
la Ruptura (Rupture Generation) of Mexican painters who
is photographed in a setting that reveals something about
sought to distance their work from the politically charged
the sitter’s persona or profession. In this portrait, Newman
social realism of the previous generation of Mexican
depicts the Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo seated on a wooden
muralists. In Cuevas’ Mujer, the artist depicts what appears
bench, with his arms crossed and a noticeable scowl on his
to be a frightened woman. The subject’s face shows signs
face as he stares into the camera lens, and thus directly at
of fear, confusion, and anguish: themes and feelings that
the viewer. During the 1940s, Tamayo was an instructor at
Cuevas is known for depicting, and alluding to, in his work.
The Dalton School in New York and taught art to various
The fact that her arms are lifted in the air above her head
young rising artists, including Helen Frankenthaler. Given
likewise seems to suggest that she is caught in a moment
Tamayo’s pose in Newman’s photograph, one wonders
of surrender. Perhaps she is conceding to chaos, mental
if we are viewing the authoritative teacher, the political
turmoil, or to the viewer. Cuevas’ use of bold outlining adds
activist, the Mexican modernist, or a combination of these
to the emotionally charged state of the woman.
personas. Tamayo, who left Mexico for New York in 1926
due to his anti-revolutionary views, remained in New York A. M. & N. T.
until 1949. As such, Newman captured this image during
the artist’s final year in New York, before Tamayo and his
wife Olga left for Paris.

Y. M. & N. T.

108 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES MEXICAN MURALISM AND ITS LEGACY 109
 30
ADOLPH GOTTLIEB
b. 1903, New York, New York
d. 1974, New York, New York
New York Night Scene, 1947
oil and sand on fiberboard
17 3⁄8 x 13 3⁄8 in. (44.1 x 34 cm)
Museum purchase through funds from Friends of Contemporary Art, 50.007.000
Art © The Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

Although Adolph Gottlieb is largely remembered as a U.S.

Abstract Expressionist affiliated with the New York School, he

ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM AND ITS LEGACY: was initially part of an earlier modern art group called “The
Ten” (also known as The Whitney Dissenters), who, in the mid

A PAN AMERICAN LANGUAGE? to late 1930s, exhibited their “non-literal” paintings in New
York and Paris. During his early training in the 1920s, Gottlieb
studied at such places as the Art Students League, Parsons
It is commonly taught that a shift in power occurred at the close of World War II that displaced Paris as the center of the modern art School of Design, and Cooper Union – all in New York – as
world, transferring this control instead to New York City. This paradigm shift was consequently seen to solidify the nascent style of abstract well as at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris.
expressionism as the first significant “American” art movement to gain international acclaim. Accordingly, the historiography of the New York
School of Abstract Expressionism would have us believe that this style was chiefly born in the United States, and then transferred, disseminated, While his works from the 1930s were largely surrealist
and imitated elsewhere. in terms of iconography and content, paintings from the
1940s, such as New York Night Scene, are characterized by
Rather than perpetuating a U.S.-centric narrative of abstract expressionism, this module proposes that this style and its legacy (including color Gottlieb’s interest in pictographs and their symbolic meanings.
field painting) might instead be viewed as a Pan American language that developed through artistic dialogues between Pan American artists, or Gottlieb’s use of pictoforms is akin to Joaquín Torres-García’s
within independent schools that formed in the 1940s through the 1970s in the Americas. It is known, for example, that European expressionism exploration of Constructive Universalism in the 1930s and
and surrealism played a significant role in the New York School’s initial exploration of abstraction, though it is less well known that works by the 1940s, which sought to convey a universal visual language
Chilean artist Roberto Matta had a profound effect on the early development of these New York-based artists. through the use of traditional, indigenous symbols that
pervaded the Americas prior to European expansionism. In
Artists associated with the New York School (such as Adolph Gottlieb, Lee Krasner, Knox Martin, and Robert Motherwell), are therefore
this piece, Gottlieb seemingly captures the hectic nature of
juxtaposed alongside their contemporaries from Latin America, such as Matta, the Cuban Los Once artists, and the Puerto Rican abstractionists
the urban setting, but through archetypal, totem-like signs set
Olga Albizu and Luis Hernández Cruz. Paintings by lesser-known modernists, like Rodolfo Abularach and Silvio Miranda, are joined by other
within a compartmentalized grid composition. In this regard,
abstract works created by artists throughout the Americas.
a dichotomy exists between the title, which implies a modern
Individuals who openly (though sometimes inconspicuously) rejected abstract expressionism and color field painting in favor of neo-figuration cityscape, and the work’s iconography, which may reflect
are equally included in this module as stylistic “counterpoints” to abstraction. Pieces by Fernando Botero, Ernesto Deira, Sacha Tebó, and Gottlieb’s interest in non-Euro-American art.
Enrique Castro-Cid are subsequently offered here as “counter” abstract paintings. R. S. & N. T.

110 ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM AND ITS LEGACY: A PAN AMERICAN LANGUAGE? 111
 31
RAÚL MILIÁN
b. 1914, Havana, Cuba
d. 1984, Havana, Cuba
Untitled, 1960
ink and watercolor on paper
14 3⁄8 x 10 1⁄4 in. (36.5 x 26 cm)
Gift of Martha Frayde Barraqué Collection of
Hispanic Art and Culture, 2007.9.30
Raúl Milián was a self-taught Cuban abstract expressionist
artist who did not begin painting until the age of 40. Although
he was a prominent member of the Cuban modern art group
Los Once (The Eleven) – which tended to favor oil on canvas
painting – Milián preferred to work with mixed media, such
as watercolor, gouache, and ink on paper or cardboard.
His abstract paintings evoke a sense of turmoil, suggesting
that the viewer is encountering a fractured or fragmented
world within his compositions. The use of earth tones and
black heavy outlines in this untitled drawing is seemingly in
dialogue with works by various New York School artists, such
as Adolph Gottlieb, Knox Martin, or Robert Motherwell (see
cat. nos. 30, 37 & 45), yet nonetheless diverges from these
U.S. articulations of abstract expressionism.
A. S. & N. T.
112 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
32
HUGO CONSUEGRA
b. 1929, Havana, Cuba
d. 2003, New York, New York
Entrada en la tierra (Opening in the Earth), 1958
oil on canvas
40 1⁄4 × 40 1⁄8 in. (102.2 × 101.9 cm)
Donation from the Cuban Museum of the Americas,
Bequest of the Rafael Casalins Estate, 99.0009.006
© 1958 Hugo Consuegra
The Cuban-born artist Hugo Consuegra was a multi-faceted
individual who worked as an architect, graphic designer,
painter, and engraver. He was a prominent member of the
modern Cuban art group Los Once (The Eleven), which was
a group of painters known for their abstract expressionist
compositions and subversive, political ideals. Consuegra,
in particular, was known for his rustic, muddy, and dark
tonal ranges. Entrada en la tierra is a prime example of this
signature color palette. Consuegra later became a founding
member of Los Once’s successive group, Los Cinco (The Five),
before immigrating to New York City in 1970.
S. I. & N. T.
ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM AND ITS LEGACY: A PAN AMERICAN LANGUAGE? 113
 33
ANTONIO VIDAL
b. 1928, Havana, Cuba
d. 2013, Havana, Cuba
Sagua de Tánamo, not dated
oil on canvas
28 1⁄8 x 35 1⁄4 in. (71.4 x 89.5 cm)
Donation from the Cuban Museum of the Americas, Bequest of the Rafael
Casalins Estate, 99.0009.005
© Antonio Vidal
Antonio Vidal was a prominent member of the Cuban
abstract expressionist groups Los Once (The Eleven) and
Los Cinco (The Five), as well as a founder of TEG, or Taller
Experimental de Gráfica (Experimental Graphic Studio), in
Havana. Organized in the 1960s, the TEG served as the official
union for Cuban writers and artists. Most likely executed
prior to the formation of the TEG, Sagua de Tánamo, named
after a city in Cuba’s Holguín province, exemplifies common
elements of Vidal’s “adventurous” abstractions such as lively
colors and painterly brushwork. Totem-like figures, such as
the one located on the right side of the composition, appear
quite frequently in Vidal’s work from the 1950s, and can
equally be found in paintings by other Los Cinco artists, such
as Hugo Consuegra (see cat. no. 32), as well as earlier Cuban
modernists, such as Wifredo Lam, or New York Abstract
Expressionists, like Adolph Gottlieb (see cat. nos. 14 & 30).
S. I. & N. T.
114 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
34
HANS HOFMANN
b. 1880, Weissenburg, Bavaria, Germany
d. 1966, New York, New York
Nightfall, 1958
oil on composition board
14 3⁄8 x 17 3⁄8 in. (36.5 x 44.1 cm)
Museum purchase through funds from
Mary Patterson Nats and Evelyn Waggener Jones, 90.0027
© 2013 Renate, Hans & Maria Hofmann Trust/
Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
The German-born U.S. painter Hans Hofmann was a
prominent artist-teacher who played a significant role in
establishing postwar abstract art (namely “pure painting”
and abstract expressionism) in New York from the 1930s
through the 1960s. After immigrating to the United States
in 1932, Hofmann began teaching at the Art Students
League in New York, but left soon thereafter in order to
start his own art school. A number of well-known Abstract
Expressionists and post-painterly abstract painters, including
Helen Frankenthaler, Red Grooms, Lee Krasner (see cat. no.
38), Louise Nevelson, Larry Rivers, and Frank Stella (see cat.
no. 67) all initially studied under Hofmann.
The artist’s signature “push and pull” technique is clearly
visible in Nightfall, which reveals Hofmann’s interest in
impasto, or the building up of thick, noticeable layers of paint
on the surface of the composition board. In terms of abstract
expressionist works included in Pan American Modernism,
Hofmann’s piece compares favorably to canvases by Olga
Albizu and Luis Hernández Cruz (see cat. nos. 35 & 36), as
well as Knox Martin’s untitled work of 1962 (cat. no. 37).
N. T.
ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM AND ITS LEGACY: A PAN AMERICAN LANGUAGE? 115
 35
OLGA ALBIZU
b. 1924, Ponce, Puerto Rico
d. 2005, New York, New York
Crecimiento (Growth), ca. 1960
oil on canvas
50 1⁄8 x 42 in. (127.3 x 106.7 cm)
Gift of Esso Inter-America, Inc., 70.024.025
The Puerto Rican artist Olga Albizu is best known as a color
field abstract expressionist painter, who formally studied at
the University of Puerto Rico before traveling to New York City
in 1948 to complete her post-baccalaureate work at the Art
Students League. After traveling throughout France and Italy in
the late 1940s and early 1950s, she returned to New York, where
she spent the majority of her artistic career. Albizu’s paintings
typically feature harsh brushstrokes using the spatula, which
allowed her to layer multiple colors of paint over monochromatic
backgrounds. Crecimiento features bright yellows and oranges,
which contrast with deep blacks in order to evoke a sense of light
emerging from darkness, or a modernized re-conceptualization
of chiaroscuro effects utilized by Old Master painters to create
volume and form in a painting.
A. S. & N. T.
116 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
36
LUIS HERNÁNDEZ CRUZ
b. 1936, San Juan, Puerto Rico
Subsuelo (Subsoil), 1964
oil and collage on canvas
59 3⁄4 x 69 in. (151.8 x 175.3 cm)
Gift of Esso Inter-America, Inc., 70.024.042
© 1964 Luis Hernández Cruz
Along with Olga Albizu, Luis Hernández Cruz is a prominent
Puerto Rican abstract painter whose career spans five
decades. His paintings from the 1960s are characterized by
elements typical for the Puerto Rican school of abstraction:
bright colors, painterly brushstrokes, and richly textured
surfaces. In Subsuelo, Hernández Cruz divided the canvas
into two registers: the top third of the canvas is largely
occupied by rich black tones, while the lower two thirds of
the composition consists of a myriad of brighter patches of
color. In this regard, the artist may have intended his viewers
to visually read the bottom portion of the painting as the
titular subsoil, leaving the upper register to symbolize a
cross-section of topsoil, or the darkened earth.
A. S. & N. T.
ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM AND ITS LEGACY: A PAN AMERICAN LANGUAGE? 117
 37
KNOX MARTIN
b. 1923, Barranquilla, Colombia
Lives and works in New York, New York
Untitled, 1962
acrylic, enamel, ink, pencil and collage on paper
12 1⁄8 x 9 in. (30.8 x 22.9 cm)
Gift of Rose Fried Gallery, 65.022.000
Art © Knox Martin/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
Born in Barranquilla, Colombia to an American father and
a Colombian mother, Knox Martin emerged as a prominent
abstract expressionist artist affiliated with the New York
School in the 1950s and 1960s. Having moved with his family
to the United States in the 1920s, Martin later studied at
New York’s Art Students League from 1946 until 1950, and
eventually worked alongside other Abstract Expressionists,
such as Franz Kline. Best known for his symbolic and
semiotic representations of natural forms, Martin expresses
this artistic interest in this untitled painting. This seemingly
complex collage offers the viewer a variety of colors and
media through organic shapes and lines.
S. I. & N. T.
118 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
38
LEE KRASNER
b. 1911, New York, New York
d. 1985, New York, New York
Free Space from An American Portrait, 1776-1976:
Part 3 Look Out Beyond and See, 1976
screen print
19 1⁄2 x 26 1⁄8 in. (49.5 x 66.4 cm)
Gift of Kenneth and Helyne Treister, 94.0037.08.04
© 2013 The Pollock-Krasner Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Along with Helen Frankenthaler, Lee Krasner was one of the few
female artists associated with the male-dominated New York School
of Abstract Expressionism in the 1940s and 1950s. Like many of her
male colleagues, she initially trained at the Art Students League,
Cooper Union (through its Women’s Art School) and later at the
National Academy of Design. Krasner specifically studied abstract
expressionist painting with Hans Hofmann (see cat. no. 34), who also
exposed her to cubist works by Pablo Picasso, and fauvist paintings
by Henri Matisse. Under Hofmann’s guidance, Krasner began to
work in an “all-over” style, covering the surfaces of her paintings
with abstract, repetitive designs informed by floral motifs. It was this
“all-over” technique that later inspired her husband, Jackson Pollock,
to abandon cubism and develop his famous “drip” paintings.
Unlike Pollock, who had studied with David Alfaro Siqueiros at
the artist’s Experimental Workshop in New York in 1936, and was
inspired by the Mexican muralists, Krasner remained tied to the “Paris
School of Painting,” which, according to Krasner, was exemplified in
the works of Picasso and Matisse. Like Matisse’s gouaches découpés
(painted paper cut outs, or collages) from the 1950s, Krasner used
a color palette representative of nature: green, blue, and white in
Free Space, which collectively evoke the land, ocean, and sky. The
expressive arabesques repeated throughout the composition give the
work a feeling of rhythm, movement, and dynamism – elements that
characterize Krasner’s unique style.
F. V. & N. T.
ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM AND ITS LEGACY: A PAN AMERICAN LANGUAGE? 119
 39
CARLOS ALFONZO
b. 1950, Havana, Cuba
d. 1991, Miami, Florida
Te pinto mi amor sincero (I Paint You My Most Sincere Love), 1978
gouache on paper
21 3⁄4 x 17 1⁄4 in. (55.2 x 43.8 cm)
Museum purchase, 2000.014
Executed in 1978 by the Cuban-born U.S. artist Carlos
Alfonzo, this work was completed just two years prior to the
artist emigrating from Havana to Miami during the Mariel
boatlift of 1980. Te pinto mi amor sincero thus represents
an emotional – and perhaps even violent – inner monologue
between his sexual orientation and issues surrounding his
political exile, given that Alfonzo was a gay man whose
sexuality had been repressed under Fidel Castro’s communist
regime. A sense of isolation and despair are therefore felt for
his “amor sincero,” his sincere love.
Prior to moving to the United States, Alfonzo studied at
Havana’s Academy of San Alejandro in the early 1970s.
He concealed his homosexuality in Cuba, but lived as an
openly gay man once he settled in Miami, where he resided
until 1991 before dying of AIDS-related complications. His
art, which collectively tended to adopt the language of
abstract expressionism, is typically seen to express his sense
of alienation and despair. A feeling of claustrophobia or
confinement can equally be felt in the consolidated nature
of forms in Te pinto mi amor sincero.
40
RODOLFO ABULARACH
b. 1933, Guatemala City, Guatemala
Untitled, 1964
ink on paper
38 1⁄2 x 28 5⁄8 in. (97.8 x 72.7 cm)
Gift of Esso Inter-America, Inc., 70.024.032
Rodolfo Abularach, a Guatemalan artist of Palestinian
descent, is a painter and printmaker whose works exhibit
an interest in both abstraction and figuration. Recognized as
one of Central America’s most distinguished contemporary
artists, he graduated from the National School of Plastic Arts
in Guatemala City in 1954, and later received a government
grant to travel to New York, which allowed for study at the Art
Students League, among other U.S. institutions. Abularach is
most commonly recognized for his depictions of the human
eye, which he visually references in this particular work on
paper by way of the large floating orb that hovers above
the semblance of rectangular form in the lower register of
the composition. These “pseudo-pictographs,” whether
intentional or not, recall the visual language employed by
such semi-abstract artists as Adolph Gottlieb (cat. no. 30)
and Joaquín Torres-García (cat. nos. 63 & 64).
G. A. & N. T.

F. V. & N. T.

120 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM AND ITS LEGACY: A PAN AMERICAN LANGUAGE? 121
 41
LOLA FERNÁNDEZ
b. 1926, Cartagena, Colombia
Lives and works in San José, Costa Rica
Petróleo 4 a.m. (Petroleum 4 a.m.), 1964
oil on board
57 x 48 1⁄8 in. (144.8 x 122.2 cm)
Gift of Esso Inter-America, Inc., 70.024.018
© 1964 Lola Fernández
At the age of twenty-three, the Colombian-born Costa
Rican artist Lola Fernández became the youngest professor
of fine arts at the National University in Bogotá. She was
also a member of the Grupo Ocho (Group Eight), a group
of artists who introduced post-war, international styles
to the contemporary art scene in Colombia in the 1960s.
In Petróleo 4 a.m., the abstracted forms recall the visual
language of cubism, as well as geometric abstraction, or
geometric non-objectivity, and yet the dark color palette
– which simultaneously creates a somber, but rich picture
plane – is a decidedly unique aspect of Fernández’s structured
composition.
G. A. & N. T.
122 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
42
VICENTE FORTE
b. 1912, Lanús, Argentina
d. 1980, Lanús, Argentina
Pájaro libre (Free Bird), 1962
oil on canvas
49 1⁄8 x 31 7⁄8 in. (124.8 x 81 cm)
Gift of Ruth and Richard Shack, 87.0076
Born in 1912 in Lanús, Argentina, a suburb of Buenos
Aires, Vicente Forte later attended the Buenos Aires School
of Fine Arts, and upon graduating, became a professor of
drawing in 1935. Along with fellow artists Luis Barragán
and Leopoldo Presas, Forte founded the Grupo Orión (Orion
Group), a leading artistic group that embraced the second
avant-garde movement, which developed in Argentina in
the 1930s. This group sought to free Argentine art from
the dominant academic, post-impressionist, and decorative
trends favored by the Buenos Aires elite until the third decade
of the twentieth century. He is known for his strong-handed
brushstrokes and use of heavy impasto, as seen in Pájaro libre,
where the bird is being freed from the decomposing column
to which it is attached. This motif was meant to symbolize
the avant-garde Argentine artists achieving freedom from
the decaying academic school of thought.
D. D. & N. T.
ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM AND ITS LEGACY: A PAN AMERICAN LANGUAGE? 123
 43
SILVIO MIRANDA
b. 1938, Nicaragua
La Sagrada Familia (The Holy Family), 1964
oil on canvas
17 3⁄8 x 24 in. (44.1 x 61 cm)
Gift of Esso Inter-America, Inc., 70.024.019
In this symbolic and abstract painting, the Nicaraguan artist
Silvio Miranda depicts a modern rendition of a recurring
theme in the history of Christian art – the Holy Family –
or the Virgin Mary, Joseph, and the Christ Child. Unlike
traditional depictions of this motif, Miranda abstracts the
figures of the Holy Family. The red, white, and pink form
in the center of the composition may therefore reference a
crib, or manger, and thus metaphorically represent the Christ
Child. By casting the manger in a tenebristic light, Miranda
may symbolically suggest that Jesus is the light brought into
the darkness of this world.
D. D. & N. T.
124 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
44
MATTA
b. 1911, Santiago, Chile
d. 2002, Civitavecchia, Italy
SM-4, ca. 1975
lithograph
25 x 17 1⁄2 in. (63.5 x 44.5 cm)
Gift of Ann and Dr. Norman Jaffe, 99.0030.45
© 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
Roberto Matta, arguably the most well-known Chilean
surrealist and abstract expressionist artist, played a major
role in the foundation of the New York School, and was
instrumental in promoting an interest in surrealist automatic
drawing throughout the Americas in the 1940s. Like European
Surrealists, Matta was interested in Sigmund Freud’s theories
of psychoanalysis, which in turn, greatly inspired his own
artistic conceptualization of “psychological morphology,” or
the belief that the inner workings of the unconscious mind
could produce meaningful forms in a work of art.
According to Freud, the primary motivator for an individual’s
actions is sex. In Matta’s SM-4, the harsh lines used to
create the abstracted figure(s) seem to provide the viewer
with a sense of tension; one could argue that the image
appears to be emotionally charged, perhaps insinuating a
physical anxiety manifested through a battle of the sexes.
From a purely iconographic perspective, Matta’s forms share
affinities with the numerous Santería-inspired figures that
populate Wifredo Lam’s oeuvre (see cat. no. 14), as well as
the grotesque bodies that occupy paintings by the English
painter Francis Bacon.
K. M. & N. T.
ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM AND ITS LEGACY: A PAN AMERICAN LANGUAGE? 125
 45
ROBERT MOTHERWELL
b. 1915, Aberdeen, Washington
d. 1991, Provincetown, Massachusetts
Untitled, No. 10, 1970
screen print
22 1⁄2 x 17 1⁄4 in. (57.2 x 43.8 cm)
Gift of Mrs. Nicolas Herpin, 79.029.003
Art © Dedalus Foundation, Inc./Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
Robert Motherwell, a prominent member of the New York School of
Abstract Expressionism, is said to have decided to pursue a career in
painting during a 1941 voyage to Mexico with his friend and fellow
artist, Roberto Matta (see cat. no. 44). Matta – whose interest in the
artistic power of the psychic unconscious and automatic drawing had a
profound effect on Motherwell and other New York School artists, such
as Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock – remained an important figure
throughout Motherwell’s artistic career, and particularly during their
time in Mexico.
Within the history of U.S. abstract expressionism, Motherwell is best
known for his series Elegy to the Spanish Republic, which he executed
between 1948 and 1967. According to the artist, the Spanish Civil War
(1936-1939) represented the ultimate social injustice, and works in this
series were thus meant to visually serve as a lamentation of the war, but
also as a forewarning of (modern) society’s potentially destructive destiny.
In his Basque series of 1970, Motherwell similarly utilized form and color
to illicit a feeling of foreboding and unease in his viewers. In Untitled,
No. 10, the large black chevron that dominates the composition can
be seen to either recede from the vibrant green surface in the center of
the work, or alternatively, invade (or swallow up) the tranquility of this
green space. In each of these interpretations of Motherwell’s abstract
composition, expressive forms serve as powerful metaphors for the
hardships endured by the Basque people during the war in Spain. The
work seems to further suggest that no matter how much time separates
the events of the war from the present moment, one can nevertheless
witness the bloody scars that remain as a result of this conflict.
K. M. & N. T.
126 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
46
ERNESTO DEIRA
b. 1928, Buenos Aires, Argentina
d. 1986, Paris, France
En torno al pensamiento (Concerning Thought), 1964
oil on canvas
76 5⁄8 x 63 7⁄8 in. (194.6 x 162.2 cm)
Gift of Esso Inter-America, Inc., 70.024.039
The Argentine artist Ernesto Deira was a founding member of
the group Otra Figuración (Other Figuration), which consisted
of fellow Argentine artists Jorge de la Vega, Rómulo Macció,
and Luis Felipe Noé. Known also as the Nueva Figuración
(New Figuration) painters, this group sought to distance itself
from purely abstract painting by incorporating figurative,
or representational, elements into their works. Deira, who
was almost exclusively preoccupied with the human form,
ironically approached near abstraction in a number of his
compositions that incorporate distorted, expressionistic
figures, as witnessed in En torno al pensamiento.
In terms of technique, Deira applied oil paint to the canvas in
grand, violent gestures, allowing the medium to drip onto,
and then spread throughout, the surface of the canvas.
Deira’s mode of painting recalls processes employed by
U.S. abstract expressionist and color field painters, such as
Helen Frankenthaler’s “soak stain” technique, and Jackson
Pollock’s “drip” paintings, yet ostensibly marries these
techniques, along with semblances of the human body,
in order to arrive at the style of Other Figuration. In this
particular painting, Deira’s subjects are three human figures
who are arguably deep in thought, as implied by the title.
The ambiguity of these subjects seemingly mirrors Deira’s
chaotic artistic process, and may also imply the confusion of
modern thought.
N. R. & N. T.
ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM AND ITS LEGACY: A PAN AMERICAN LANGUAGE? 127
 47
SACHA TEBÓ
b. 1934, Port-au-Prince, Haiti
d. 2004, Santiago, Dominican Republic
Lovers, 1963
pigments and wax on canvas
26 3⁄4 x 30 3⁄8 in. (67.9 x 77.2 cm)
Gift of Richard Levine, 84.0203
© 1963 Sacha Tebó
Sacha Thébaud, more commonly known as Sacha Tebó, was
born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti in 1934. After moving to Canada
with his family in 1945, he enrolled at College Stanislas in
Montreal, where he received his bachelor’s degree in French.
Tebó later pursued a degree in architecture in the mid 1950s
at the University of Miami, and professionally exhibited
his works for the first time during this period. A myriad of
subjects can be found in his abstract and figurative paintings
which include: men and women; flora and fauna from the
sea; spiritual, mystical, mythological, and metaphysical
creatures; natural forms; and metaphorical aspects of the
Caribbean region, such as rhythm, movement, and color. In
this encaustic painting, two lovers – a common theme in the
history of art – are depicted in vibrant blues, reds, and greens
in a style that visually recalls cubism. The use of encaustics, or
pigment-infused wax, adds a tactile quality that mirrors the
couple’s embrace and sense of touch.
N. T.
128 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
48
a | FERNANDO BOTERO
b. 1932, Medellín, Colombia
Lives and works in New York, New York and Paris, France
Las frutas (The Fruits), 1964
oil on canvas
50 x 51 1⁄2 in. (127 x 130.8 cm)
Gift of Esso Inter-America, Inc., 70.024.030
© 1964 Fernando Botero
b | PAUL CÉZANNE
b. 1839, Aix-en-Provence, France
d. 1906, Aix-en-Provence, France
Pommes et biscuits (Apples and Biscuits), ca. 1880
oil on canvas
Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris
Photo Credit: Gianni Dagli Orti / The Art Archive at Art Resource, NY
Painted in New York in 1964 by the well-known Colombian
figurative artist Fernando Botero, Las frutas embodies
Botero’s unique style, which is characterized by the use of
rotund, voluminous or inflated figures, which often take
the form of satirical caricatures. Here, Botero seemingly
parodies the history of Western academic still life painting,
particularly of depicting fruit, and expands this discourse a
by creating enormous, plump, and muddy-colored fruits,
perhaps suggesting that the tropical flora of his native
Colombia are more robust than those typically found in
conventional still life paintings. What is more, the choice
of colors and slightly skewed perspective of the tabletop
appear to cleverly satirize other modernist re-interpretations
of the traditional still life, such as Paul Cézanne’s Pommes
et biscuits.
K. H. & N. T.
ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM AND ITS LEGACY: A PAN AMERICAN LANGUAGE? 129
 49
a | ENRIQUE CASTRO-CID
b. 1937, Santiago, Chile
Lived and worked in Miami, Florida
d. 1992, Santiago, Chile
Desnudo de Ingres (Ingres Nude), 1977
acrylic and pencil on canvas
72 × 120 in. (182.9 × 304.8 cm)
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Melvin Kolbert, 79.021.000A-B

b | JEAN-AUGUSTE-DOMINIQUE INGRES
b. 1780, Montauban, France
d. 1867, Paris, France
La Grande Odalisque, 1814
oil on canvas
b
35 7⁄8 x 63 3⁄4 in. (91 x 162 cm)
Louvre, Paris, France
Photo Credit: Scala / Art Resource, NY

Ingres Nude, a painting by the Chilean artist Enrique Castro-Cid, exhibits an

expressive, nude body that spirals around a monumental canvas. Here, the artist
plays with the geometric transformations of the nude body, manipulating it until
it becomes distorted and stretched. In terms of iconography, the subject matter
of this piece may be looked at as a fetus; however, the adult head and mature
legs seem to suggest the contrary.

From an art historical perspective, Ingres Nude can be said to visually pastiche
figural types from paintings such as La Grande Odalisque (1814), painted by the
well-known nineteenth-century French artist Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres.
In Ingres’ orientalist canvas, the artist intended to celebrate the non-European
female body, yet equally exoticized it through elongated and fleshy features.
Castro-Cid’s “interpretation” of Ingres’ nude contrastingly adopts a non-
naturalistic configuration, and one in which European physiognomies have been
replaced with Amerindian facial features, suggesting that the subject matter is a
hybrid of both cultural and art historical discourses.
a S. F. & N. T.

130 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM AND ITS LEGACY: A PAN AMERICAN LANGUAGE? 131
 50
RODRIGO MOYA
b. 1934, Medellín, Colombia
Lives and works in Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico
La vida no es bella, Región Ixtlera del Norte de México
(Life Isn’t Beautiful, Ixtlera Region, Northern Mexico), 1965
gelatin silver print
19 7⁄8 × 15 7⁄8 in. (50.5 × 40.3 cm)
Museum purchase through funds from Beaux Arts, 2013.7
© 1965 Rodrigo Moya

The Colombian-born Mexican photographer Rodrigo Moya

began working as a documentary photographer nearly a
generation after artists like Manuel Álvarez Bravo popularized
this medium in the 1930s and 1940s in Mexico. Moya’s most
productive period was between 1956 and 1968, during
which time he documented social injustice and political unrest
throughout Latin America, though largely in Mexico, Cuba, and
MODERNIST PHOTOGRAPHY: Venezuela, where he focused on such diversified populations
as peasants, children, revolutionaries, and guerrillas. Moya

PAN AMERICAN EXCHANGES initially studied with the Colombian photographer Guillermo
Angulo, but was equally interested in works executed by U.S.
Depression-era artists who explored social realism through
Given that photography and the camera were inventions of the nineteenth century –the same epoch that gave rise to the modern era – it could photography, including Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange.
be argued that photography is perhaps the most modern of mediums, at least amongst those explored in the current exhibition. And although
Moya’s La vida no es bella portrays a Mexican field worker
photography was not always considered a “high” art form during the nineteenth century, its place within the art historical canon was certainly
from the Ixtlera del Norte region of the country, whose hands
solidified by the twentieth.
have noticeably become swollen, cracked, and callused
This module examines the manner in which pan-American artists utilized the camera to explore modernity by way of the photographic lens, and from years of manual labor. In this particular image, Moya
chooses to focus not on the man’s face, as would typically be
via different genres, such as studio portraiture, documentary photography, social realism, or avant-garde compositions. Prints by Paul Strand and
the case in a portrait photograph, but rather, on the man’s
Edward Weston illustrate the value and importance of travel, as each of these U.S. artists spent time in Mexico, which had a profound effect
hands, which occupy the foreground of the image. In terms
on their individual oeuvres. Weston, in turn, encouraged Manuel Álvarez Bravo to continue to pursue the medium as a fine art form in the late of iconography and subject matter, La vida no es bella creates
1920s. an interesting dialogue with Álvarez Bravo’s La buena fama,
durmiendo (Good Reputation, Sleeping, cat. no. 52), which
Images by Lola Álvarez Bravo, Man Ray, and Arnold Newman are contrastingly included in other modules within the exhibition, as they reinforce
presents the viewer with a very different articulation of the
photography’s desire (and ability) to confront themes explored by other mediums, such as painting, drawing, and printmaking. The final work in
Mexican body in modernist photography.
this section, Carl Andre’s Yucatan, is interestingly not a photograph, but a photocopy – and thus suggests that a commonplace Xerox machine
(an instrument of reproducibility) can be utilized to create a modern photo-image. N. T.

132 MODERNIST PHOTOGRAPHY: PAN AMERICAN EXCHANGES 133

 51
ARNOLD HERMAN CRANE
b. 1932, United States
Lives and works in Chicago, Illinois and Paris, France
Manuel Álvarez Bravo, 1971
gelatin silver print
13 1⁄2 x 9 1⁄8 in. (34.3 x 23.2 cm)
Gift of Frederick S. Grahn, 81.0393
The U.S. artist Arnold Herman Crane initially worked as a trial
lawyer before turning to photography in the 1960s. During
this transitional period, Crane was introduced to one of his
longtime idols, the surrealist photographer Man Ray (see cat.
no. 8). After executing a few portrait photographs of him,
Crane was commissioned to create a book titled The Other
Side of the Camera, which consists of candid images of
influential photographers of the twentieth century.
In this particular image, Crane captures a likeness of the
Mexican photographer Manuel Álvarez Bravo casually seated
in his studio. Álvarez Bravo, who was 69 at the time the
photograph was taken, was arguably Mexico’s most celebrated
modern photographer. Working largely in Mexico City in the
1930s and 1940s, Álvarez Bravo was affiliated with such
fellow artists and photographers as Lola Álvarez Bravo (his
first wife), Wilhelm Kahlo (Frida Kahlo’s father), Tina Modotti,
Edward Weston, Paul Strand, and Henri Cartier-Bresson.
J. T. & N. T.
134 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
52
MANUEL ÁLVAREZ BRAVO
b. 1902, Mexico City, Mexico
d. 2002, Mexico City, Mexico
La buena fama, durmiendo (Good Reputation, Sleeping), 1938 (printed 1974)
gelatin silver print
7 3⁄8 x 9 5⁄8 in. (18.7 x 24.4 cm)
Gift of The American Foundation for the Arts, 84.0190.03
© Colette Urbajtel/Archivo Manuel Álvarez Bravo, SC
There is a famous saying in Mexico: “Hazte fama y échate a
la cama,” which roughly translates to mean: make a good
reputation for yourself and sleep easy. In this image by the
well-known Mexican photographer Manuel Álvarez Bravo,
the artist creates a dialogue between the photograph and
this cultural idiom (as referenced by the title of the piece) by
depicting a nude woman laying on her back, relaxing and
sunbathing on a Mexican serape. Bandages cover her feet
and hips, yet her breasts and pubic region are visible to the
viewer, which collectively add an eroticized, voyeuristic tone
to the photographic print. Here, Álvarez Bravo ostensibly
satirizes the aforementioned Mexican idiom, offering that
the sensual nature of the woman’s unclothed body (which in
turn references the art historical importance given to classical
nudes) should have us believe that this subject does not,
perhaps, possess a good reputation.
F. V. & N. T.
MODERNIST PHOTOGRAPHY: PAN AMERICAN EXCHANGES 135
 53
EDWARD WESTON
b. 1886, Chicago, Illinois
d. 1958, Big Sur, California
Nude Floating, 1939
gelatin silver print
7 1⁄2 x 9 1⁄2 in. (19.1 x 24.1 cm)
Museum purchase through funds from Friends of Art
in honor of Madge Dursum, 2007.29
© 2013 Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents / Artists
Rights Society (ARS), New York
Edward Weston, a pioneer in early twentieth-century American
photography, was affiliated throughout the 1920s and 1930s
with such U.S. artists as Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, and Ansel
Adams, and Mexican artists like Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Diego
Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros.
Between 1923 and 1927, Weston traveled between California
and Mexico with the Italian photographer Tina Modotti, with
whom he was romantically involved. During his stay in Mexico,
Weston photographed individuals and artists, including Rivera,
as well as the native landscape and folk art.
The subject of this photograph is Weston’s third wife, Charis
Wilson. True to his style of depicting nude women throughout
his artistic career, the photograph communicates Weston’s
belief that the body can create sensual, organic forms within
a work of art. Placing Wilson in a pool of water, the theme of
purity is reinforced; the purity of her form and the purity of the
water unite. The water also acts as a visual tool, given that the
depth of the left side of the pool presents an illusion, making
Wilson appear as if she is floating.
G. S. C. & N. T.
136 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
54
PAUL STRAND
b. 1890, New York, New York
d. 1976, Orgeval, France
Man, Tenancingo de Degollado, Mexico from the
Mexican Portfolio, 1933 (printed 1973)
photogravure
6 1⁄2 x 5 in. (16.5 x 12.7 cm)
Gift of Helen Weiss, 81.0552
© Aperture Foundation Inc., Paul Strand Archive
The modernist U.S. photographer and filmmaker Paul Strand was
a key figure in his field, having studied under the documentary
photographer Lewis Hine in the early decades of the twentieth
century. Through Hine, Strand met the renowned photographer
Alfred Stieglitz, who owned and operated the eminent 291
Gallery in New York City. At 291, Stieglitz championed avant-
garde photography as a medium on par with painting, and
equally promoted Strand’s images on the walls of his gallery, as
well as within the pages of his quarterly journal Camera Work.
Having established himself as a serious artist by the 1920s,
Strand eventually co-founded New York’s Photo League, and
helped to promote social reform through photography in the
1930s through 1950s.
Strand was equally associated with Manuel Álvarez Bravo, who he
had befriended during his years in Mexico between 1932 and 1935.
Throughout this period, Strand worked as a cinematographer for
the Mexican government, but also shot images that comprise his
celebrated Mexican Portfolio. In this particular photograph from
the series, Strand offers the viewer a portrait of a man clothed in
the traditional style of dress worn by men in the early twentieth
century in Central Mexico, particularly the south-western region.
The subject’s clothing, stoic pose, and vertical posture provide a
sharp contrast to the horizontal orientation and macabre subject
matter of Álvarez Bravo’s Obrero en huelga, asesinado (Striking
Worker, Assassinated, cat. no. 19), which was photographed at
roughly the same time as Strand’s image.
N. T.
MODERNIST PHOTOGRAPHY: PAN AMERICAN EXCHANGES 137
 55
WALKER EVANS
b. 1903, St. Louis, Missouri
d. 1975, New Haven, Connecticut
A Cypress Swamp, Florida, 1941
gelatin silver print
4 3⁄4 x 3 5⁄8 in. (12.1 x 9.2 cm)
Gift of an Anonymous Donor, 80.0185.03
© Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Best known for his regionalist images of American society, the
U.S. photographer Walker Evans began taking photographs
with little artistic training, but eventually worked for the
federal government’s Farm Security Administration capturing
the widespread effects of the Great Depression. His intent was
to move away from “high art” images, and instead, plainly
capture American life in the 1930s and 1940s. During the
1930s, Evans traveled to Cuba and the southern United States,
photographing local scenes and people. A Cypress Swamp
captures an iconic Florida landscape, while still subsisting as a
strong image in terms of formalism.
G. S. C. & N. T.
138 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
56
FRANK PAULIN
b. 1926, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Lives and works in New York, New York
Revolutionary, Cuba, 1959
gelatin silver print
10 3⁄4 x 13 1⁄2 in. (27.3 x 34.3 cm)
Gift of Bruce Silverstein, 2009.24.22
© 1959 Frank Paulin
The U.S. photographer Frank Paulin worked primarily as a
street photographer, becoming well known for his ability to
capture poignant, fleeting moments with his photographic
lens. Having grown up in Pittsburgh, New York, and Chicago,
it was the latter city that shaped Paulin as an artist. During
the 1940s, he began studying art and photography at the
Whitaker-Christiansen Studio, the Chicago Academy of Fine
Arts, the Art Institute of Chicago, and later, the Chicago
Institute of Design.
In late 1959/early 1960, Paulin traveled to Havana to
document the social conditions in post-revolution Cuba.
He had a brief, though unplanned, encounter with Fidel
Castro during this initial trip to the island. The fortress of
the Castillo de los Tres Reyes Magos del Morro, or Morro
Castle, located at the entrance to Havana Harbor, can be
seen in the background of Paulin’s image. The majority of the
photographic plane, however, is dominated by the profile of
a Cuban revolutionary wearing a cowboy hat.
N. T.
MODERNIST PHOTOGRAPHY: PAN AMERICAN EXCHANGES 139
 57
ALBERT COYA
b. 1920, Havana, Cuba
d. 1993, Miami, Florida
Child Receiving Inoculation, 1965
gelatin silver print
9 1⁄4 x 11 3⁄4 in. (23.5 x 29.8 cm)
Gift of The Coya Family and The Miami Herald, 94.0007.09
© 1965 Albert Coya
The Cuban-born U.S. photographer Albert Coya grew up in
Havana, where he developed an early interest in photography
and photojournalism. When the newspaper that Coya
worked for closed following the Cuban Revolution, he and
his family immigrated to Miami. Coya soon thereafter became
a photojournalist for The Miami Herald, often assigned to
capture fleeting moments of intense human emotion. In this
particular image, Child Receiving Inoculation, the subject of
the photograph is a young Cuban child who is receiving a
vaccination in order to be allowed to enter the United States.
The close cropping of the photograph, the almost theatrical
presentation of the child’s emotions, and the expressive body
language collectively evoke a sense of empathy in the viewer.
J. T. & N. T.
140 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
58
MARIO ALGAZE
b. 1947, Havana, Cuba
Lives and works in Miami, Florida
Carretas, Guatemala (Carts, Guatemala), 1979
gelatin silver print
15 1⁄2 x 15 1⁄2 in. (39.4 x 39.4 cm)
Gift of Jamo Inc., 84.0071
© 1979 Mario Algaze
The Cuban-born U.S. artist Mario Algaze left his native
country in 1960, and settled in Miami, where he has worked
as a photographer and freelance photojournalist since 1971.
Algaze’s Carretas, Guatemala is striking for its graceful
composition. The elegant lines, circles, and diagonals guide
the viewer’s eye through the grid-like photographic plane.
Although the decaying buildings, antiquated equipment, and
style of dress give an indication of setting, the sharpness of
the image, the complex tonal range, and the strong contrast
between light and shadows strip the image of its sense of time:
it could have been taken fifty or five years ago. The mother
and child glide subtly into the left side of the composition
with regal bearing, raising the question of whether they
support, or subvert, the tradition of depicting indigenous
peoples as part of the native landscape. Of particular interest,
the viewer will note that while the mother stares purposefully
ahead as she walks down the sidewalk, it is the infant who
glances back at the viewer, challenging our gaze.
Y. M. & N. T.
MODERNIST PHOTOGRAPHY: PAN AMERICAN EXCHANGES 141
 59
ALFREDO BOULTON
b. 1908, Caracas, Venezuela
d. 1995, Caracas, Venezuela
Puerto Nutrias 1949, printed 2003
gelatin silver print
14 1⁄8 x 13 3⁄4 in. (35.9 x 34.9 cm)
Gift of Javier and Monica G. Mora, 2006.45.2
© Alberto Vollmer Foundation
The photographer and art historian Alfredo Boulton was
a prominent Venezuelan artist and intellectual in the early
to mid-twentieth century. While his formal education was
completed in Europe, he seriously turned to photography
upon his return to Venezuela in 1928, and was largely
interested in documenting the rapidly changing nature of
urbanization in Caracas. He is often associated with other
Venezuelan artists working in the early twentieth century,
including Manuel Cabré, Francisco Narváez, and Armando
Reverón, and was the first art historian to publish a
comprehensive survey of Venezuelan art from the colonial
period to the twentieth century.
The subject of Boulton’s image is a Venezuelan gondolero, who
appears to be pushing a truck or jeep on a barge (constructed
from four gondolas) over the Río Apure, near the village of
Puerto de Nutrias in Barinas, Venezuela. The reflection of
the sunlight off the surface of the river water and the strong
diagonal lines created from the shape of the gondolas, as
well as the boatman’s long wooden pole, combine to create a
dynamic composition in the photograph.
N. T.
142 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
60
MARTÍN CHAMBI
b. 1891, Puno, Peru
d. 1973, Cusco, Peru
Tambomachay, Cuzco, ca. 1930s
gelatin silver print
6 1⁄2 x 8 7⁄8 in. (16.5 x 22.5 cm)
Museum purchase, 2007.22.3
© 1930 Martín Chambi
The Peruvian photographer Martín Chambi is best known for
his ethnographic, documentary-style images of indigenous
Andean people, though he also enjoyed considerable
success as a society portraitist in Cuzco in the early twentieth
century. Born in a rather poor region in Southern Peru,
Chambi first learned the techniques of photography from a
site photographer who worked at the Santo Domingo Mine
near Coaza. He eventually moved to Cuzco in the 1920s,
where he opened his second photographic studio.
In addition to shooting society portraits and local peoples,
Chambi extensively documented Incan ruins in the Andes, often
selling these and other landscape photographs as lucrative
postcards. This particular image depicts Tambomachay, a
site near Cuzco associated with the Incas. Also known as El
Baño del Inca, or “The Bath of the Inca,” the site may have
functioned as a thermal spa within the Inca Empire, as it
contains a series of stone aqueducts, canals, and terraced
rock waterfalls. In Chambi’s image, the ruins are romanticized,
conveying a sense of nostalgia; and yet the photograph
also conveys a heightened sense of formalism through the
repetitive linear lines of Tambomachay’s stonework, as well
as the contrast between light and shadows on the surface
of the walls.
N. T.
MODERNIST PHOTOGRAPHY: PAN AMERICAN EXCHANGES 143
 61
RICHARD B. HOIT
b. 1887, United States
d. 1973, Miami, Florida
A Wall of the Ball Court, Yucatan, Mexico, 1936
gelatin silver print
13 3⁄4 x 10 3⁄4 in. (34.9 x 27.3 cm)
Museum purchase, 2003.29.2
Having moved to South Florida in 1914 at the age of 27,
the U.S. photographer Richard Hoit was primarily a Miami-
based artist who photographed a number of historic sites
in the region, including James Deering’s Villa Vizcaya, the
burgeoning city of Coral Gables in the 1920s, and the
developing University of Miami campus in the 1950s. Hoit
traveled extensively throughout the Americas during the
early twentieth century, taking trips to Mexico, Bolivia, Chile,
Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. This photograph depicts a
wall and “hoop” at the pre-Columbian Mayan ball court at
Chichén Itzá in the Yucatan region of Mexico. Hoit’s decision
to place the stone hoop in the upper left-hand corner of the
photographic plane simultaneously creates a sharp diagonal
line through the sloping wall of the immense ball court. The
framing of the court within this image thus presents the
viewer with a composition constructed through the use of
extreme one-point perspective.
N. T.
144 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
62
CARL ANDRE
b. 1935, Quincy, Massachusetts
Lives and works in New York, New York
Yucatan from the Anthology Film Archives Portfolio, 1973
photocopy
11 x 8 1⁄2 in. (27.9 x 21.6 cm)
Gift of The American Art Foundation, 84.0009.02
Art © Carl Andre/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
The U.S. minimalist artist Carl Andre is best known for his
sculptures based on the grid or grid-like forms, though he is
equally recognized for his large-scale public artworks and
concrete poetry. During his studies at the Phillips Academy in
the early 1950s, Andre met fellow artist Frank Stella, who is said
to have encouraged Andre to explore new conceptualizations
of form in his “cut” sculptures of the late 1950s. Between
1960 and 1965, Andre briefly abandoned sculpture for
concrete poetry, or “visual poetry,” in which the typographical
placement of words on the page is directly tied to the meanings
of these words within the context of the poem’s linguistic or
rhythmic structure.
Andre’s Yucatan, which is one image in a series of works by
the same title, is a prime example of the artist’s examination
of concrete poetry in the 1970s. At around this same time,
Andre became interested in Cortés’ conquest of Mexico, and
accordingly, one wonders if the words in this visual poem
are meant to invoke the placement and shape of stones that
constructed the grand stepped pyramids of the Aztec or Mayan
Empires. As meaning is not immediately discernible to the viewer,
one must read the text, thus engaging with the work of art in an
unconventional way. Given that Yucatan is a photocopy, Andre
additionally plays with notions of originality and reproduction, a
debate that has long occupied art historical discourses.
R. S. & N. T.
MODERNIST PHOTOGRAPHY: PAN AMERICAN EXCHANGES 145
PART 2: COMMONALITIES & DISCONNECTS

146
2
147
 63
JOAQUÍN TORRES-GARCÍA
b. 1874, Montevideo, Uruguay
d. 1949, Montevideo, Uruguay
Composición (Composition), 1935
ink on paper
4 5⁄8 × 7 in. (11.7 × 17.8 cm)
Museum purchase through the 2013 Director’s Circle, Christina Wiedemann Endowment
Fund, Linnie E. Dalbeck Memorial Endowment Fund, Larue Storm Art Acquisition
Endowment and the Lowe Art Museum Acquisitions Fund, 2013.9.2

As the founder of Constructive Universalism – a style formed around

THE LEGACY OF GEOMETRIC ABSTRACTION:

the cubist grid, but which also incorporated universal symbols
common to disparate countries, cultures, and peoples – the celebrated
Uruguayan artist Joaquín Torres-García was instrumental in promoting
CONSTRUCTIVIST ART, MINIMALISM, OP ART geometric abstraction in his native Uruguay, as well as other South
American countries, throughout the 1930s and 1940s. Torres-
García’s Composición consequently demonstrates the artist’s interest
Within the Western tradition of twentieth-century abstract art, geometric abstraction emerged early on as a prevalent style of painting in geometric abstraction, particularly the neoplasticism of the Dutch
that explored non-representational (or non-illusionistic) compositions through the use of reductive geometric forms and “pure” color. Like modernist Piet Mondrian and the De Stijl art movement.
expressionism and cubism, geometric abstraction’s roots can be grounded in the European avant-gardes of the early twentieth century, as early
practitioners were the Russian Suprematists, as well as the Dutch De Stijl artists. Although he was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, Torres-García, along
with his family, moved to Spain in the late nineteenth century, a
Variously called non-objective painting, neoplasticism, or constructivism, geometric abstraction took various forms (and names) throughout decision that allowed Torres-García to eventually study painting at the
the twentieth century, and was explored by countless modern artists in the United States and Latin America, where it enjoyed considerable Escuela de Bellas Artes in Barcelona. Following his studies, he began
popularity following the Second World War. In South America, the well-known Uruguayan constructivist artist Joaquín Torres-García was an exhibiting work in Europe, and eventually befriended such European
modernists such as Manolo Hugué, Pablo Picasso, Antoni Gaudí, and
early proponent of geometric abstraction, and was likewise responsible for popularizing this form of abstraction in the 1930s and 1940s.
Mondrian. Along with Mondrian, Pierre Daura, and Michel Seuphor,
In terms of geometric abstraction’s legacy, concrete art, minimalism, hard-edge painting, post-painterly abstraction, and optical art (or Op Torres-García co-founded the group Cercle et Carré (Circle and Square),
which promoted geometric abstraction and constructivism in Paris in
art) can collectively be seen to have developed out of, or as a form of, this “brand” of abstraction at the mid-century. A number of artists
the late 1920s and early 1930s. After leaving Paris in 1932, he soon
represented in this module were first shown together in William C. Seitz‘s exhibition The Responsive Eye, held at New York’s Museum of Modern established the Grupo Constructivo (Constructive Group) in Spain in
Art in 1965. These individuals include: U.S. artists Richard J. Anuszkiewicz, Gene Davis, Kenneth Noland, Julian Stanczak, and Frank Stella, and 1933, and permanently resettled a year later in Montevideo, where he
the Venezuelan artist Carlos Cruz-Diez. Pan American Modernism similarly examines objects by these artists, but additionally presents works by founded the Sociedad de las Artes del Uruguay. Composición, created
Pierre Daura, Gordon Matta-Clark, Jesús Rafael Soto, and Eduardo Ramírez Villamizar. one year after his return to Uruguay, subsequently draws upon his
early “European” constructivist works, yet situates this drawing as a
The 1979 film H.O. by Ivan Cardoso is likewise included in this module, given that Cardoso’s work documents various abstract and conceptual particularly “American” object, given its association with the Society
pieces by the Brazilian neo-concrete artist Hélio Oiticica, who explored elements of geometric abstraction in the 1950s, before turning to and its promotion of modern Uruguayan art.
installation and performance art in the 1960s.
N. T.

148 THE LEGACY OF GEOMETRIC ABSTRACTION: CONSTRUCTIVIST ART, MINIMALISM, OP ART 149
 64
JOAQUÍN TORRES-GARCÍA
b. 1874, Montevideo, Uruguay
d. 1949, Montevideo, Uruguay
Constructivo con sol (Construction with Sun), 1937
pencil on paper
7 5⁄8 × 5 3⁄8 in. (19.4 × 13.7 cm)
Museum purchase through the 2013 Director’s Circle, Christina Wiedemann
Endowment Fund, Linnie E. Dalbeck Memorial Endowment Fund, Larue Storm
Art Acquisition Endowment and the Lowe Art Museum Acquisitions Fund,
2013.9.1
figurative pictographs into his compositions. According to the artist, these example of the artist’s work from this period, as the figure of a ship (in
Like Composición of 1935 (cat. no. 63), Torres-García’s
pictographs were symbols that could be found across cultures and peoples, the upper register of the drawing) could be read as a representation of a
Constructivo con sol reveals the artist’s preoccupation with
but which also highlighted traditional and indigenous pictographs created conquistador’s ship or of European expansionism/commercialism, while
the (cubist) grid as a geometric motif celebrating abstract
by pre-Columbian cultures in South America. the pictograph of a head (located on the left side of the grid) is largely
art in the 1930s. The modernist grid was historically seen
reminiscent of a pre-Columbian mask or ancient Olmec head (ca. 1500-
to convey order and categorization in a work of art, and Having co-founded Cercle et Carré (Circle and Square) in Paris in 1929, 400 BCE) from present-day Mexico. Other symbols ostensibly represent
was furthermore regarded as a visual element that could Torres-García eventually “re-established” this art group in Montevideo in ancient Mesoamerican glyphs, including the image of the sun, while the
symbolically represent the underlying structural systems at 1936 under the Spanish name Círculo y Cuadrado. As in Europe, Circle symbols for “man” and “woman” (located below the sun glyph) seem
play in art, nature, and across cultures. Torres-García was the and Square continued to promote constructivist art, though the Uruguayan to materialize as universal symbols for a collective mankind.
founder of Constructive Universalism, a personal style that articulation of this group equally embraced figurative elements that might
embraced abstraction, while simultaneously incorporating represent South America’s pre-European past. Constructivo con sol is a prime N. T.

150 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES THE LEGACY OF GEOMETRIC ABSTRACTION: CONSTRUCTIVIST ART, MINIMALISM, OP ART 151
 65
PIERRE DAURA
b. 1896, Minorca, Balearic Islands, Spain
d. 1976, Rockbridge Baths, Virginia
Étude No. 1 Analise, 1945-1965
oil on canvas
29 1⁄4 x 24 3⁄8 in. (74.3 x 61.9 cm)
Gift of Martha R. Daura, 2003.45.53
© Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami
In 1929, the Spanish-born U.S. artist Pierre Daura, along
with the renowned Uruguayan artist Joaquín Torres-García
and the Belgian artist Michel Seuphor, co-founded the art
group known as Cercle et Carré (Circle and Square), which
celebrated geometric abstraction through the purity of
circular and square forms. The group, which formed in 1929,
exhibited their works the following year for the first time in
a joint exhibition, but was eventually absorbed in 1931 by
the anti-surrealist group Abstraction-Création (Abstraction-
Creation), which equally favored non-representational,
abstract works of art.
Even though Daura painted Étude No. 1 Analise after he
left France and moved to the United States, the work’s grid-
like patterning and resultant color fields, or planes, are an
exploration of the principles of abstraction explored by the
Circle and Square group, which included artists like Wassily
Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian (who later became a member of
Abstraction-Création), Fernand Léger, and Joseph Stella.
As with paintings by Mondrian, Léger, and Torres-García,
Daura’s piece is a further examination of the cubist grid as
the underlying framework of nature.
N. V. D. & N. T.
152 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
66
EDUARDO RAMÍREZ VILLAMIZAR
b. 1923, Pamplona, Colombia
d. 2004, Bogotá, Colombia
Ritmo vertical (Vertical Rhythm), 1962
cardboard and paint
27 1⁄8 x 16 3⁄4 in. (68.9 x 42.5 cm)
Bequest of Cristina Wiedemann, 91.0476.39
The Colombian artist Eduardo Ramírez Villamizar initially
trained as an architect at the National University of Colombia
in the early 1940s, but decided instead to pursue a career in
the fine arts. Throughout the 1950s, he traveled (and lived)
in France, made frequent trips to New York City, Madrid and
Rome, and also taught courses at the School of Fine Arts in
Bogotá. Ramírez Villamizar’s oeuvre underwent a transition in
the late 1950s and early 1960s, as the artist turned almost
exclusively to sculptural work, for which he is known for today.
Even though Ramírez Villamizar ultimately abandoned
architecture for painting, and then sculpture, Ritmo vertical
visually suggests that the artist was interested in combining
each of these disparate categories into a single work of art,
as the three-dimensionality of the piece ostensibly blurs the
line between painting, sculpture, and small-scale architecture.
Somewhat reminiscent of Brazilian neo-concretism, and
particularly Lygia Clark’s flat, three-dimensional “sculpture-
paintings” from the 1950s, Ritmo vertical presents the viewer
with an equally dynamic, avant-garde confrontation of artistic
categories. This work additionally shares commonalities
with Joaquín Torres-García’s geometric abstraction and
constructivist works of the 1930s and 1940s (see cat. nos. 63
& 64); and yet, Villamizar’s piece pushes Torres-García’s grid-
like compositions one step further, exploring their forms in
three-dimensional space.
N. T.
THE LEGACY OF GEOMETRIC ABSTRACTION: CONSTRUCTIVIST ART, MINIMALISM, OP ART 153
 67
FRANK STELLA
b. 1936, Malden, Massachusetts
Lives and works in New York, New York
Hyena Stomp, 1973
lithograph
8 5⁄8 x 8 5⁄8 in. (21.9 x 21.9 cm)
Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Martin B. Grossman, 78.029.001
© 2013 Frank Stella / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Known for his anti-illusory works, Frank Stella began to
create minimalist art in the late 1950s that consisted of
simple shapes and lines in an effort to steer away from purely
figurative painting. Having moved to New York in 1958 after
his studies at Princeton University, Stella began working on
his Black Paintings series soon after, having largely completed
the series by 1959. As the title of the series implies, these
paintings consist of wide black stripes and smaller white lines
that often generate non-representational geometric shapes,
such as diamonds, chevrons, crosses, or squares.
In Stella’s Hyena Stomp, the artist’s signature use of minimalist
lines calls attention to the flattened picture plane. In this
work, which is both a reference to, as well as a deviation
from Stella’s earlier Black Paintings, the artist visually creates
tension between the negative and positive spaces of the
square form, in a manner that references optical art and its
visual effects on the viewer.
K. M. & N. T.
154 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
68
RICHARD JOSEPH ANUSZKIEWICZ
b. 1930, Erie, Pennsylvania
Lives and works in New York, New York
Spectral Nine, 1969
nine screen prints on plastic
59 1⁄8 x 59 1⁄8 in. (150.2 x 150.2 cm)
Gift of Ann and Dr. Norman Jaffe, 99.0030.90
Art © Richard Anuszkiewicz/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
Richard Joseph Anuszkiewicz is a U.S. artist who emerged
as a prominent figure in the optical art movement of the
1960s. Along with fellow optical artist Julian Stanczak,
Anuszkiewicz studied at the Cleveland Institute of Art and
Yale University, under the tutelage of Josef Albers. In his
early works, Anuszkiewicz was fascinated by the power
of mathematics, the role of color theory, and how basic
geometric shapes could be utilized to construct a modern
work of art. In Spectral Nine, he plays with the juxtaposition
of warm, analogous colors bordered by cooler, pseudo-
complementary colors. The use of concentric square patterns
and bright colors compel each square to visually “vibrate,”
allowing the viewer’s eye to experience the invisible energy
that his colors and forms possess.
C. D. & N. T.
THE LEGACY OF GEOMETRIC ABSTRACTION: CONSTRUCTIVIST ART, MINIMALISM, OP ART 155
 69
JULIAN STANCZAK
b. 1928, Borovnica, Poland
Lives and works in Seven Hills, Ohio
Fervent #1, 1971
acrylic on canvas
27 7⁄8 x 23 3⁄4 in. (70.8 x 60.3 cm)
Gift of Mann Galleries, 73.009.000
© 1971 Julian Stanczak
Julian Stanczak is a Polish-American painter and printmaker
best known for his exploration of optical art. Similar to the
works of Anuszkiewicz, Soto, and Cruz-Diez, Stanczak’s
work is concerned with how colors, shapes, and patterns
affect one’s perceptual experiences, as filtered through a
dialogue between the senses and the psyche. In Fervent #1,
the artist uses hues of the same color (yellow) to insinuate
depth and transparency, giving the work a three-dimensional
effect. The background consists of a grid with lines that vary
in spacing and pattern to produce a pulsating rhythm that,
when combined with the painting’s warm, golden hues,
generates an all-over, radiant affect within, and around, the
central cube.
C. D. & N. T.
156 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
70
JESÚS RAFAEL SOTO
b. 1923, Ciudad Bolívar, Venezuela
d. 2005, Paris, France
Jai-Alai, 1969
screen print on plexiglas
24 3⁄8 x 19 5⁄8 in. (61.9 x 49.8 cm)
Gift of Steven Sohacki, 79.044.008
© 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
The Venezuelan artist Jesús Rafael Soto was a leading figure
in geometric abstraction, as well as the kinetic and optical art
movements of the late 1950s and 1960s. Having studied at
La Escuela de Arte in Caracas in the 1940s, Soto was initially
interested in cubism, neoplasticism, and soviet constructivism,
but after moving to Paris in 1950, his work began to adopt
optical, and then kinetic elements. Rather than embracing
the contemporary trends of lyrical abstraction or abstract
expressionism, Soto and fellow Venezuelan expatriate artists
Alejandro Otero and Narciso Debourg (all of whom were then
living in Paris) formed the short-lived, counterculture art group
Los Disidentes (The Dissidents), which rejected figurative art
in favor of geometric abstraction and concrete/constructivist
ideals. Jai-Alai, a screen print on Plexiglas, shares its title with
another work in this series by Soto included in the exhibition
(see cat. no. 74), and implies movement through the startling
contrast between the bright yellow field and the more subdued
gray field, which is further “animated” by yellow straw-like
lines, which give the illusion of vibration in the piece.
N. R. & N. T.
THE LEGACY OF GEOMETRIC ABSTRACTION: CONSTRUCTIVIST ART, MINIMALISM, OP ART 157
 71 72
KENNETH NOLAND GENE DAVIS
b. 1924, Asheville, North Carolina b. 1920, Washington, DC
d. 2010, Port Clyde, Maine d. 1985, Washington, DC
Untitled, 1968 Untitled, 1974
screen print on linen screen print
16 3⁄4 x 47 1⁄2 in. (42.5 x 120.7 cm) 32 1⁄2 x 22 in. (82.6 x 55.9 cm)
Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Martin B. Grossman, 85.0131 Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Rudolph E. Drosd, 78.028.018
Art © Estate of Kenneth Noland/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY © 2013 Estate of Gene Davis / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Variously known as an abstract expressionist, color field painter, Born in Washington D.C., Gene Davis was initially a writer
and minimalist artist, Kenneth Noland is perhaps best known and journalist who wrote for various newspapers around
for his artistic preoccupation with geometric shapes, namely the United States. Inspired by modern works of art at the
circles (including targets or concentric, repeated circles), Phillips Collection, which he saw for the first time in 1949,
stripes, and chevrons. During his studies in the 1940s at Black he began to take up painting as a serious artistic pursuit.
Mountain College in North Carolina, Noland was introduced Known for his canvases and prints of vertical stripes of color,
to the aesthetics of neoplasticism, so central to De Stijl and the of which Untitled is a prime example, Davis, along with fellow
works of Piet Mondrian, as well as to the centricity of color in U.S. artists Kenneth Noland and Morris Louis, form the first
works by Paul Klee and Josef Albers, who was then teaching generation of the Washington Color School. This particular art
at Black Mountain as one of Noland’s instructors. Following
movement began in the 1950s and was largely a response to
his formal training, Noland became acquainted with the artists
the philosophical tenets behind abstract expressionism. Davis
Morris Louis and Helen Frankenthaler, who were interested
placed a heavy importance on color and was greatly inspired
“soak-stain” paintings, as well as the influential New York art
by modernist works by the Swiss expressionist artist Paul Klee.
critic Clement Greenberg, who included Noland’s work in his
Like Noland, Davis’ works tend to explore a post-painterly
Post-Painterly Abstraction exhibition of 1964.
aestheticism through geometric abstraction and minimalist
During the latter half of the 1960s, Noland began to compositions.
experiment with horizontal bands of color, filling the surface
A. L. & N. T.
of his canvases with vibrant, yet thinly applied paint. Untitled,
which is very much a part of this larger exploration of
minimalist lines, consists of green, dark purple, white and
yellow horizontal stripes set parallel to one another in the
visual plane. The work’s competing color values, exemplified
by the tension between light and dark shades, in turn may be
seen to create interesting optical effects for the viewer.
A. L. & N. T.

158 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES THE LEGACY OF GEOMETRIC ABSTRACTION: CONSTRUCTIVIST ART, MINIMALISM, OP ART 159
 73
CARLOS CRUZ-DIEZ
b. 1923, Caracas, Venezuela
Lives and works in Paris, France
Physichromie No. 577, 1972
acrylic, wood and plastic
27 7⁄8 x 28 1⁄8 in. (70.8 x 71.4 cm)
Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Marvin Sackner, 79.050.000
© 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
The title Physichromie No. 577 derives from a word invented
by the Venezuelan artist Carlos Cruz-Diez to define concepts
that inform his exploration of color within geometric
abstraction, as well as optical and kinetic art. Physichromie
thus reflects the interplay between nature (physis) and color
(chromos). In this piece, vertical strips of plastic, which have
been painted with differing colors on either side, are affixed
perpendicularly to a flat painted background. As a result,
when the viewer observes the piece from multiple angles
and vantage points, various geometric shapes rendered
in different color combinations begin to emerge and then
change within the composition.
The overall effect of the work creates multiple optical
illusions, or multiple ways of “seeing” the various geometric
combinations that are “contained” in the visual plane. For
Cruz-Diez, the notion of color is not something that can
be expressed upon a flat surface, but is an experience that
transpires in space. Although his work shares theoretical
and iconographic similarities with other Venezuelan optical
and kinetic artists, such as Jesús Rafael Soto and Alejandro
Otero, Cruz-Diez was not a member of Los Disidentes (The
Dissidents), as he did not travel to Paris until the 1960s.
N. R. & N. T.
160 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
74
JESÚS RAFAEL SOTO
b. 1923, Ciudad Bolívar, Venezuela
d. 2005, Paris, France
Jai-Alai, 1969
wood and metal
19 5⁄8 × 6 × 6 in. (49.8 × 15.2 × 15.2 cm)
Gift of Steven Sohacki, 79.044.003
© 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
In this sculptural, kinetic piece titled Jai-Alai, the Venezuelan
artist Jesús Rafael Soto investigates the optical effects of
geometric lines on his viewers’ visual perception by placing
a movable red line in front of a raised white surface (in the
upper portion of the composition), as well as a raised surface
with black and white lines (in the lower register of the work).
Jai-alai – a ball sport played across the globe, but particularly
popular in Latin American countries – is perhaps referenced
here through the interplay of the rectangular white shape, the
movable red line (a kinetic element that is moved by changes
in the air around the piece), and the vertical black lines, which
create varying optical effects when the viewer observes the
piece from varying angles. The implied “energy” of the piece
is therefore in direct relation to the viewer’s physical presence
in the space surrounding this object, as this non-motorized
sculpture only moves when changes in the environment
surrounding the piece occur.
N. R. & N. T.
THE LEGACY OF GEOMETRIC ABSTRACTION: CONSTRUCTIVIST ART, MINIMALISM, OP ART 161
 75
GORDON MATTA-CLARK
b. 1943, New York, New York
d. 1978, New York, New York
Circus, 1978
photographic collage
20 x 30 in. (50.8 x 76.2 cm)
Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Marvin Sackner, 86.0115
© 2013 Estate of Gordon Matta-Clark / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
The son of Chilean artist Roberto Matta, Gordon Matta-
Clark initially studied architecture at Cornell University before
turning to a career in the visual arts. In an effort to distance
himself from his father’s surrealist works (see cat. no. 44),
Matta-Clark instead experimented with a wide range of
media, though is mostly known for his use of photography
and film throughout his oeuvre.
Circus forms part of Matta-Clark’s most well-known series
of “building cuts” (1972-1978), or works that function as
“archives” of performance pieces, as well as photographic
collages. To construct these images, Matta-Clark first “cut”
into old or condemned buildings with a chain saw in order
to literally fracture the original structure, thus creating
new architectural compositions, which the artist called
“Anarchitecture.” For Circus, Matta-Clark initially carved
portions out of soon-to-be demolished buildings in Chicago,
then photographed these architectural spaces, before cutting
and tearing the final prints in order to present them in a new/
original composition. This final image is not, however, meant
to be entirely abstract; rather, the artist leaves recognizable
elements, such as doors and knobs, so that the viewer
might still discern the original building in the photographic
fragments.
A. L. & N. T.
162 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
76
IVAN CARDOSO
b. 1952. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
H.O., 1979
35mm film transferred to DVD
12 minutes, 24 seconds
Courtesy of Ivan Cardoso/Topázio Filmes Ltda.
Stills © Ivan Cardoso
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s in Brazil, new and innovative
avenues in contemporary art were explored by various artists, who
often blurred the line between reality and artifice, while challenging
distinctions between “high” and “low” art. In 1959, the Grupo
Neoconcreto (Neo-Concrete Group) was formed by visual artists
Hélio Oiticica, Lygia Clark, Amílcar de Castro, Lygia Pape, and Franz
Weissmann, as well as the poet Ferreira Gullar, in order to push the
boundaries of contemporary Brazilian art. Although the group did not
officially embrace any singular/collective style, an exploration of color
and the tenets of concrete art form the basis of their early works. Grupo
Neoconcreto disbanded in 1961, though its members continued to
explore novel approaches to art making, each becoming pioneers in
various fields, including abstract art, concrete and neo-concrete art,
kinetic and optical art, and perhaps most importantly, sensorial and
performance art. In Ivan Cardoso’s art/documentary film H.O. (titled
after Hélio Oiticica), a number of Grupo Neoconcreto artists, including
Lygia Clark, can be seen to engage with Oiticica’s various artworks,
including his environmental/performance pieces from the 1960s.
Among these works is his well-known series Parangolés, or capes,
which explore art and dance in the public sphere by inviting spectators
to become participants in the art making process. Cardoso’s film is not
only important for its examination of these ephemeral performance
pieces, but even more so as a documentary archive, given that the
majority of Oiticica’s works (including his Parangolés) where destroyed
when a fire claimed the artist’s collection in 2009.
THE LEGACY OF GEOMETRIC ABSTRACTION: CONSTRUCTIVIST ART, MINIMALISM, OP ART 163
 CONTRIBUTORS

NATHAN J. TIMPANO is Assistant Professor of Art History at the EDWARD J. SULLIVAN is the Helen Gould Sheppard Professor of
University of Miami. Across his program of research, Timpano the History of Art at the Institute of Fine Arts and the Department
investigates modern artistic movements in Europe and Latin America, of Art History of New York University. Specializing in the modern and
respectively, and adopts an interdisciplinary approach to the nature contemporary art of Latin America and the Caribbean he is the author
of collaborative activities in both the visual and performing arts. of over thirty books and exhibitions catalogues. His most recent
His major area of study examines the history and historiography texts include The Language of Objects in the Art of the Americas
of modern German and Austrian art, while his minor area focuses (Yale University Press, 2007); Fragile Demon: Juan Soriano in Mexico
on the Cuban avant-garde and critical theory. Prior to curating 1935-1950 (Philadelphia Museum of Art and Yale University Press);
the Pan American Modernism exhibition at the Lowe Art Museum, Observed: Milagros De La Torre (co-authored exhibition catalogue)
he organized an online exhibition and study database of Lyonel and the forthcoming From San Juan to Paris: Francisco Oller and
Feininger’s photographic works at the Harvard Art Museums (2009- Caribbean Art in the Era of Impressionism (Yale University Press)
2011). Timpano has been awarded national and international honors,
including a 2007 DAAD research grant and a 2007-2008 Fulbright
fellowship, and has likewise published articles and book chapters on
the cross-cultural and artistic exchanges that exist between various
artists in Europe, Latin America, and the United States. As a current
Faculty Research Fellow within the Center for the Humanities at the
University of Miami, Timpano is completing a book on modern art,
theatre, and science in fin-de-siècle Vienna.

164 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES 165
 MUSEUM STAFF

HEATHER DIACK is Assistant Professor of Modern and Contemporary
Art in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of
Miami. Diack holds a PhD from the University of Toronto and is active
as a writer and independent curator. Specializing in the history of
photography, Diack has held many fellowships including a research
residency at The Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal and a
Rubenstein Fellowship in Critical Studies at the Whitney Independent
Study Program, New York. Diack has presented and published
papers internationally on topics related to twentieth century art,
photography and theory throughout Europe and North America.
Currently, she is working on a number of research projects including
the final manuscript for her book The Benefit of the Doubt: Regarding
the Photographic Conditions of Conceptual Art, 1966-1973 and co-
editing a volume on the critical conjunction between conceptual art
and humor.
PATRICIA GARCÍA-VELEZ HANNA is an independent art consultant
based in Miami, Florida. Most recently, she served as the Director
of the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO), a non-profit
contemporary art foundation in Miami. In this capacity, she managed
the overall operations of the foundation in addition to its exhibitions
and publications program. Recent editorial projects include: Frames
and Documents, Conceptualist Practices; Inside Out, Photography
After Form; and Tacita Dean: Film Works. Prior to directing the
Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, she was the Exhibitions Manager
of Miami Art Central. With over ten years in the non-profit sector,
she has worked with internationally recognized artists and institutions
to bring numerous contemporary art exhibitions to the South Florida
community.
Yina Balarezo Membership Coordinator
Irene Bergmann Special Events Coordinator
Julie Berlin Registration Assistant
Angeles Cardenas Receptionist
Natasha Cuervo Museum Registrar for Exhibitions and Loans
Brian Dursum Director and Chief Curator
Janie Graulich Receptionist
Alessia Lewitt Preparator
Raymond Mathews Communications Specialist
Marie Milhomme Chief Security Officer
Darren Price Senior Preparator
Kara Schneiderman Assistant Director
Lorrie Stassun Office Manager
Jodi Sypher Curator of Education
Hope Torrents School Programs Coordinator

166 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES 167
REFERENCES PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM:
DIALOGUES, COMMONALITIES, DISCONNECTS
1
David Craven, “The Latin American Origins of ‘Alternative Modernism’,” Third Text 36
(Autumn 1996): 44.
2
Mari Carmen Ramírez, “A Highly Topical Utopia: Some Outstanding Features of the Avant-
Garde in Latin America,” in Inverted Utopias: Avant-Garde Art in Latin America, (eds.) Mari
Carmen Ramírez and Héctor Olea, exh. cat. (Houston and New Haven: The Museum of Fine
Arts, Houston and Yale University Press, 2004), 1.
3
Craven, “The Latin American Origins of ‘Alternative Modernism’,” 31-33.
4
George Yúdice, “Postmodernity and Transnational Capitalism in Latin America,” in On Edge:
The Crisis of Contemporary Latin American Culture, eds. George Yúdice, Jean Franco, and Juan
Flores (Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis, 1992), 1.
5
Gerardo Mosquera, “The New Art of the Revolution,” in The Nearest Edge of the World: Art
and Cuba Now, exh. cat. (Brookline: Polarities, 1990), 9.
6
Joseph Randall Shapiro, The United States Collects Pan American Art, exh. cat. (Chicago: The
Art Institute of Chicago, 1959), 1.
MODERNISMO PANAMERICANO:
DIÁLOGOS, PUNTOS DE CONTACTO, INCONEXIONES
1
Craven, David. (Otoño 1996). “The Latin American Origins of ‘Alternative Modernism’”. Third
Text 36. p. 44.
2
Ramírez, Mari Carmen. (2004) “A Highly Topical Utopia: Some Outstanding Features of the
Avant-Garde in Latin America” En Inverted Utopias: Ramírez, Mari Carmen y Olea Héctor
(comp.). Catálogo de la muestra. Houston y New Haven: The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
y Yale University Press. p. 1.
3
Craven, David. “The Latin American Origins of ‘Alternative Modernism’”. pp. 31-33.
4
Yúdice, George. “Postmodernity and Transnational Capitalism in Latin America”. En On Edge:
The Crisis of Contemporary Latin American Culture. Yúdice, George; Franco, Jean y Flores, Juan
(comp.). Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis. p. 1.
5
Mosquera, Gerardo. (1990) “The New Art of the Revolution”. En The Nearest Edge of the
World: Art and Cuba Now. Catálogo de la muestra. Brookline: Polarities. p. 9.
6
Shapiro, Joseph Randall. (1959). The United States Collects Pan American Art. Catálogo de la
muestra. Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago. p. 1.
168 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
Ramírez, “A Highly Topical Utopia,” 2.
7 13
8
Yúdice, et al., On Edge, vii.
9
For Traba’s musings on Latin American art, and its relationship to U.S. art trends, see Marta
Traba, Dos décadas vulnerables en las artes plásticas latinoamericanas 1950-1970 (Buenos
Aires: Siglo XXI, 2005); and Marta Traba, Mirar en América (Caracas: Fundación Biblioteca
Ayacucho, 2005). For a concise summation of Traba’s theories and criticisms, see Florencia
Bazzano-Nelzon, “Marta Traba: Internationalism or Regional Resistance?,” Art Journal 64, no.
4 (Winter 2005): 87-89.
10
See Mari Carmen Ramírez, “Inversions: The School of the South,” in Inverted Utopias, 73-
74. See also Dawn Ades, Art in Latin America: The Modern Era, 1820-1980 (New Haven and
London: Yale University Press, 1993), 144-50; and Jacqueline Barnitz, Twentieth-Century Art in
Latin America (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001), 127-35.
11
Joaquín Torres-García, La escuela del Sur, in Joaquín Torres-García, “Lección 30: La escuela
del Sur,” Universalismo constructivo, second ed. (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1984), 213. Mari
Carmen Ramírez translates and discusses portions of the manifesto in Ramírez, “Inversions,” 73.
12
Barnitz, Twentieth-Century Art in Latin America, 287.
7
Ramírez. “A Highly Topical Utopia”. p. 2.
8
Yúdice, et al. On Edge. p. vii.
9
Para conocer las ideas de Traba sobre el arte latinoamericano y su relación con las tendencias
artísticas estadounidenses, ver Traba, Marta. (2005) Dos décadas vulnerables en las artes
plásticas latinoamericanas 1950-1970. Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI; y Traba, Marta. (2005) Mirar
en América. Caracas: Fundación Biblioteca Ayacucho. Para leer un resumen conciso de las
teorías y críticas de Traba, ver Bazzano-Nelzon, Florencia. (Invierno 2005). “Marta Traba:
Internationalism or Regional Resistance?”. Art Journal 64, no. 4. pp. 87-89.
10
Ver Ramírez, Mari Carmen. “Inversions: The School of the South”. En Inverted Utopias.
pp. 73-74. Ver además Ades, Dawn. (1993). Art in Latin America: The Modern Era, 1820-
1980. New Haven y Londres: Yale University Press. pp. 144-50; y Barnitz, Jacqueline. (2001).
Twentieth-Century Art in Latin America. Austin: University of Texas Press. pp. 127-35.
11
Torres-García, Joaquín. (1984) La escuela del Sur. En Torres-García, Joaquín. “Lección 30:
La escuela del Sur”. Universalismo constructivo, segunda edición. Madrid: Alianza Editorial.
p. 213. Mari Carmen Ramírez traduce y discute segmentos del manifiesto en Ramírez.
“Inversions”. p. 73.
12
Barnitz. Twentieth-Century Art in Latin America. p. 287.
PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
Although a number of relevant sources could be listed here that examine literary avant-garde
movements throughout Latin America, I would direct my readers to essays in the following
volume: Anthony L. Geist and José B. Monleón, eds., Modernism and Its Margins: Reinscribing
Cultural Modernity from Spain and Latin America (New York: Garland, 1999). See also Vicky
Unruh, Latin American Vanguards: The Art of Contentious Encounters (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1994).
14
See William C. Seitz, The Responsive Eye, exh. cat. (New York: The Museum of Modern Art,
1965).
15
For details of Lola Álvarez Bravo’s life and career, see Elizabeth Ferrer, Lola Álvarez Bravo (New
York: Aperture and the Center for Creative Photography, 2006).
16
Pamela Allara, Pictures of People: Alice Neel’s American Portrait Gallery (Hanover: University
Press of New England and Brandeis University Press, 1998), 59. For further information on
Enríquez, see Juan A. Martínez, Cuban Art and National Identity: The Vanguard Painters, 1927-
1950 (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1994).
17
See Robert Linsley, “Utopia Will Not Be Tolerated: Rivera at Rockefeller Center,” Oxford Art
Journal 17, no. 2 (1994): 48–62.
18
For Shahn’s political affiliation, see Andrew Hemingway, Artists on the Left: American Artists
and the Communist Movement, 1926–1956 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 146.
13
Aunque se podrían enumerar una cantidad de fuentes relevantes que examinan los
movimientos vanguardistas literarios en toda Latinoamérica, dirigiré a mis lectores a los ensayos
contenidos en el siguiente volumen: Geist, Anthony L. y Monleón, José B. (comp.). (1999).
Modernism and Its Margins: Reinscribing Cultural Modernity from Spain and Latin America.
Nueva York: Garland. Ver asimismo Unruh, Vicky. (1994). Latin American Vanguards: The Art
of Contentious Encounters. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Ver Seitz, William C. (1965). The Responsive Eye. Catálogo de la muestra. Nueva York: The
14
Museum of Modern Art.
15
Para conocer detalles sobre la vida y carrera de Lola Álvarez Bravo, ver Ferrer, Elizabeth.
(2006). Lola Álvarez Bravo. New York: Aperture y Center for Creative Photography.
16
Allara, Pamela. (1998). Pictures of People: Alice Neel’s American Portrait Gallery. Hanover:
University Press of New England y Brandeis University Press. p. 59. Para conocer más
información sobre Enríquez, ver Martínez, Juan A. (1994). Cuban Art and National Identity:
The Vanguard Painters, 1927-1950. Gainesville: University of Florida Press.
17
Ver Linsley, Robert. (1994). “Utopia Will Not Be Tolerated: Rivera at Rockefeller Center”.
Oxford Art Journal 17, no. 2. pp. 48-62.
169
19
In addition to meeting with Pollock and Krasner, Lam met with a number of artists throughout
the 1940s and 1950s who were living and working in New York. See Lowery Stokes Sims, Wifredo
Lam and the International Avant-Garde: 1923-1982 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002), 139-40.
20
For a review of Motherwell’s biography and personal writings and correspondences with
other artists and critics, see Stephanie Terenzio, (ed.), The Collected Writings of Robert
Motherwell (Berkeley Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1992).
21
The Dyn art journal, which was published in both English and French, has recently been
the subject of a small, but thorough exhibition at the Getty Center. See Annette Leddy and
Donna Conwell, eds., Farewell to Surrealism: The Dyn Circle in Mexico (Los Angeles: The Getty
Research Institute, 2012).
GEOMETRY AND GESTURE: Museum, 2010). The curator of this exhibition was Mary Kate O’Hare. 33
For a succinct discussion of these movements see Mario H. Gradowczyk and Nelly Perrazo,
NOTES ON ABSTRACTIONS IN THE AMERICAS Abstract Art from the Río de la Plata (New York: The Americas Society, 2001).
28
Carlos Cruz-Diez. Color in Space and Time (Museum of Fine Arts Houston, 2011); Soto. Paris
22
Leah Dickerman (ed.) Inventing Abstraction, 1910-1925 (New York: The Museum of Modern and Beyond 1950-1970 (New York: The Grey Art Gallery, New York University, 2012). 34
As this essay is in preparation the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh is planning a large-
Art, 2013). scale exhibition of the work of Hélio Oiticica and the MoMA is organizing one of Lygia Clark.
29
Fundacão de São Paulo, XXIV Bienal de São Paulo: núcleo histórico: antropofagia e histórias
23
See Mari Carmen Ramírez (ed.) El Taller Torres-García the School of the South and its Legacy de canibalismos (São Paulo, 1998). See especially the section of the catalogue that discusses 35
See Ana Franco, Ramírez Villamizar. Geometría y abstracción (Bogotá: Ediciones Gamma,
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1992). the nucleus of the exhibition devoted to abstract art: which was curated by Paulo Herkenhoff 2010). See also her unpublished PhD dissertation “Edgar Negret and Eduardo Ramírez
“Monocromos,” 192-233. Villamizar: Transnational Encounters and the Rise of Modernism in Colombian Art, 1944-
24
This was only one of several significant shows devoted to Torres-García in the 1980s and 1964,” New York University, 2012.
early 90s. See also Torres-García: Grid-Pattern-Sign. Paris-Montevideo, 1924-1944 (London:
30
Cold America. Geometric Abstraction in Latin America (1943-1973) (Madrid: Fundación Juan
Hayward Gallery, 1985). March, 2011). 36
On Sanín see the exhibition catalogue Fanny Sanín: 1987-1999, color y simetría (Bogotá :
31
On Pettoruti see Edward J. Sullivan and Nelly Perazzo Emilio Pettoruti (1892-1971) (Buenos Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango, 2000).
Mari Carmen Ramírez and Héctor Olea (eds.) Inverted Utopias. Avant-Garde Art in Latin
25

America (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2004).
26
Geometric Abstraction. Latin American Art from the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection
(Cambridge: Harvard Art Museums, 2001) and The Geometry of Hope. Latin American Art
from the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection (Austin: Blanton Museum of Art and New York:
Grey Art Gallery, 2007).
27
The Constructivist Spirit: Abstract Art in South and North America, 1920s-50s (Newark
Aires: LaMarca Editora, 2004). For a discussion of his early drawings see pp. 36-42. 37
As a child Fernández moved to Costa Rica. She is considered one of the principal participants
32
Pettoruti’s art post-Europe was derived from a variety of sources, including the cubism of in the abstract movements in that country.
Picasso and Juan Gris. The subject matter of some of his most well-known works from the 38
Natalia Majluf, “Peru,” in Edward J. Sullivan, Latin American Art in the Twentieth Century
1920s and 30s included such “local” themes as street musicians reminiscent of tango and (London: Phaidon Press, 2000),197.
other popular street bands. In old age he returned to pure abstraction, although this has often
been considered decorative and non-experimental. 39
Dore Ashton, Fernando de Szyslo (Barcelona: Ediciones Polígrafa, 2003).

18
Para conocer acerca de la afiliación política de Shahn, ver Hemingway, Andrew. (2002).
Artists on the Left: American Artists and the Communist Movement, 1926–1956. New Haven:
Yale University Press. p. 146.
19
Además de conocer a Pollock y Krasner, Lam conoció a un número de artistas que vivían y
trabajaban en Nueva York durante los años 1940 y 1950. Ver Stokes Sims, Lowery. (2002).
Wifredo Lam and the International Avant-Garde: 1923-1982. Austin: University of Texas Press.
pp. 139-40.
20
Para estudiar la biografía y algunos escritos personales y correspondencias de Motherwell
con otros artistas y críticos, ver Terenzio, Stephanie (comp.). (1992). The Collected Writings of
Robert Motherwell. Berkeley Los Angeles: University of California Press.
21
El períodico de arte Dyn, que se publicaba en inglés y en francés, ha sido recientemente
objeto de una muestra pequeña pero exhaustiva en el Getty Center. Ver Leddy, Annette y
Conwell, Donna (comp.). (2012). Farewell to Surrealism: The Dyn Circle in Mexico. Los Angeles:
The Getty Research Institute.
GESTO Y GEOMETRÍA:
APUNTES SOBRE LA ABSTRACCIÓN EN LAS AMÉRICAS
Dickerman, Leah (comp.). (2013) Inventing Abstraction, 1910-1925. Nueva York: The
22
Museum of Modern Art.
23
Ver Ramírez, Mari Carmen (comp.). (1992). El Taller Torres-García the School of the South
and its Legacy. Austin: University of Texas Press.
24
Esta fue una de las varias muestras significativas que se dedicaron a Torres-García en los
años 1980 y principios de los 1990. Ver además (1985) Torres-García: Grid-Pattern-Sign. Paris-
Montevideo, 1924-1944. Londres: Hayward Gallery.
25
Ramírez, Mari Carmen y Olea, Héctor (comp.). (2004) Inverted Utopias. Avant-Garde Art in
Latin America. New Haven y Londres: Yale University Press.
26
(2001) Geometric Abstraction. Latin American Art from the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros
Collection. Cambridge: Harvard Art Museums. y (2007) The Geometry of Hope. Latin American
Art from the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection. Austin: Blanton Museum of Art y Nueva
York: Grey Art Gallery.
27
(2010) The Constructivist Spirit: Abstract Art in South and North America, 1920s-50s.
Newark Museum. La curadora de esta muestra fue Mary Kate O’Hare.
28
(2011) Carlos Cruz-Diez. Color in Space and Time. Houston: Museum of Fine Arts Houston;
(2012) Soto. Paris and Beyond 1950-1970. Nueva York: The Grey Art Gallery, New York
University.
29
Fundacão de São Paulo. (1998). XXIV Bienal de São Paulo: núcleo histórico: antropofagia
e histórias de canibalismos. São Paulo. Ver en especial la sección del catálogo que discute
el núcleo de la muestra dedicado al arte abstracto, cuyo curador fur Paulo Herkenhoff,
“Monocromos”. 192-233.
30
(2011) Cold America. Geometric Abstraction in Latin America (1943-1973). Madrid:
Fundación Juan March.
31
Sobre Pettoruti, ver (2004) Sullivan, Edward J. y Perazzo, Nelly. Emilio Pettoruti (1892-1971).
Buenos Aires: LaMarca Editora. En lo relativo a sus dibujos tempranos, ver pp. 36-42.
32
El arte de Pettoruti luego de Europa derivaba de una variedad de fuentes, incluyendo el
Cubismo de Picasso y Juan Gris. El tema de algunas de sus obras más conocidas de los años
1920 y 1930 incluían notas de “color local” como músicos callejeros que recordaban el tango
y otros tipos de bandas callejeras populares. En su vejez, regresó a la abstracción pura aunque
estas obras se han considerado decorativas y no experimentales.
33
Para leer una discusión suscinta sobre estos movimientos, ver Gradowczyk, Mario H. y
Perrazo, Nelly. (2001). Abstract Art from the Río de la Plata. Nueva York: The Americas Society.
34
Mientras se escribe este ensayo, el Carnegie Museum of Art de Pittsburgh se encuentra
organizando una muestra a gran escala de la obra de Hélio Oiticica y el MoMA está preparando
una exposición de Lygia Clark.
35
Ver Franco, Ana. (2010) Ramírez Villamizar. Geometría y abstracción. Bogotá: Ediciones
Gamma. Ver también su disertación doctoral inédita (2012) “Edgar Negret and Eduardo
Ramírez Villamizar: Transnational Encounters and the Rise of Modernism in Colombian Art,
1944-1964”. New York University.
36
Para obtener información sobre Sanín, ver el catálogo de la muestra (2000) Fanny Sanín:
1987-1999, color y simetría. Bogotá: Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango.
37
De niña Fernández se mudó a Costa Rica. Se la considera una de las principales participantes
en los movimientos abstractos de aquel país.

170 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES 171
40
See the exhibition catalogue Risking the Abstract. Mexican Modernism and the Art of Gunter
Gerzso (Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 2003).
41
On foreign surrealists in Mexico see Martica Sawin, Surrealism in Exile and the Beginning
of the New York School (Cambridge, MIT Press, 1995), and, specifically on Paalen, Andreas
Neufert, “Wolfgang Paalen. The Totem as Sphinx,” in Dawn Ades (et al), eds. Surrealism in
Latin America. Visísimo Muerto (Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2012), 111-129.
42
See the exhibition catalogue Lilia Carrillo (Monterrey: Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de
Monterrey, 1992).
43
Marimar Benítez, “The Special Case of Puerto Rico,” in Luis Cancel (ed.) The Latin American
Spirit: Art and Artists in the United States, 1920-1970 (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1988),
72-105.
44
On Vicente as a teacher and his work with Albizu see Edward J. Sullivan, “ ‘Professor Esteban
Vicente’ Teaching and Creativity in His Art,” in the exhibition catalogue Esteban Vicente.
Concrete Improvisations. Collages and Sculptures (New York: Grey Art Gallery, 2011), 48-87.
45
Abby McEwen of the University of Maryland is currently at work on a monograph about
Albizu.
38
Majluf, Natalia. (2003) “Perú”. En Sullivan, E. J. Latin American Art in the Twentieth Century
(p. 197). London: Phaidon Press.
39
Ashton, Dore. (2003). Fernando de Szyslo. Barcelona: Ediciones Polígrafa.
Ver catálogo de la muestra (2003) Risking the Abstract. Mexican Modernism and the Art of
40
Gunter Gerzso. Santa Barbara Museum of Art.
41
Para conocer más acerca de los surrealistas extranjeros de México ver Sawin, M. (1995).
Surrealism in Exile and the Beginning of the New York School. Cambridge: MIT Press. y, en
especial sobre Paalen, ver Neufert, Andreas. (2012) “Wolfgang Paalen. The Totem as Sphinx.”
En Ades, Dawn et al. (comp.). Surrealism in Latin America. Visísimo Muerto (pp. 111-129). Los
Ángeles: Getty Publications.
42
Ver el catálogo de la muestra (1992) Lilia Carrillo. Monterrey: Museo de Arte Contemporáneo
de Monterrey.
43
Benítez, Marimar. (1988) “The Special Case of Puerto Rico”. En Cancel, Luis (comp.) The
Latin American Spirit: Art and Artists in the United States, 1920-1970 (p. 72-105). Nueva York:
Harry N. Abrams.
172 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
46
Noemí Ruiz y su espacio en el tiempo (San Juan: Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto BODY OF EVIDENCE: 57
Xavier Villaurrutia, “Manuel Álvarez Bravo,” in Manuel Álvarez Bravo: Fotografías, exh. cat.
Rico, 2007). THE MODERNISMS OF MANUEL ÁLVAREZ BRAVO (Mexico City: Sociedad de Arte Moderno, July 1945), 22. Also quoted in Esther Gabara, Errant
Modernism: The Ethos of Photography in Mexico and Brazil, (Durham, N.C. and London, U.K.:
47
Alas y raíces. Ada Balcácer (Santiago de los Caballeros: Centro Cultural Eduardo León Jiménez, 51
Quoted in Cristina Pacheco, “En los 80 años de Manuel Álvarez Bravo: ‘Solo hay que mirar Duke University Press, 2008), 196 and 225.
2011). hacia el futuro’,” Sábado, supplement of Unomasuno, 6 February 1982, 7; cited in John
Mraz, “Revolution and Culture (1910-1940),” Looking for Mexico: Modern Visual Culture and
58
Born Arthur Fellig, Weegee earned his nickname in reaction to his astonishingly quick arrival
48
It is important to note that there was a somewhat smaller but equally significant group of times at crime scenes. Though he covertly tuned into the police radio frequency for tips, he
geometric abstracts artists working in Havana at this time. Among the most outstanding were National Identity (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2009), 86.
was nevertheless perceived as possessing a kind of sixth sense and thus his name is a play on
Mario Carreño and Loló Soldevilla. 52
André Breton, “Second Manifesto of Surrealism (1930)” in Manifestoes of Surrealism, trans. the fortune telling capacities of the “Ouija” board.
49
See the exhibition catalogue Guido Llinás and Los Once After Cuba (Miami: the Art Museum Richard Seaver and Helen R. Lane (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1972), 123-24. 59
Folgarait,168.
at Florida International University, 1997). 53
Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida: Reflections on photography, trans. Richard Howard (New
York: Hill and Wang, 1981). Barthes refers to this as the noeme of photography.
60
Nissan N. Perez, Revelaciones: The Art of Manuel Álvarez Bravo (San Diego: Museum of
50
Discussed in the texts for the exhibition catalogue Carlos Alfonzo. Triumph of the Spirit: A Photographic Arts, 1990), 24-25.
Survey 1975-1991 (Miami Art Museum, 1997). 54
Andrea Noble, “When photography errs,” review of Errant Modernism: The Ethos of
Photography in Mexico and Brazil by Esther Gabara (Durham, N.C. and London, U.K.: Duke
61
Amanda Hopkinson, Manuel Álvarez Bravo (London and New York: Phaidon, 2002), 50.
University Press, 2008), in A Contracorriente, Vol. 8, No. 1 (2010): 444. 62
Rosalind Krauss, “Grids,” October, vol. 9 (Summer 1979): 61.
55
Leonard Folgarait, Seeing Mexico Photographed: The Work of Horne, Casasola, Modotti, and 63
Ibid., 60.
Álvarez Bravo (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008),174.
64
See Susan Kismaric, Manuel Álvarez Bravo, exh. cat. (New York: Museum of Modern Art,
56
Folgarait, 153. 1997), 37.
44
Sobre la labor docente de Vicente y su obra junto a Albizu ver Sullivan, Edward J. “‘Professor EL CUERPO DEL DELITO: 56
Folgarait. p. 153.
Esteban Vicente’ Teaching and Creativity in His Art,” en el catálogo de la muestra (2011) Esteban LOS MODERNISMOS DE MANUEL ÁLVAREZ BRAVO
Vicente. Concrete Improvisations. Collages and Sculptures. (48-87) New York: Grey Art Gallery.
57
Villaurrutia, Xavier. (Julio de 1945). “Manuel Álvarez Bravo”. En Manuel Álvarez Bravo:
51
Citado en Pacheco, Cristina. (6 de febrero de 1982). “En los 80 años de Manuel Álvarez Fotografías. Catálogo de la muestra. México: Sociedad de Arte Moderno. p. 22. También
45
Abby McEwen, profesora de la historia de arte de la University of Maryland, trabaja en la Bravo: “Solo hay que mirar hacia el futuro”. Sábado, suplemento de Unomasuno. p. 7; citado citado en Gabara, Esther. (2008). Errant Modernism: The Ethos of Photography in Mexico and
actualidad en una monografía sobre Albizu. Brazil. Durham y Londres: Duke University Press. pp. 196 y 225.
en Mraz, John. (2009). “Revolution and Culture (1910-1940)”. Looking for Mexico: Modern
46
(2007) Noemí Ruiz y su espacio en el tiempo. San Juan: Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Visual Culture and National Identity. Durham y Londres: Duke University Press. p. 86. 58
Weegee, cuyo nombre verdadero era Arthur Fellig, recibió su sobrenombre por la increíble
de Puerto Rico. 52
Breton, André. (1972). “Second Manifesto of Surrealism (1930)”. En Manifestoes of velocidad con la que llegaba a las escenas de los crímenes. Aunque en secreto escuchaba
Surrealism. Richard Seaver y Helen R. Lane (trad.). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. la frecuencia de radio policial en busca de datos y pistas, de todas formas parecía que tenía
47
(2011) Alas y raíces. Ada Balcácer. Santiago de los Caballeros: Centro Cultural Eduardo un sexto sentido; por ello es que su sobrenombre es un juego de palabras con el prodigioso
León Jiménez. pp. 123-24.
tablero Ouija, de similar pronunciación en inglés.
48
Resulta importante hacer notar que en esa época había un grupo de artistas abstractos
53
Roland Barthes. (1981). Camera Lucida: Reflections on photography. Richard Howard (trad.).
Nueva York: Hill and Wang. Barthes se refiere a esto como el noema de la fotografía.
59
Folgarait. p. 168.
geométricos un tanto menor pero de igual importancia que trabajaba en La Habana. Entre los
más excepcionales se encuentran Mario Carreño y Loló Soldevilla. 54
Andrea Noble. (2008). “When photography errs”. Reseña de Errant Modernism: The Ethos
60
Perez, Nissan N. (1990). Revelaciones: The Art of Manuel Álvarez Bravo. San Diego: Museum
of Photography in Mexico and Brazil, de Esther Gabara. Durham y Londres: Duke University of Photographic Arts. pp. 24-25.
Ver el catálogo de la muestra (1997) Guido Llinás and Los Once After Cuba. Miami: the Art
49
Museum at Florida International University. Press., en A Contracorriente, Vol. 8, No. 1 (2010): p. 444. 61
Hopkinson, Amanda. (2002). Manuel Álvarez Bravo. Londres y Nueva York: Phaidon. p. 50.
50
Discutido en los textos del catálogo de la muestra (1997) Carlos Alfonzo. Triumph of the Leonard Folgarait. (2008). Seeing Mexico Photographed: The Work of Horne, Casasola,
55
62
Krauss, Rosalind. (Verano de 1979). “Grids”. October, vol. 9: p. 61.
Spirit: A Survey 1975-1991. Miami Art Museum. Modotti, and Álvarez Bravo. New Haven: Yale University Press. p. 174.
PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES 173
65
Esther Gabara, Errant Modernism: The Ethos of Photography in Mexico and Brazil (Durham, 73
Ibid. 80
Gabara, 221. 87
The photograph was in fact not included in the exhibition. Due to its full frontal nudity,
N.C. and London, U.K.: Duke University Press, 2008), 222. Eastman Kodak refused to send it through the mail. See John Mraz, Looking for Mexico, 86,
74
Judiciales photographs refer to images created and used in the related practices of tabloid 81
Jessica S. McDonald, Photography in Mexico: Selected Works from the Collections of referring to Elena Poniatowska, “Manuel Álvarez Bravo (Quinta y ltima parte),” La Jornada, 26
66
Folgarait, 3. photography, law enforcement, and the judicial and penal systems of Mexico. SFMOMA and Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser, exh. cat. (San Francisco: San Francisco July 1990, 11.
Museum of Modern Art, 2012). Press release dated November 14, 2011.
67
Ibid., 171. 75
Ibid., 68. 88
Hopkinson, 62.
82
Walker Evans’ A Cypress Swamp, Florida (1941), for example, included in the exhibition Pan
68
Elena Poniatowska, Manuel Álvarez Bravo: El artista, su obra, sus tiempos, exh. cat. (Mexico 76
Ibid., 61. American Modernism, demonstrates eloquently how a simple setting may be endowed with 89
Gabara, 8.
City: Banco Nacional de México, 1991), 42-43. unexpected presence and poetic power through photography.
77
Both Strand and Modotti were influential on Álvarez Bravo and each spoke resolutely 90
Works by Rivera, Siqueiros and other significant Mexican muralists are included in the
69
John W. F. Dulles, Yesterday in Mexico: A Chronicle of the Revolution, 1919-36 (Austin: regarding what was to be expected from a “good” photograph. “Bad photography should 83
Frederick Kaufman, “An Essay of Memories: Based on Interviews with Manuel Álvarez Bravo, exhibition Pan American Modernism and provide a useful way of thinking about the entwined
University of Texas Press, 1961) 631; cited in Folgarait, 178. be understood as that which is produced, one could say, with a kind of inferiority complex, Winter 1996,” Manuel Álvarez Bravo: Photographs and Memories (New York: Aperture, 1997), contexts of muralism and socialism, as well as their impact on artists, such as Álvarez Bravo.
without valuing what photography has to offer as its very own.” Tina Modotti, first published 10.
70
Frente a Frente, segunda epoca, no. 1 (March 1936): 12-13. See Jesse Lerner, “Modernity with the title “On Photography” in Mexican Folkways, n. 4 (October – December 1929): 196- 91
Roberto Tejada, National Camera: Photography and Mexico’s Image Environment
Runs Amok,” in The Shock of Modernity: Crime Photography in Mexico City (Mexico: Turner, 198. This manifesto is reprinted in Jesus Nieto Sotelo and Elisa Lozano Álvarez, eds., Tina 84
Ibid., 5. (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2009), 106.
2007), 61-83 for further discussion of these publications and their graphic strategies. Modotti: Una nueva mirada, 1929 (Mexico City, Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes/
Centro de la Imagen, 2000), 32-33 and 126-127.
85
Jesse Lerner, The Maya of Modernism: Art Architecture, and Film (Albuquerque: University 92
Debroise, 227.
71
Frente a Frente, segunda epoca, no. 3 (May 1936):1. Calles was the President of Mexico of New Mexico Press, 2011), 130.
between 1924-1928 and continued to exert power in Mexican politics throughout the 1930s. 78
Olivier Debroise, Mexican Suite: A History of Photography in Mexico. Trans. Stella de Sa Rego
93
Roberto Tejada, 123.
He notably championed populist politics at the outset before becoming increasingly repressive (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001), 227.
86
Xavier Villaurrutia, Obras: poesía, teatro, prosas varias, crítica, (Mexico City: Fondo de
and violent as his administration turned towards anti-Catholic campaigns. Cultura Económica, 1966), 1057.
94
Gabara, 198.
79
Ibid., 228.
72
Jesse Lerner, The Shock of Modernity: Crime Photography in Mexico City (Mexico: Turner, 2007), 68.

63
Ibid., p. 60. 71
Frente a Frente, segunda época, n.° 3 (Mayo de 1936): p. 1 Calles fue presidente de México lo que la fotografía tiene para ofrecer en sí misma”. Modotti, Tina. (octubre-diciembre 1929). 83
Kaufman, Frederick. (1997). “An Essay of Memories: Based on Interviews with Manuel
entre 1924 y 1928 y continuó ejerciendo poder sobre los políticos mexicanos a lo largo de los Publicado por primera vez bajo el título “On Photography” en Mexican Folkways, n° 4. pp. Álvarez Bravo, Winter 1996”. Manuel Álvarez Bravo: Photographs and Memories. Nueva York:
64
Ver Kismaric, Susan. (1997) Manuel Álvarez Bravo. Catálogo de la muestra. Nueva York: 1930. Vale destacar que en un comienzo detentó una política populista pero luego se volvió 196-198. Este manifiesto fue reimpreso en Modotti, Tina. (2000).Una nueva mirada, 1929. Aperture. p. 10.
Museum of Modern Art. p. 37. cada vez más represiva y violenta cuando su gobierno comenzó campañas anticatólicas. Nieto Sotelo, Jesus y Lozano Álvarez, Elisa (comp.). México: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura
y las Artes/Centro de la Imagen. pp. 32-33 y 126-127.
84
Ibid., p. 5.
Gabara, Esther. (2008). Errant Modernism: The Ethos of Photography in Mexico and Brazil.
65
72
Lerner, Jesse. (2007). The Shock of Modernity: Crime Photography in Mexico City. México:
Durham y Londres: Duke University Press. p. 222. Turner. p. 68. 78
Debroise, Olivier. (2001). Mexican Suite: A History of Photography in Mexico. Stella de Sa
85
Lerner, Jesse. (2011). The Maya of Modernism: Art Architecture, and Film. Albuquerque:
Rego (trad.). Austin: University of Texas Press. p. 227. University of New Mexico Press. p. 130.
66
Folgarait. p. 3. 73
Ibid.
79
Ibid., p. 228.
86
Villaurrutia, Xavier (1966). Obras: poesía, teatro, prosas varias, crítica. México: Fondo de
67
Ibid., p. 171. 74
Las fotografías Judiciales son imágenes creadas y utilizadas en las prácticas relacionadas de Cultura Económica. p. 1057.
68
Poniatowska, Elena. (1991). Manuel Álvarez Bravo: El artista, su obra, sus tiempos. Catálogo la fotografía en la prensa amarilla, en la detección del delito, y en el sistema judicial y penal 80
Gabara. p. 221.
de México.
87
De hecho la fotografía no se incluyó en la muestra. Debido al desnudo frontal completo,
de la muestra. México: Banco Nacional de México. pp. 42-43. 81
McDonald, Jessica S. (2012). Photography in Mexico: Selected Works from the Collections Eastman Kodak se negó a enviarla por correo. Ver Mraz, John. Looking for Mexico. p. 86, en
69
Dulles, John W. F. (1961). Yesterday in Mexico: A Chronicle of the Revolution, 1919-36.
75
Ibid., p. 68. of SFMOMA and Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser. Catálogo de la muestra. San referencia a Elena Poniatowska. (26 de julio de 1990). “Manuel Álvarez Bravo (Quinta y última
Austin: University of Texas Press. p. 631; citado en Folgarait, p. 178. Francisco: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Notade prensa fechado 14 de noviembre parte)”. La Jornada. p. 11.
76
Ibid., p. 61. de 2011.
70
Frente a Frente, segunda epoca, n.° 1 (Marzo de 1936): pp. 12-13. Ver Lerner, Jesse. (2007).
88
Hopkinson. p. 62.
77
Tanto Strand como Modotti influenciaron a Álvarez Bravo y cada uno de ellos habló con 82
Por ejemplo, la obra A Cypress Swamp, Florida (1941), de Walker Evans, incluida en la
“Modernity Runs Amok”. En The Shock of Modernity: Crime Photography in Mexico City. México: seguridad sobre lo que se esperaba de una “buena” fotografía. “Se debe entender por mala 89
Gabara. p. 8.
Turner. pp. 61-83 para conocer más acerca de estas publicaciones y sus estrategias gráficas. muestra Pan American Modernism [Modernismo Panamericano] demuestra con elocuencia
fotografía la que se produce, diríamos, con una especie de complejo de inferioridad, sin valorar cómo un escenario simple se puede cargar de una presencia inesperada y de una fuerza
poética a través de la fotografía.

174 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES 175
95
See Otras Cosas: Mexican Modern Abstractions, exh. cat. (New York: Throckmorton Fine Art, Catalogue
2000). Exhibiton curated by Malin Barth and co-organized by the Mexican Cultural Institute
of New York. 98
Helena Benitez, Wifredo and Helena: My Life with Wifredo Lam, 1939-1950 (Lausanne:
Acatos Publisher, 1999), 16.
96
Walter Benjamin, “Little History of Photography,” in The Work of Art in the Age of Its
Technological Reproducibility and Other Writings on Media, eds. Bel Michael W. Jennings, 99
Andrea O’Reilly Herrera, Cuban Artists Across the Diaspora: Setting the Tent Against the
Brigid Doherty, and Thomas Levin, trans. Edmund Jephcott and Kingsley Shorter (Cambridge, House (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2011), 110.
Massachusetts and London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008),
293. Originally published in Die literarische Welt, September-October 1931. 100
Sara E. Cooper, “Quien no tiene de congo, tiene de carabalí: Representation of blackness
97
John Mraz, “Revolution and Culture (1910-1940),” Looking for Mexico: Modern Visual in works by Mirta Yáñez, Roberto Diago, y Armando Mariño,” Chasqui 39, no. 2 (2010),
Culture and National Identity (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2009), 89; See Susan 54-69.
Kismaric, Manuel Álvarez Bravo (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1997), 78. Unpublished
interview with Álvarez Bravo by John Mraz, 1988.
101
Dawn Ades, Art in Latin America: The Modern Era, 1820-1980 (New Haven and London:
Yale University Press, 1993), 160.

90
La muestra Pan American Modernism incluye trabajos de Rivera, Siqueiros y otros muralistas
mexicanos significativos y ofrece una manera útil de pensar los contextos interrelacionados del
muralismo y el socialismo, además del efecto que produjeron en artistas como Álvarez Bravo.
Tejada, Roberto. (2009). National Camera: Photography and Mexico’s Image Environment.
91
97
Mraz, John. (2009). “Revolution and Culture (1910-1940).” Looking for Mexico: Modern
Visual Culture and National Identity. Durham y Londres: Duke University Press. p. 89; Ver
Kismaric, Susan: (1997). Manuel Álvarez Bravo (New York: Museum of Modern Art. pp. 78.
Entrevista inédita con Álvarez Bravo realizada por John Mraz. 1988.

Minneapolis y Londres: University of Minnesota Press. p. 106.

92
Debroise. p. 227.
93
Roberto Tejada. p. 123.
94
Gabara. p. 198.
95
Ver (2000) Otras Cosas: Mexican Modern Abstractions. Catálogo de la muestra. Nueva
York: Throckmorton Fine Art. Muestra curada por Malin Barth y coorganizada por el Mexican
Cultural Institute [Instituto Cultural Mexicano] de Nueva York.
96
Benjamin, Walter. (2008). “Little History of Photography” En The Work of Art in the Age
of Its Technological Reproducibility and Other Writings on Media. Bel Michael W. Jennings,
Brigid Doherty yThomas Levin (comp.). Edmund Jephcott y Kingsley Shorter (trad.). Cambridge,
Massachusetts, y Londres, Inglaterra: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. p. 293.
Publicado originalmente en Die literarische Welt, septiembre-octubre 1931.

176 PAN AMERICAN MODERNISM: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES 177
178