Manifestos and Polemics in Latin American Modern Art

Bringing together sixty-five primary documents vital to understanding the history of art in Latin America since 1900, Patrick Frank shows how modern art developed in Latin America in this important new work complementing his previous book, Twentieth-Century Art of Latin America, Revised and Expanded Edition. Besides autobiographies, manifestos, interviews, and artists’ statements, the editor has assembled material from videos, blogs, handwritten notes, flyers, lectures, and even an after-dinner speech. As the title suggests, many of the texts have a polemical or argumentative cast. In these documents, many of which appear in English for the first time, the artists themselves describe what they hope to accomplish and what they see as obstacles. Designed to show how modern art developed in Latin America, the documents begin with early modern expressions in the early twentieth century, then proceed through the avant-garde of the 1920s, the architectural boom of midcentury, and the Cold War years, and finally conclude with the postmodern artists in the new century.