Latin American Artists Reinvent Their Histories
The New York Times Our critic says Chosen Memories at MoMA is one of the most stirring recent collection shows. The theme of change and instability is a binding thread.
The land of the brave and home of the free has always been bearish about borders, about who gets in, who stays out. Politically were feeling that tension hugely now. And its always been evident culturally in, for example, the kind of art our museums have brought through the door.
The Museum of Modern Arts long but sporadic pattern of collecting 20th century Latin American art offers a constructive gauge. Early in it favored art that it seemed to view as a species of exotica: folkloric, surreal, evidence that south of the border was wild, barely-modern terrain.
After World War II, with cultural exchange increasingly used as a diplomatic tool, MoMA wanted further engagement with new Latin American art, but now art of a kind that looked to be made by people like us that is, work that appeared to carry clear evidence of European DNA, like geometric abstraction.
