Search results for ""Author Mari Carmen Ramírez""

Exploring cutting-edge techniques and daring themes, many Latin American artists seamlessly intertwine aesthetic refinement with biting critiques of social and political issues. Contingent Beauty assembles major works by more than 20 such artists who have made significant contributions to the global art scene over the past 30 years. Encompassing a variety of media—including painting, drawing, sculpture, and video—the majority of these innovative works are culled from the holdings of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, which possesses an exceptional collection of contemporary Latin American art. These objects, while formally sophisticated and alluring, are not ends unto themselves but rather tools intended to heighten viewers’ awareness of critical factors that shape the lives of these artists, such as poverty, gender, political repression, the war on drugs, and globalization. In some instances, the “beauty” of these works is contingent upon cultural interpretation. Tensions between beauty and violence, seduction and repulsion, elegance and brutality contribute to the enduring impact of this art and provide a revelatory experience for readers.Distributed for the Museum of Fine Arts, HoustonExhibition Schedule:The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (11/22/2015–02/28/2016)

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In 2001, Eduardo Costantini, the founder of the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA), began collecting artworks from across Latin America. Today, the renowned Costantini Collection consists of more than two hundred works, encompassing drawings, paintings, sculptures, and objects by seventy-eight artists from various countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, Uruguay, and Venezuela.In the spirit of cultural exchange, MALBA and the International Center for the Arts of the Americas (ICAA) at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, are joining together to exhibit fifty of these works, spanning from the beginning of the 20th century to the present day. Among the celebrated artists represented in this beautiful book are Frida Kahlo, Wifredo Lam, Roberto Matta, and Diego Rivera. Also of note are works by Tarsila do Amaral, Rafael Barradas, Antonio Berni, and Alfredo Guttero. An interview by Mari Carmen Ramírez with Costantini sheds light on his philosophy of collecting, and texts by Marcelo Pacheco offer insights into the broad range of modern and contemporary art created in Latin America.Distributed for the Museum of Fine Arts, HoustonExhibition Schedule:The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (04/22/12–08/05/12)

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Home — signaling a dwelling, residence or place of origin — embodies one of the most basic concepts for understanding an individual or group within a larger physical and social environment. Yet home has been a little noted, although prevalent, feature in art since the 1950s, a period in which artists challenged the traditional “object” of the visual arts through the use of material and media culture, new forms, and performative actions and processes. This volume explores works by diverse U.S. Latino and Latin American artists whose engagement with the concept of “home” provides the basis for an alternative narrative of post-war art. Their work brings together an impressive array of formal languages, conceptual strategies, and art historical references with the varied social concerns characterizing both the postwar period in the Americas and an emerging global economy impacting day-to-day life. The artists featured in this volume engage home as both concept and artifact. This can be seen in the use of building fragments or excisions (Gordon Matta-Clark, Gabriel de la Mora, and Leyla Cárdenas), household furniture (Raphael Montañez Ortiz, Beatriz González, Doris Salcedo, Amalia Mesa-Bains, Guillermo Kuitca), and personal possessions (Carmen Argote, María Teresa Hincapié, Camilo Ontiveros), and also in the use of coca leaves as a material base of the American Dream and its economic exchange with Colombia (Miguel Angel Rojas). Within more representational work, home is the re-creation of fraught domiciles (Abraham Cruzvillegas, Pepón Osorio, Daniel J. Martinez), a collage of spaces, styles, and materials (Antonio Berni, Andrés Asturias, Jorge Pedro Nuñez, Miguel Angel Ríos, Juan Sanchez), and a juxtaposition of bodies and place (Laura Aguilar, Myrna Báez, Johanna Calle, Perla de León, Ramiro Gomez, Jessica Kairé, Vincent Valdez). In more conceptual work, home is all these things reduced to form—a floor plan (Luis Camnitzer, León Ferrari, María Elena González, Guillermo Kuitca), a catalog of objects (Antonio Martorell, Hincapié), or a housing development plan (Livia Corona Benjamin, Martinez). In the end, home is a journey without arrival (Allora y Calzadilla, Luis Cruz Azaceta, Christina Fernandez, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Julio César Morales, Teresa Serrano). Home—So Different, So Appealing reveals the departures and confluences that continue to shape US Latino and Latin American art and expands our appreciation of these artists and their work.

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