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Indepth Arts News:
"ULTRABAROQUE:
ASPECTS OF POST-LATIN AMERICAN ART"
2000-09-24 until 2001-01-07
Museum of Contemporary Art, La Jolla
San Diego, CA,
USA United States of America
UltraBaroque: Aspects of Post-Latin
American Art, organized by the Museum of
Contemporary Art, San Diego, explores the
influence and impact of the Baroque on a
broad range of contemporary artistic
expressions in the Americas. The exhibition
presents a critical reevaluation of the
Baroque and its use as an important cultural
metaphor in the work of contemporary Latin
American artists.
UltraBaroque features sixteen of the most
dynamic and innovative young artists working
in the Americas today, whose work is well
known in their own countries and abroad but,
in many cases, not previously seen in the
United States. Their artwork encompasses a
tremendous diversity of formal endeavors
including painting, sculpture, photography,
video, installation, and an array of
multi-media works. The artists’ wealth of
ideas and attitudes is equally rich, from
highly personal concerns to the exploration of
the most relevant social and political topics,
and from powerful engagements of regional
histories and memories to humorous and irreverent critiques of contemporary
global culture. The exhibition’s array of themes, diversity of interests, and hybrid
media reflect not only contemporary inter-national artistic languages but also the
unique interweaving of cultures, races, and languages that characterize the
Americas today.
The designation UltraBaroque is in and of itself a new hybrid, created for this
exhibition to reference a very contemporary, postmodern, exuberant visual culture
with inextricable ties to an historical period, style, and narrative. Fully aware of the
problematic history of the Baroque in Latin America, which has been an ongoing
concern for over 300 years, UltraBaroque both critiques and recuperates this
integral concept, and examines its significance in contemporary life. In the fusion
of global villages, economies, and networks that is redefining our future in ways
we don’t yet fully understand, the Baroque resurfaces as a model for coming to
terms with the challenges presented by this transitional era. The roster of artists in
UltraBaroque includes: Miguel Calderón (Mexico), María Fernanda Cardoso
(Colombia/Australia), Rochelle Costi (Brazil), Einar and Jamex de la Torre
(Mexico/United States), Arturo Duclos (Chile), José Antonio Hernández-Diez
(Venezuela/Spain), Yishai Jusidman (Mexico), Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle (United
States), Lia Menna Barreto (Brazil), Franco Mondini-Ruiz (United States), Rubén
Ortiz-Torres (Mexico/United States), Nuno Ramos (Brazil), Valeska Soares
(Brazil/United States), Meyer Vaisman (Venezuela/United States/Spain), and
Adriana Varejão (Brazil). The exhibition co-curators are Elizabeth Armstrong, MCA
Senior Curator, and independent curator Victor Zamudio-Taylor.
In conjunction with the exhibition, the Museum will publish a 212-page fully
illustrated, bilingual catalogue that will elaborate on the show’s theme and
underlying ideas and offer an interdisciplinary history of art and culture in Latin
America. The publication has three major components: individual entries on each
of the artists in the exhibition; cross-cultural essays addressing historical
precedents and contemporary issues raised by the exhibition; and a “sourcebook”
of key texts that constitute UltraBaroque’s artistic, literary, and intellectual heritage.
This section of the book features excerpts from historical travel accounts of the
colonial period, a selection of aesthetic treatises on Baroque concepts and
devices, texts from Baroque and Neo-Baroque poets and writers in Latin America,
and recent theories on the legacy of the Baroque in postmodern, contemporary
culture. Authors for the publication include Paulo Herkenhoff, Director of the XXIV
Bienal de São Paulo and Adjunct Curator at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA),
New York; Serge Gruzinski, Research Director at the Center for Latin American
Studies, the University of Paris; Victor Zamudio-Taylor, independent art scholar,
critic and co-curator of the exhibition; and Elizabeth Armstrong, MCA Senior
Curator.
UltraBaroque: Aspects of Post-Latin American Art will be on view from September
24, 2000 through January 7, 2001. Following its debut in San Diego,
UltraBaroque will then travel to the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth; San
Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Miami Art
Museum; and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.
IAMGE:
Miguel Calderón:
Employee of
the Month (#1),
1998, C-Print, 79 3/4 X 50 IN.,
Courtesy the artist and
Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York
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