Creating Illusions: Geometric Abstraction & Op Art

You are invited to view the individual lectures of the course "A brief history of art in Latin America in the XX century". 

If you are interested in the whole course and decide to purchase it after your class, the price of this class will be discounted from the full price of the course. You will receive access to the recordings of the previous classes. 

About this Lecture: 

In Latin America, geometric abstraction arose as an apolitical expression that allowed artists to understand art as a form of knowledge to comprehend the world through reason and order. Although their investigations and aesthetic results were vastly different from one another, each movement arose in a particular moment of their country's history characterised by economic development, short political stability and a thrive for industrial modernisation. This lecture will study the consequences of these investigations and how they diverted from the European interpretation of Geometric abstraction and Op art by introducing a new and unique element to their artworks. This new element would become a vital ingredient of the new direction that artists would take once their country’s political and economic stability started to crumble.

About the Course:

This 6-week course will provide you with an overview of key historical elements that shaped the Latin-American art scene of the 20th Century. Despite the current debate over the use of the term "Latin American Art", art-historian Daniela Galan will guide an in-depth critical discussion on the patterns, dissonances, similarities and tensions that determined Latin America’s importance in the global contemporary art scene. Through the analysis of 50 artworks, we will study concepts such modernism; post-colonialism; the relationship between social realism and politics; universalism, primitivism and the construction of the fantastic; abstraction vs concretism; among others.

Each lesson which will include a one-hour lecture, one-hour Q&A discussion, and will be accompanied by a suggested reading list.

Session 1: Universalism or National Identity?

Session 2: Dream or Reality? Dismantling the fantastic.

Session 3: Chi'ixi: Indigenism or the gesture of returning the gaze.

Session 4: Creating Illusions: Geometric Abstraction & Op Art.

Session 5: Figuration, Expressionism and Environments

Session 6: Conceptualism as a political device.