Dream or Reality? Dismantling the fantastic

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. 

About this Lecture: 

There is a tendency to construct the narrative behind Latin American Art history from a Eurocentric perspective. Its artists, movements and aesthetic proposals have usually been analysed through this lens, that has framed most of their work according to European and North American parameters. Although most of them rejected their affiliation to certain movements such as surrealism or cubism, we still read their work today within these standards. This lecture will study the work of artists that have been frequently categorised within these movements, such as Remedios Varo, Leonor Fini and Wifredo Lam, to understand the dramatic difference between their proposal and the ones from their European counterparts.

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.