Por Um Fio
Ana Maria Maiolino, 1974-2004
© Essex Collection
of Art from Latin America
Meeting Margins
Transnational Art in Latin American and Europe
1950-1978
Meeting Margins is a research project based in the School of Philosophy and Art History at the University of Essex, and in collaboration with TrAIN, the Research Centre for Transnational Art, Identity and Nation, at the University of the Arts London. The project runs from January 2009 to December 2011 and is funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC).
Meeting Margins proposes a new approach to the study of Latin American art that questions the role traditionally ascribed to New York as the dominant force in modern art during the post-war years. Investigation is instead focussed on artistic encounters between Europe and Latin America, as well as intra-Latin American exchanges.
Using case studies from 1950-78, Meeting Margins asks:
- What contribution did Latin American artists make to avant-garde activity in Europe after the perceived ascendance of New York over Paris?
- How did exchanges between Latin America and Europe relate to contemporaneous intra-Latin American exchanges?
- What role did the US play in provoking or supporting such connections and how did this role shift according to political circumstances?
- What methods and media were used to sustain these connections?
- Which countries, artists or practices are excluded from such an approach?
The project is being conducted by Valerie Fraser and María Iñigo Clavo, at the University of Essex, and Michael Asbury and Isobel Whitelegg, at TrAIN. This research team is supported by a panel of external advisors.
Throughout the project, a program of events, seminars and research forums, is designed to stimulate the development of research, promote the exchange of ideas, and to disseminate findings. These culminate in October 2010 with the Meeting Margins Final Conference.
Details of all Meeting Margins events can be found on this website, along with further project information. Visitors wishing to receive regular updates on all events and news can join our mailing list.
Our resources section contains a list of key texts identified by the researchers as being particularly relevant to their investigations, a more general project bibliography, and a list of useful links.
