Zero Cruzeiro
Cildo Meireles, 1978
© Essex Collection
of Art from Latin America
Research Context
An Emergent Paradigm
"Latin American Art and the UK", an AHRC Speculative research project carried out at the University of Essex in 2007-8, exemplifies an emergent interest in viewing Latin American art history in terms of extra-regional contexts of action and reception.
This coincided with other UK-based initiatives such as Tate Modern's publication "Oiticica in London" (Guy Brett & Luciano Figueiredo, eds, Tate, 2007) exploring Brazilian artist Hélio Oiticica's reception in London and coinciding with "The Body of Color" retrospective exhibiton, as well as the bilingual publication and conference "Transnational Correspondence" organized by the University of the Arts London, Federal University Rio de Janeiro and Tate Modern.
Elsewhere, the two-day seminar "Pierre Restany's Half Century" (AICA, Paris, 2006) drew participation from scholars researching the French critic's engagement with Latin America, while the exhibition "The Geometry of Hope" (Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, 2007) included Paris amongst six "Latin American Cities".
Another recent exhibition "The Age of Discrepancies. Art and Visual Cultural in Mexico 1968-1997" (MUCA, 2006) presented new research on Mexico's role in international conceptual groups Fluxus, and Andrea Giunta's "Avante-Garde, Internationalism, and Politics" (Paidos 2001 & 2003, Siglo XXI 2008, DUP, 2007) analyzed the Argentinean avante-garde with particular reference to its European and US dissemination.
Institutional Contexts
The Department of Art History & Theory, (now incorporated into the School of Philosophy and Art History) at the University of Essex, and TrAIN, the Research Centre for Transnational Art Identity and Nation, at the University of the Arts London, have formed a partnership of two complementary contexts, itself indicative of how cognate interests have developed from within different UK research cultures.
At Essex, the Latin American Centre (LAC) and the University of Essex Collection of Latin American Art (UECLAA) have shaped how Latin American art is researched. Staff and students approach the subject informed by collecting and area studies as well as Art History, typically focussing on countries afforded less recognition elsewhere.
Research into Latin American art at TrAIN focuses on its transnational history, supported by a critical consideration of theories stemming from post-colonial studies and their pertinance to artistic practice, and by a University-wide expertise in practice-based research. Concentrating on pratices and systems of reception operating transnationally, TrAIN implicitly challenges the notion of discrete national or regional canons of art.
