Book Series Art History (Outside a Series)

Visualizing the Americas

Essays in Honor of Edward J. Sullivan

Ilona Katzew, Rachel Kaplan (eds)

  • Pages: 355 p.
  • Size:220 x 280 mm
  • Illustrations:30 b/w, 270 col.
  • Language(s):English
  • Publication Year:2026


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Through focused case studies on specific movements, artworks, institutions, artists, and techniques, the original essays in this volume span six decades of production in Latin America and its diasporas.

BIO

Ilona Katzew is the curator and department head of Latin American art at LACMA, and is a widely recognized expert in her field. She formed LACMA’s notable collection of Spanish American art and has enhanced its modern and contemporary collection with over 500 acquisitions. A prolific author, her books include, among others, Casta Painting: Images of Race in Eighteenth-Century Mexico (2004), Contested Visions in the Spanish Colonial World (2011), Painted in Mexico, 1700–1795 (2017), and Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America (2022).

Rachel Kaplan is associate curator of Latin American art at LACMA. She curated Pressing Politics: Revolutionary Graphics from Mexico and Germany (2022) and wrote its catalogue, both in collaboration with Erin Sullivan Maynes. She is also the curator of the traveling exhibition Rufino Tamayo: Innovation and Experimentation (2019, 2024), and the author of the accompanying publication, Rufino Tamayo: The Essential Figure. She received her PhD in 2015 from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University.

Summary

Organized as a tribute to the distinguished art historian Edward J. Sullivan, this compelling volume brings together fresh perspectives on Latin American and Latinx art. Its seventeen essays illuminate often overlooked artists, mediums, geographies, and traditions with new research and insightful analysis. The volume is arranged into four thematic sections. "Hemispheric Modernisms" addresses how artists across the Americas have engaged with global art movements and transnational networks while responding to their local contexts and concerns. "Politics of Images" focuses on images embedded with overt or covert political meanings, as well as works that address the politics of identity. "Museums on Display" unravels the role of museums in current debates in the field. How works are selected and by whom, the contexts in which they are displayed, and the many implications of omissions from institutional spaces are some of the critical issues discussed. "Women at the Center" foregrounds the work of female artists. The essays in this section show how women’s creativity has been subjected to myopic criticism, lay bare the endemic barriers that have accounted for the invisibility of artists, and map out a more inclusive future. Rounding out the volume is a revealing conversation with Sullivan about his role in shaping the field and his reflections on the future of Latin American art during times of change. Designed to be engaging for readers new to the field, longtime aficionados, and specialists, Visualizing the Americas opens up unexpected pathways through the expanding canon of this increasingly popular field.

With contributions by Miriam M. Basilio Gaztambide, Denise Birkhofer, Vanessa K. Davidson, Esther Gabara, Michele Greet, Anna Indych-López, Rachel Kaplan, Ilona Katzew, Lynda Klich, Adele Nelson, Sean Nesselrode Moncada, Luis Pérez-Oramas, Ana María Reyes, Julián Sánchez González, Joseph Shaikewitz, Edward J. Sullivan, Susanna V. Temkin, and Madeline Murphy Turner.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface and Acknowledgments

Ilona Katzew

Visualizing the Americas

Edward J. Sullivan in conversation with Ilona Katzew and Joseph Shaikewitz

 

Hemispheric Modernisms

Ghosts and Duende Among Dolls: Armando Reverón and the Floral Allegory of Painting

Luis Pérez-Oramas

The Past as Prerogative: Precolombinismo and Ancestralismo in Andean Art

Michele Greet

The Curious Matter of Venezuelan Informalism

Sean Nesselrode Moncada

Poetry, Indeterminacy, Agency, and "Purposeless Play": Edgardo Antonio Vigo’s Proyectos a realizar

Vanessa K. Davidson

 

The Politics of Images

Raw and Wrought: The Malleability of the Woodcut in Postrevolutionary Mexico

Lynda Klich

Fighting with Clenched Fists: Luis Arenal Bastar’s Artistic and Activist Networks

Rachel Kaplan

Fernando Botero and La Reconquista in Colombia

Ana María Reyes

The Neo-Mexicanist Assemblages of Adolfo Patiño

Denise Birkhofer

Sidewalk, Stoop, Bodega: Juan Sánchez, Lucia Hierro, and Nueva York’s Diasporic Spatial Politics

Anna Indych-López

 

Museums on Display

Things That Shine, Things That Dazzle, Things That Travel

Ilona Katzew

Puerto Rican Prelude: The First Comprehensive Exhibition of Contemporary Puerto Rican Artists in New York

Susanna V. Temkin

Latin American Artists of the Twentieth Century (MoMA, 1993): Surveying an Emerging Canon

Miriam M. Basilio Gaztambide

Framing the Museum: Sandra Gamarra Heshiki Pictures Restitution

Esther Gabara

Women at the Center

Unplaceable Intimacies: Nahui Olin’s Mexico City

Joseph Shaikewitz

Fayga Ostrower’s Print Work: The Labor of Motherhood, Abstraction, and Brazilian Cultural Diplomacy

Adele Nelson

A Thirteen-Dimensional Mexican Woman: Trece señoritas (1983) at the Teatro La Capilla

Madeline Murphy Turner

Memória de ouro, corpo cerâmico: The Enduring Art of Aurea Oliveira Santos

Julián Sánchez González