VISUAL ARTS

Home > VISUAL ARTS > TRANSactions: Contemporary Latin American and Latino Art

• Tweet
• Outlook
• ICAL
• PRINT
• Email
• Feedback

• RSS

• Official Website
• Add to My Favorites

TRANSactions: Contemporary Latin American and Latino Art

Presented by Weatherspoon Art Museum at Weatherspoon Art Museum

June 21-September 28, 2008

Add Review/Comment

“TRANSactions: Contemporary Latin American and Latino Art” is the most extensive and significant exhibition of this material ever presented in North Carolina. It is also the first to look closely at the connections between Latinos working in the United States and artists from Latin America. The exhibition features the work of more than forty highly acclaimed artists working over the last two decades; they hail from the U.S., Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina, Guatemala, and Cuba. Their artwork, like the term “Latin American,” is far from homogenous: It moves across and beyond borders that are geographical, social, cultural, and aesthetic. Diversity and hybridity are the defining characteristics of the art and artists included in “TRANSactions.” For example, María Fernanda Cardoso's installation of artificial flowers pays homage to those who have “disappeared” in her native Colombia. James Luna, who is part Mexican and part Native American, asks us to consider how his dual heritage combines in a complex but still singular identity. Perry Vasquez translates the 1970s icon, Mr. Natural, into a stereotyped Mexican figure in his multimedia work, “Keep on Crossin'.” As exhibition curator Stephanie Hanor writes in an introduction to the exhibition catalogue, “Contemporary art from Latin America now forms an intrinsic part of the international art arena. While engaged in a global dialogue, these artists explore and parody cultural locations and identities even as they uphold and transgress them.” This nationally traveling exhibition has been organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego, which has one of the finest collections of Latino and Latin American art in this country. A bilingual, fully illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibition. Educational and outreach programs at the Weatherspoon Art Museum will include a film series, lectures, bilingual labels, Family Day, and a Summer Solstice Party to mark the exhibition's opening on June 20.