Focus Latin America: Art is our Last Hope
Phoenix Art Museum,
Orientation Room - October 1 to November 23, 2014
MonOrchid Gallery, 214 East Roosevelt Street - December 5,
2014 to January 12, 2015
Mail art has a rich and varied history in Latin America. Arte correo (and arte correio)
began in the region in the mid-1960s with the pioneering efforts of such key figures
as Edgardo Antonio Vigo, Graciela Gutiérrez-Marx, and León Ferrari in Argentina;
Clemente Padín in Uruguay; Guillermo Deisler in Chile (and later Bulgaria);
Dámaso Ogaz in Venezuela; Manuel Marín, Pedro Friedeberg and Felipe Ehrenberg
in Mexico; and Leonhard Frank Duch, Unhandeijara Lisboa, and Paulo Bruscky in Brazil,
to name just a few.
On the occasion of the exhibition Paulo Bruscky: Art Is Our Last Hope
at Phoenix Art Museum in Arizona, Vanessa Davidson and John Held Jr. are co-curating
a mail art exhibition entitled Focus Latin America. Centered around the theme
“art is our last hope,” the curators seek to revive dialogue about the challenges facing
artists living in Latin America and the utopian projects they have historically undertaken
to fuse artistic practice with social engagement. Created in 1983, Bruscky’s artwork
Art Is Our Last Hope was envisioned as a billboard piece consisting solely of those five words. How have art and life in Latin America changed since he issued that proclamation? What meanings does this notion engender in Latin America in the 21st century?
View all submissions received on Tumblr!
Exhibition Programming
International Mail Art Symposium: October 8th, 2014
Singer Hall, Phoenix Art Museum
This exhibition will be accompanied by an International Mail Art Symposium with
a special focus on Latin America. This event will take place at Phoenix
Art Museum on October 8th, 2014, from 6 to 8 pm in Singer Hall, with
the participation of John Held Jr., Mauricio Marcin Álvarez, and Vanessa
Davidson. The symposium is free and open to the public.Make It! - October 15, 5:30 p.m.
Great Hall, Phoenix Art MuseumCreate your own mail art inspired by the artworks mailed to the Museum from around
the globe to comprise our current exhibition Focus Latin America: Art Is Our Last Hope!
Artist Talk: Paulo Bruscky - October 29th, 7 p.m.
Singer Hall, Phoenix Art MuseumArtist Paulo Bruscky will present a fascinating lecture on his work spanning 5 decades.
photos courtesy of Phoenix Art Museum and the artists
