Resisting Categories

Olea, Héctor; Ramírez, Mari Carmen; Ybarra-Frausto, Tomás

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Resisting Categories

Héctor Olea (Editor), Mari Carmen Ramírez (Editor), Tomás Ybarra-Frausto (Editor)

Resisting Categories: Latin American and/or Latino?

AMERICA: FROM DISCOVERY TO INVENTION, from theoretical concoction to practical construct… We have been the subjects of a vast inquiry teeming with both questions and assertions ...

Author

Héctor Olea (Editor), Mari Carmen Ramírez (Editor), Tomás Ybarra-Frausto (Editor)

PublisherThe Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Related print edition pages: pp.40-46

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00102.008

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-17264

Resisting Categories

~HÉCTOR OLEA, MARI CARMEN RAMÍREZ, TOMÁS YBARRA-FRAUSTO

America: from discovery to invention, from theoretical concoction to practical construct. . . . We have been the subjects of a vast inquiry teeming with both questions and assertions. We are at once objects and subjects of that riddle. The one that geopolitics turned into a region, the one that fostered and nurtured the quest for all sorts of utopias, the one that led to experiments with vicissitudes galore, striving to locate or identify us within endless terms, or even trying to fit us with a “proper” name. In the face of such multifarious accounts, Volume I of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston/International Center for the Arts of the Americas Critical Documents of 20th-Century Latin American and Latino Art series spans huge distances in time and encompasses two centuries of “Latin-ness,” as well as many circumstances in that complex space—full of both surmises and surprises—occupied and perpetuated by “America.”

During the course of the twentieth century—most particularly since the post-World War II period—the categories of “Latin American” and “Latino” art evolved drastically. Beginning as mere descriptors of the under-appreciated visual arts expression of a marginal (notwithstanding continental) region or of an ensemble of communities within the United States, these terms eventually became synonymous with hot commodities within global artistic circuits. Such a meteoric rise (in both visibility and economic value) of these artistic manifestations prompted heated debates regarding the presumed geopolitical and sociocultural specificities implied by these terms. Scholars, critics, art historians, artists, and other intellectuals have repeatedly posed several questions that reveal a huge gap in our understanding of the issues comprised by the phenomenon that is “Latin American” or “Latino” art. This volume revisits many of these questions and, in fact, strives to push this inquiry to another level, asking: Does the category “Latin American art” apply to particular traits of a culturally and geographically defined yet extremely heterogeneous region? Or conversely, is the subject just one more manifestation of “universal” art? By the same token, is “Latino” art a regional expression or yet another manifestation of a consumer-oriented, globalized art world? Does the broad use of these terms “ghettoize” this art—as some critics claim—or does it denote a certain resilience associated with long-standing struggles for a presumed cultural or regional “identity”? More importantly, in the aftermath of Postmodernism—with its trenchant critique of essentialisms, overarching relativism, and unbridled subordination to market values—is the attempt to thoroughly debate the notions of “Latin American” or “Latino” art still relevant? Furthermore, could it be that the “ascent” in prestige of these artistic categories over the last two decades has rendered these debates obsolete?

The paradox at the core of this situation becomes even clearer when we consider that attempts to elaborate responses to the above questions invariably lead to dead ends and worn-out clichés. In other words, contrary to what is implied by these terms, there is no such thing as “Latin American” or “Latino” art; there is only art produced by individual artists in more than twenty countries and a plethora of diverse communities that make up the region as a whole. Why then the insistence on defining or pigeonholing the cultural and artistic works of the region under all-encompassing appellations? In our view, despite the considerable attention accorded to these labels in recent times, the understanding and appreciation (or lack thereof) of Latin American and Latino art worldwide continues to be plagued by ignorance, platitudes, and even crude stereotypes, all of which hinder enduring validation as legitimate fields of research, study, and collecting. As far as we, the organizers of the volume, are concerned, this misunderstanding is rooted in the origins and histories of the art under consideration. For this reason, a deeply probing, broad-based inquiry into the foundations—historic, cultural, political, and ideological—of the coining and subsequent use and transformation(s) of these terms and their meanings is not only pertinent but extremely timely. The fact that, as of today, Latinos constitute the fastest growing minority in the United States—with a projected rise to 25% of the U.S. population by the year 2050—further justifies and indeed compels the need to pursue the task at hand.

Not surprisingly, the defiance of categories (a strategy underscored by the present volume’s title) lies at the very root of the history of a colonized and exploited sociopolitical and cultural enclave that, on one hand, comprises more than twenty countries as well as a vast intermingling of ethnicities and nationalities; and, on the other hand, stands for a heterogeneous mix of individuals that includes both native-born U.S. citizens (Chicanos, Mexican Americans, Nuyori-cans, Puerto Ricans, and Cuban Americans) as well as a vast array of immigrants from Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean. Without question, despite the differences that separate them, Latin Americans and Latinos share a history of colonialism as well as a long-standing, common struggle to define their identity against hegemonic powers. This shared experience lends a rather unique set of qualities to the topic under investigation, providing an appropriate and a provocative starting point for our inquiry. Unlike other regions of the world, Latin America resulted from a fortuitous “discovery” that, from the very outset, led to all sorts of misinterpretations [SEE CHAPTER I]. Centuries of colonial domination by European nations placed this New World geopolitical bloc on an unequal axis of exchange with respect to the Old World, its distant yet incontrovertible relative.

The term “Latin America” was first introduced in France in 1862 as a means to implement the imperial (religious, economic, and commercial) ambitions of Napoleon the III in the region which were initiated by the invasion of Mexico [SEE DOCUMENT I.2.1]. Prior to this turning point, what we conceive today as “Latin America” was known to its inhabitants as “America,” “Hispanic America,” “Ibero America,” or “Native America.” A century later, the visible entrance of Latinos into the U.S. political debate and national consciousness in the 1960s involved the Latino quest for an equal share of the notion of America itself. Rejecting classifications such as “Hispanic” or “Spanish American”—indeed, any hyphenated form of “American”—Latinos saw and continue to see themselves as “Mestizos”— a cultural fusion of their Spanish, Indian, and African ancestry. This community of communities has been a part of the American experience since even before the founding of the United States. It may seem incongruous to want to define or to carve out a Latino identity within such heterogeneous conditions that must encompass both people born in Latin America as well as their U.S.-born and raised counterparts, but the need to do so is undeniable and persistent. Nevertheless, as with “Latin America,” the multifarious definition(s) of Latino identity/identities are by their very nature fluid and flexible.

Within this framework, Resisting Categories: Latin American and/or Latino? aims to contribute to the broadest understanding of an extremely complex and fascinating phenomenon by focusing on how the notions of “Latin American” and “Latino” have been conceptualized from the sixteenth century until the end of the first decade of the present century; that is, from the expansive epoch of “discovery” through the equally elastic era of globalization. By means of one hundred and seventy-eight carefully selected and annotated documents written by artists, critics, journalists, writers, and cultural theoreticians, a concerted effort was made to track the emergence, consolidation, and calling into question of these terms vis-à-vis the heterogeneous social and cultural contexts that generated them, as well as to bring to the fore the critical mass of writings they inspired. In this way, both anticipated and unexpected affinities, differences, continuities, ruptures, and even paradoxes emerged as we considered and arranged within a critical framework our wide-ranging authors’ pursuits of the slippery and ambiguous definitions of Latin American or Latino art. Going beyond issues of nomenclature or identity, however, an underlying premise of this volume is that Latin American and Latino art constitute an intellectual field (in the terms of French poststructuralist Pierre Bourdieu) with its own laws, agents, and intrinsic dynamics. Moreover, the articulation of this field goes hand in hand with the role intellectuals played in the ongoing, dynamic evolution of these societies. By and large, this role has been described in terms of a specific figure associated with this region: the pensador—that is, “the man of ideas” who writes about topical issues from the perspective of an erudite generalist or even a scholar. In the United States, the views of these intellectuals were promulgated and popularized for Latino audiences through the Spanish language press. The ubiquitous role of the pensador in the debates about Latin American and Latino identity and art crisscrosses with those assumed by several other key agents of the area whose writings are also highlighted in this volume; this latter group includes the avant-garde artist-theoretician, the art critic, and the curator. Worth noting in this regard is the active participation of women intellectuals in the debates surrounding Latin American and Latino identity, particularly during the second half of the twentieth century. Together with the contributions of their male counterparts, these writers were instrumental to delineating the basic coordinates of the extremely flexible and dynamic Latin American and Latino intellectual field.

The texts gathered in this volume shed new light on the shift from defining to defying these categories associated with Latin American and Latino art. Within this boundless framework—and contrary to the negative connotations of these terms that still persist—perhaps the most important idea set forth in these pages is that since the late nineteenth century, there has been an ongoing and consistent—if highly problematic and even contentious—attempt to think about the art of the region in transnational, continental terms. The identification of or quest for common ground in both the political and cultural realities of the region was a recurring argument introduced to counter those who saw a fragmented continent comprised of individual nations. In stark contrast to the nation-building, E pluribus unum (out of many, one) strategy of the United States, Latin America faced a shattered ex uno plures (out of one, many) continental reality. This condition was the foundation for the longing for continental integration and the overarching quest for identity that marked Latin American history since the colonial period. From this point of view, the project of thinking about Latin America as a comprehensive whole has nothing to do with a return to essentialism, but rather with the rightful, yet ambiguous urge for identity; that is, for bona fide autonomy and a legitimate differentiation from hegemonic rule. To state that the authors represented in this volume grapple with this seminal issue is an understatement. Indeed, a more accurate characterization would situate the unrelenting quest to define “Latin/Latino America” and “Latin/Latino American art” at the continental level as an obsessive pursuit, “a neurosis of identity that is not completely cured” [SEE DOCUMENT VI.2.7] and that stubbornly eludes either closure or categorization.

While one of our key objectives is to trace and examine the obsessive quest(ion)—What is “Latin American” and/or “Latino?”—with this volume, we also seek to expand the reader’s grasp of the complexities of these “operative constructs” beyond traditional perceptions and understandings. In our view, while the struggle for identity and survival lies at the very core of the issues at hand, there are at least two other dimensions of the problem that also merit attention. The first one points to the nexus between Latin America and the United States, which together comprised sometimes clashing, sometimes complementary “half-worlds.” While in the first four centuries of Latin America’s history, Europe was its chief interlocutor; in the twentieth century, the United States, in its capacity as reluctant neighbor, has been a constant presence—whether as bitter foe or foil—directly affecting the economic, sociocultural, and even artistic dynamics of the region. This presence increased in the post-World War II period when the U.S. assumed the role of superpower. The concept of America—one continent sharply divided in half by differences in politics, economics, language, culture, and religion, as well as by the ongoing threat of domination that began in 1823 with the Monroe Doctrine [SEE DOCUMENT III.1.1]—permeates the general atmosphere of the texts gathered in this volume. Indeed, these writings are informed by a complex dialectic whereby not only Latin American elites, but also U.S. politicians, intellectuals, and cultural agents exerted—directly or indirectly—their influence on the consolidation of both the region as well as on the varied constituencies and fields that try to represent it. In this regard, the debates over Latin American identity extend beyond issues of colonialism and the looming threat of imperialism to reveal an active and productive exchange between the two half-worlds that comprise the Americas. Focusing on the visual arts, the main subject of this volume, it may be time to fully recognize that the idea of Latin American art as a discrete field of study and the collecting of this art at the continental level were North American concoctions [SEE CHAPTER III, INTRODUCTION AND DOCUMENTS III.4.6, III.4.7, III.4.8, III.4.9] embraced and expanded during the second half of the twentieth century by cultural agents and institutions throughout the United States and Latin America. More importantly, in the first part of the century, the division implicit in the metaphor of the half-worlds was limited to the distinction between the Anglo and Latin worlds and the political and economic tensions that separated them. However, with the ascendancy of the Latino population since 1960, the presence of one half-world inside the other has become more pronounced, leading many to postulate the internal process of “Latino Americanization” of the United States. This trend has also prompted a number of U.S. Latino intellectuals to set forth the notion of a “pan-Latino identity,” thereby offering closure and satisfying the utopian desire for an integrated continent [SEE CHAPTER VI, DOCUMENTS VI.1.1, VI.1.2, VI.1.3, VI.1.6, VI.1.7].

The second, non-conventional aspect of identity highlighted by this volume concerns the role of representation in the debates surrounding the specificity of Latin American and Latino art. As we heard insistently in the 1970–90s, in order for an identity to exist, it must first be recognized by the dialectical figure of “The Other”; in the field of art in particular, recognition necessarily implies representation. Hence, one of the key contributions of this volume is its capacity for bringing together the problem of identity with the issue of its representation and, ultimately, its display at the level of exhibitions and museum collections. The relationship between identity and representation has been at the core of the debates surrounding Latin American art since the late-1930s when the Museum of Modern Art presented the first exhibitions focused on the art of this region. The tensions at play surfaced again during the various “booms” experienced by the Latin American and Latino art field—as well as in other creative fields such as literature—since 1945. From this point of view, exhibitions—together with the catalogues and the institutional and financial infrastructure that accompanies them—functioned as vehicles (at times much more effective than politics or diplomacy) for the issues being debated at the intellectual level—and, as such, were fundamental to the topic under consideration. Therefore, we offer a broad range of texts, covering several different periods that, when juxtaposed, provide numerous and nuanced perspectives covering both the practical and theoretical levels and encompassing, among many others, artists perspectives and curatorial practices.

Perhaps the most important conclusion to be drawn from these selected documents is that, rather than absolute signifiers, terms like “Latin American” or “Latino” can only function as “constructs.” That is, as operative concepts whose coordinates have been “invented” or are to be ceaselessly “re-invented” by every generation or cultural group as either an antidote or corrective to the lopsided position of these groups vis-à-vis the so-called “First World”—a First World currently and ironically embroiled in its own identity crisis prompted by ceaseless immigrations from all over the planet. This present reality affirms the cyclical—if not circular—nature of the debates concerning both the questioned identity of the region and its varied art. In this regard, current debates—with their provocative stances and cynical posturing—are not unlike the ones that took place twenty-five, fifty, or even one hundred years ago. With this in mind, it is our hope that the flexible challenges offered by this volume will encourage innovative and open-minded approaches to the problems at hand, while providing readers with insights that may begin to delineate the brand new features of the countenance of the society we are becoming.

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