Thursday, Jan. 21, 2016

07:00 PM – 08:00 PM
US/Central

Presented by Mari Carmen Ramírez, Wortham Curator of Latin American Art, and director, International Center for the Arts of the Americas

In the exhibition Contingent Beauty: Contemporary Art from Latin America, a non-stereotypical definition and function of “beauty” provides the critical framework for considering a heterogeneous ensemble of works culled from the Museum's Latin American art collection. Gathered together because of their formal, material, and ideological affinities and produced by artists who emerged on the international scene between 1980 and 2000, the works in the exhibition attest to the level of plastic and conceptual innovation achieved by contemporary art practices in this complex region over the last 35 years.

The innovative approaches of the artists whose work is represented in the exhibition entail conceptual, sensory-based, or interactive stimuli that elicit the viewer’s active participation. If “beauty” is at play here, it is as a strategy that weaves together opposing elements, such as refinement and brutality, seduction and repulsion, elegance and rawness.

Mari Carmen Ramírez presents an overview of the cutting-edge techniques and daring proposals represented by the artists in Contingent Beauty, emphasizing the distinct shift from “identity-based art” to post-conceptual “contemporary” art in Latin America over the last three decades.

Image: Tania Bruguera, Estadística (Statistics), 1995–2000, cardboard, human hair, and fabric, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Museum purchase funded by the Caribbean Art Fund and the Caroline Wiess Law Accessions Endowment Fund. © Tania Bruguera