CALL FOR PAPERS
Tragic(al) Realism: Contemporary afterlives of Magical (sur)Realism College Art Association (CAA) 104th Annual Conference Washington, D.C., February 3-6, 2016 Short call: This session investigates how the spectres of surrealism and Magical Realism haunt the production, circulation, and interpretation of contemporary art and visual culture from Latin America. Almost twenty years ago, Gerardo Mosquera’s “Beyond the Fantastic: Contemporary Art Criticism from Latin America” rejected the prevalent understanding of art and culture from Latin America as exotic, magical realist, fantastic and surreal. The edited volume critiqued these tropes as reductive and reflective of Western expectations of how art from Latin America should look like, which role should play in its immediate context, and the terms for its transnational circulation. However, after almost two decades of relative absence, in the last five years there has been a return of these two highly contested methodological frameworks. We invite papers that re-consider the continuities and ruptures between surrealism and Magical Realism in Latin America, while exploring how, and if, they inform contemporary artistic practices from the region. Long call: Almost twenty years ago, the Institute of International Visual Arts in London (InIVA) published the volume “Beyond the Fantastic: Contemporary Art Criticism from Latin America”, edited Gerardo Mosquera. The book brought together a series of texts by artists, critics and other important players from the regional cultural scene, that critically responded to the prevalent understanding of Latin America as exotic, magical realist, fantastic and surreal –most clearly articulated by important exhibitions of the time such as the 1987, “The Art of the Fantastic: Latin America, 1920-1987”, held at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Mosquera’s volume rejected these long-lasting tropes not only because they were reductive, but also because they responded to Western expectations as to what the art from Latin America should look like, what its role should be in its immediate context, what and the terms should be for its international circulation. However, in the last five years, there has been a return of two methodological frameworks previously used to approach visual culture from Latin America: surrealism and Magical Realism. Some examples include the edited volume “Surrealism in Latin America: Vivísimo Muerto” (Tate, 2012) by Dawn Ades, Rita Eder's and Graciela Speranza, the film series “Tropical Uncanny”, curated by Carlos A. Gutierrez in collaboration with Jerónimo Rodríguez, for “Under the Same Sun: Art from Latin America Today” (Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 2014), or the exhibitions “The Marvellous Real: Contemporary Spanish and Latin American Art from the MUSAC Collection” (Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, 2014), and “The Marvellous Real: Art from Mexico, 1926-2011” (MOA, The University of British Columbia, 2013-14). Some of the guiding questions of this session are: How have contemporary artistic practices from Latin America contested, critiqued or embraced the legacies of surrealism and Magical Realism? What is the ‘real’ at stake in surrealism, Magical Realism and contemporary representations of life in Latin America? Should Latin America, as Speranza argues, stop denying that “surrealism is still alive”, and embrace it as a cultural asset? Why, after having been considered exhausted and reductive have these tropes returned as markers of Latin American identity? What is the relationship between surrealism, Magical Realism and the contemporary documentary impulse prevalent in so many artistic practices from the region? We invite papers that re-consider the continuities and ruptures between surrealism and Magical Realism in Latin America, while exploring how, and if, they inform contemporary artistic practices from the region. Please send a preliminary abstract (1-2 double spaced, typed pages), a Letter of Interest, and current CV to: Dr Andrés David Montenegro Rosero, University College London
[email protected] [email protected] Deadline: May 8, 2015
