ART IN CONTEXT: LATINE/LATIN AMERICAN AR

According to the 2022 one-year American Community Survey (ACS) of the U.S. Census Bureau, New York City’s second largest population comprising about 29% of the total can be identified as Latine–that is, the people hailing from diverse areas of the region known as Latin America, from Tierra del Fuego to today’s Mexico and the Caribbean. Yet, despite the steady and increasing Latine presence in New York City at least since the nineteenth-century, Latine representation within NYC and, more broadly, the US American cultural scene has been an ongoing battle or even a series of different battles waged by individuals and groups with diverse understanding of what Latine or Latin American art means, and why and how it should be presented and shown, to whom, and to what ends. This summer class examines these battles through the study of history and present of self-identified Latin American and Latine arts organizations in New York from museums through varied non-for-profit and grassroots arts institutions to commercial art galleries, exposing students to a comprehensive cross-section of the art ecosystem in order to develop a nuanced understanding of the dynamic relationships between different constituencies that institutions crystalize: patrons, administrators, artists, and diverse publics. In other words, who do the institutions represent and to whom?

Some of the institutions studied and visited during the course will be The Hispanic Society Museum and Library, murals at the New School, The Americas Society, El Museo del Barrio, The Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Research Institute for the Study of Art from Latin America at the Museum of Modern Art, ISLAA–Institute for Studies on Latin American Art, The Clemente–Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Education Center, CCCADI–The Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute, En Foco, Hutchinson Modern and Contemporary, and Ruiz-Healey Art. Through readings, site visits, and discussions with representatives of these institutions, students will gain a thorough understanding of the evolving definitions and facets of Latine culture and their continued vital role in NYC and US at large. They will also become familiar with a wide range of visual expressions in different media, spanning colonial times to the present.