América Latina 1960–2013: Photographs

This expansive exhibition catalogue highlights photographic responses to political unrest in Latin America during the past half-century. The inclusion of text in their photographs unifies the 71 featured artists, though methods and intentions vary from documenting signage, graffiti, human tattoos, and performances, to creating collages and broadsides. Street photographers use public signs to capture the political landscape, as seen in Louise Chin and Ignacio Aronovich’s images of graffiti covering São Paolo buildings in the ’80s. Meanwhile, Mexican artist Miguel Rio Branco uses early color photography to document marginalized people in the ’70s and ’80s. Luis Pazos shows students arranged to form shapes with their bodies, while Eduardo Villanes creates a wall collage and stages a performance to protest Peru’s Cantuta massacre. Some respond to the press, such as Oscar Munoz in his sculptures that reflect through water tragic events from the newspaper. Other selections comment on the history of a place, as seen in Marcos Lopez’s repeating geometric patterns in Mexico City apartment fences. The book includes a timeline of milestones in Latin American history, beginning with Fidel Castro’s rise to power in 1959 and ending with events in 2013. Insightful essays tie together the work by theme and style, and comprehensive bios of each artist are included. 400 color and b&w illus. (May)