Pop Art in Latin America

Jennifer and art historian, Ana Longoni in a cafe near the University of Buenos Aires. The night before I attended a talk Longoni gave in conjunction with a show on Litchenstein at MALBA (Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires). Longoni's done much work on street art, art as action, and the relationship of art groups/colletives to larger liberation movements in South America from the 60's to the present. She works with a number of cultural and art critics wh are rewriting Latin American history not as an echo of Europe's vanguard, but are developing other parameters of discussing/exploring this relationship between the "centers and peripheries" such as looking at this relationship in terms of conflict and simultaneity. In this talk she focused on what she called three examples of "subversions of pop" in Latin America:1) Argentina in the 60's: media interventions, graphics that used the language of pop and spaces of publicity, a sort of anti-happening--a fraudulent media hoax, etc. 2)Chile in the 60's-70's--silkscreen-aesthetics of repetition, popular iconography, the dissemination of images in mass that complimented, fed a growing popular radicalization/ critique of power that had relations with the communist party. Longoni pointed out how this use pf pop forms and aesthetics was embedded in larger social movements. 3)Peru in the70's- Longoni showed the work of a collective who utilized the form of comics to reach to indigenous campesino that addressed issues like agrarian reform. Another important overiding theme was the relevance of looking at the work of these artists and collectives in relationship to the political contexts of dictatorship, repression, and emerging social movements. The use of pop, was a strategy embedded with an optimism, a populist approach to art. There are so many exciting, relevant possible conversations, connections and parallels with this history and Chicano Art. Longoni's lecture and conversations with Jennifer have made me realize that Chicano art needs to be talked about in relationship to political art, aesthetics and practices happenning internationally. Chicano art really has a lot to contribute to these vibrant conversations that are very much alive and active here in Argentina.