Since the end of the last dictatorship in 1983, Argentina’s visual artists and art-activists have been central to campaigns to demand the criminal prosecution of those initially granted amnesty and to a variety of commemorative projects. In The Art of Post-Dictatorship: Ethics and Aesthetics in Transitional Argentina Vikki Bell examines this involvement and intervention. She argues that the problematics that arise within the aesthetic realm cannot be understood solely through an art-historical approach; instead, they must be understood as a constitutive part of a broader collective endeavour. In this sense, the ‘art’ of post-dictatorship is not something that belongs to art or the artists themselves, but is about how the subjectivities and imaginations of new generations are constituted and entwined with questions of response, ethics and justice. It concerns how people align themselves between the past and the future. This book will be an invaluable resource for those studying the law, politics, art and sociology of contemporary Argentina as well as those concerned more widely with transitional justice and the politics of memory.

"Purity Is a Myth presents new scholarship on Concrete art in Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay from the 1940s to the 1960s"--

How the "traffic in culture" is practiced, rationalized and experienced by visual artists in the globalized world. The book focuses on artistic practices in the appropriation of indigenous cultures, and the construction of new Latin American identities. Appropriation is the fundamental theoretical concept developed to understand these processes.

"In this delightful autofiction―the first book by Gainza, an Argentine art critic, to appear in English―a woman delivers pithy assessments of world–class painters along with glimpses of her life, braiding the two into an illuminating whole." ―The New York Times Book Review, Notable Book of the Year and Editors' Choice The narrator of Optic Nerve is an Argentinian woman whose obsession is art. The story of her life is the story of the paintings, and painters, who matter to her. Her intimate, digressive voice guides us through a gallery of moments that have touched her. In these pages, El Greco visits the Sistine Chapel and is appalled by Michelangelo’s bodies. The mystery of Rothko’s refusal to finish murals for the Seagram Building in New York is blended with the story of a hospital in which a prostitute walks the halls while the narrator’s husband receives chemotherapy. Alfred de Dreux visits Géricault’s workshop; Gustave Courbet’s devilish seascapes incite viewers “to have sex, or to eat an apple”; Picasso organizes a cruel banquet in Rousseau’s honor . . . All of these fascinating episodes in art history interact with the narrator’s life in Buenos Aires―her family and work; her loves and losses; her infatuations and disappointments. The effect is of a character refracted by environment, composed by the canvases she studies. Seductive and capricious, Optic Nerve marks the English–language debut of a major Argentinian writer. It is a book that captures, like no other, the mysterious connections between a work of art and the person who perceives it.

Buenos Aries boasts a number of impressive buildings in a range of architectural styles. But when Anat Meidan, an art collector with a passion for La Belle Époque, moved to the city, she was delighted to discover how much of the city's Art Nouveau architecture from the early 20th century had survived. The author set about researching these extraordinary buildings as well as the people who designed and built them. Working with Gustavo Sosa Pinilla, Meidan toured the city and documented its architecture, using a few well-placed connections to gain access to the interiors of private homes and buildings usually closed to the general public. In this meticulously researched, richly illustrated book, featuring hundreds of splendid photographs, the reader is invited to share the author's voyage around the city as she narrates a very personal account of her love affair with Buenos Aires.

In-depth scholarship on the central artists, movements, and themes of Latin American art, from the Mexican revolution to the present A Companion to Modern and Contemporary Latin American and Latinx Art consists of over 30 never-before-published essays on the crucial historical and theoretical issues that have framed our understanding of art in Latin America. This book has a uniquely inclusive focus that includes both Spanish-speaking Caribbean and contemporary Latinx art in the United States. Influential critics of the 20th century are also covered, with an emphasis on their effect on the development of artistic movements. By providing in-depth explorations of central artists and issues, alongside cross-references to illustrations in major textbooks, this volume provides an excellent complement to wider surveys of Latin American and Latinx art. Readers will engage with the latest scholarship on each of five distinct historical periods, plus broader theoretical and historical trends that continue to influence how we understand Latinx, Indigenous, and Latin American art today. The book’s areas of focus include: The development of avant-garde art in the urban centers of Latin America from 1910-1945 The rise of abstraction during the Cold War and the internationalization of Latin American art from 1945-1959 The influence of the political upheavals of the 1960s on art and art theory in Latin America The rise of conceptual art as a response to dictatorship and social violence in the 1970s and 1980s The contemporary era of neoliberalism and globalization in Latin American and Latino Art, 1990-2010 With its comprehensive approach and informative structure, A Companion to Modern and Contemporary Latin American and Latinx Art is an excellent resource for advanced students in Latin American culture and art. It is also a valuable reference for aspiring scholars in the field.

The birthplace of graffiti, New York City, has evolved into a global center for street art. Its public surfaces host a range of media from handmade stickers and wheatpastes to huge installations and murals. Artists from across the globe routinely travel to New York City to grace its walls as they refashion the city into one huge never-ending unofficial street art festival. Among these are such contemporary urban legends as D'Face, Banksy, Os Gemeos, Case, MaClaim, Invader, Stik and Faith 47. Street Art NYC showcases both sanctioned and unsanctioned works captured in the course of a transformative decade that saw the emergence of over a dozen distinctly engaging projects. The hugely popular Bushwick Collective, L.I.S.A Project NYC and Welling Court Mural Project are highlighted with introductory essays. Local community-based projects and festivals, as well as those responding to specific environmental and social issues, are also represented. Banksy's one month 2013 residency, Better Out than In is documented with words and images. And homage is paid to the legendary 5 Pointz graffiti and street art mecca. Street Art NYC is is a beautifully designed hardcover book. The full color photographs by Lord K2 captures the art in the city, printed on thick coated paper, and Lois Stavsky's text provides the context. This is the only book to spotlight the transformational decade that marked the shift from largely unsanctioned to widely curated street art throughout New York City's five boroughs. This book is a collaboration between Lord K2, an award-winning photographer and curator of the online Museum of Urban Art and Lois Stavsky, a noted street art documentarian and editor of the popular blog, Street Art NYC.

Two prisoners, Luis Molina and Valentin Arregui, share a cell in a Buenos Aires prison. Molina is in jail for "corruption of a minor," while Valentin is a political prisoner who is part of a revolutionary group. The two men, opposites in every way, form an intimate bond in their cell, and their relationship changes both of them in profound ways.

Drawing Calm teaches artists and non-artists how to find an oasis of calm every day by using the work of master painters to inspire creativity. Maybe it's the colors, or the eye-widening vistas, or maybe it's just the idea that harmony can exist on a square of canvas, but there is something in art that can calm and inspire at the same time. In Drawing Calm, artist Susan Evenson, shows readers how to do the same. It's a book for everyone—non-artists as well as those with plenty of experience in a studio. Using restful, but dynamic works of art as a starting point, Susan Evenson teaches how to capture the light and peace of the master painting. Making use of "soft" techniques such as torn-paper collage, blended pastels, and wet-on-wet watercolor, this workshop encourages stress-free creativity. After you learn how to set up your work space and what materials to gather, choose your soundtrack and get started with some warm-up exercises. Then, unwind with projects grouped by theme: Delight Quiet Warmth Harmony Calm Light Rhythm Put on the music that makes you happy and choose the colors that take you there too!

From its independence in 1810 until the economic crisis of 2001, Argentina has been seen, in the national and international collective imaginary, as a modern country with a powerful economic system, a massive European immigrant population, an especially strong middle class, and an almost nonexistent indigenous culture. In some ways, the early history of Argentina strongly resembles that of the United States, with its march to the prairies and frontier ideology, the image of the cowboy as a national symbol (equivalent to the Argentine gaucho), the importance of the immigrant population, and the advanced and liberal ideas of the founding fathers. But did Argentine history truly follow a linear path toward modernization? How did photography help shape or deconstruct notions associated with Argentina? Photography in Argentina examines the complexities of this country’s history, stressing the heterogeneity of its realities, and especially the power of constructed pho-tographic images—that is, the practice of altering reality for artistic expression, an important vein in Argentine photography. Influential specialists from Argentina have contributed essays on various topics, such as the shaping of national myths, the adaptation of gesture as related to the “disappeared” during the dictatorship period, the role of contemporary photography in the context of recent sociopolitical events, and the reinterpreting of traditional notions of documentary photography in Argentina and the rest of Latin America.