Research Lecture Series: Niko Vicario and The Question of Mobility in Latin American Art

By Gabriella Sotiriou

Last week as part of the School of Art History’s Research Lecture Series, Nico Vicario discussed ’the question of mobility in art from Latin America during the 1930s and 1940s’. Vicario is an Assistant Professor of Art and the History of Art at Amherst College in Massachusetts. During the lecture, he touched upon a ’slice’ of his upcoming book Hemispheric Integration (due to be related March 2020) that regarded the tracking of trade and art in order to understand the relationship between culture and commerce throughout Latin America. During the lecture, Vicario considered the ways in which people, materials, and ideas move and integrate between the United States and Latin America and the resulting effect this had on the art being made throughout the latter location. Drawing on the effects of colonialism, industrialisation, and the growing commercial art scene Vicario spoke about the effect this had on Latin American artists and how they confronted it in their work. 

David Alfaro Siqueiros, Portrait of the Bourgeoisie, 1939

The lecture included examples of work by Mexican artist David Alfaro Siqueiros, specifically his acknowledgment of American commercialism in his use of industrial materials lifted from the mass production of cars in works such as the mural made for the Mexican Electrician Syndicate. Contrasting with this is the work of Joaquín Torres-García who encouraged Latin American artists to make art using their own materials rather than imported American resources in an attempt to control and develop Latin American culture as seen in Indoamerica (1941) where an animal hide was used in place of the usual imported canvas. 

Joaquín Torres-García, Indoamerica, 1941

The lecture was incredibly interesting in its linking of art to capitalism and the way that the mobility and political tensions were captured within the art itself. The way in which artworks featured the topic of commercialism in their subject, their materiality and also in the work itself being a commodity is decidedly fascinating. Vicario’s discussion of the way Latin American artists functioned within a system that treated them as tradable raw materials to be packed up and shipped abroad brilliantly shed light on the darker corners of art history. It made for a fantastically engaging lecture that was certainly well worth braving the cold November winds. 

If Niko Vicario’s work interests you do consider pre-ordering his upcoming book Hemispheric Integration: Materiality, Mobility, and the Making of Latin American Art via this link. https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520310025/hemispheric-integration