Didáctica de la liberación: arte conceptualista latinoamericano

Luis Camnitzer. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 405-416) And Index. During 1960s and 1970s Conceptualism in Latin America played different roles than Conceptualism in Europe and the U.S., where the search was predominant on the primacy of the object and art institutions, and marketing. Latin American artists turned to conceptualism in an instrument with which radically questioning the nature of art itself, as well as their role to meet the needs of society and the crisis in relation to politics, poetry and pedagogy. Thus, Latin American conceptualism must be seen and understood in their own environment and not as a derivative of the Euro-American models. Luis Camnitzer, one of the most important conceptual artists of Latin America, offers a firsthand account by placing the evolution of conceptualism in Latin American history. Conceptualism is explored by the author as a strategy and not as a style within the Latin American culture, revealing their roots in the early nineteenth century with the work of Simón Rodríguez, Simón Bolvar̓s tutor, continuing to the point where the art intersects with politics, as is the case of the Argentine group Tucumán arde in 1968, and where politics intersects with art, as happened with the Tupamaro movement in Uruguay during the 60s and 70s. Camnitzer concludes his research by analyzing how after 1970 conceptualist manifestations are integrated into more conventional art and describes some of the consequences that arose when art evolved from a political instrument to what is known as "political art"