International Center for the Arts of the Americas at MFAH

Emerging in the wake of the establishment of mass media in Europe and the United States in the 1960s, the video art movement sought to explore alternative ways to use analog and digital electronic media to produce works of art. In Uruguay the genre emerged in the early 1980s where it was conceived as a kind of unscripted audiovisual story that was not intended as an audiovisual entertainment production. Video art works have created new narratives and new ways of seeing that have broken with conventional languages; these works are based on an entirely new perception of space and time and create interactive experiences that are very different from traditional forms. Video art is a form of artistic expression that synthesizes and articulates a range of expressive codes at an audiovisual level against a conceptual background.

Record ID / Registro ID 📌 1258411
Researchers / Investigadores: Marina Garcia, Gabriel Peluffo

The critic Samuel Cherson gives a historical account of the Bienal de San Juan del Grabado Latinoamericano y del Caribe [San Juan Biennial of Latin American and Caribbean Graphic Art]. He notes that the 7th Biennial (1986) opened 3 ½ years after the prior biennial (1983). The reason was the change in government after the 1984 elections and the resulting reforms carried out by the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña [Institute of Puerto Rican Culture]. In the writer’s opinion, the most noteworthy change was the participation of Cuba, a country that had been sidelined from the previous biennials; Cuba sent a delegation of 20 artists to the 7th Biennial. Meanwhile, a new administration in Puerto Rico opened the way for the return of the Puerto Rican artists who had refused to participate in the 5th and 6th biennials. The reason for their refusal had been to show their disagreement with the leadership of the ICP [Institute of Puerto Rican Culture], and they resumed participation at the 7th Biennial. Cherson concludes his article with a criticism of the conservative, experiment-averse nature of the biennial. He recommends that they broaden the rules to allow more experimental techniques.

Record ID / Registro ID: 📌852865
Researchers / Investigadores: Flavia Marichal Lugo

Conversation | "Fridamania"

Sat. Apr. 04, 2026
2 PM - 3 PM

In conjunction with Frida: The Making of an Icon, art historian and curator Arden Decker sits down with artists Cristina Kahlo Alcalá, Danie Cansino, Enrique Chagoya, and Blanca Garduño. The discussion centers on the emergence of the “Fridamania” phenomenon in the 1980s and 1990s as well as the forces that catapulted Frida Kahlo to the status of pop culture icon.

Language interpretation services are provided for simultaneous translation through headset devices.

Plan Your Visit:
Included with Museum admission. Seating available on a first-come, first-served basis.
This program takes place in Brown Auditorium Theater in the Law Building.

© Nickolas Muray Photo Archives

Colombian critic María Elvira Iriarte’s research on early abstraction in Colombia makes use of primary sources; the text’s structure reveals the events, artists, and issues crucial to abstract art during the period discussed. Major changes took place in Colombia during these years (1955–60): the long-awaited resignation of General Rojas Pinilla, pursuant to which the most important newspapers, which had been shut down under his administration, reopened; and the Salón Nacional de Arte took place once again after having been cancelled in 1953, making it possible for Colombian art to gain widespread recognition outside the country.
This was a prolific period for the visual arts in Colombia not only in terms of production (much of it abstract), but also in terms of communication about art, with heated debates in 1958 and 1959. In Iriarte’s view, the crux of those debates was whether or not to accept new nonfigurative forms of expression.

Record ID / Registro ID: 📌1079798
Researchers / Investigadores: Erika Martínez Cuervo

In this text, journalist Sergio Antillano examines the life of his friend and contemporary, artist Héctor Poleo, commenting specifically on his studies at the Academia de Bellas Artes in Caracas and the Academia de San Carlos in Mexico City. Antillano recalls the young Venezuelan artist’s professors, schoolmates, friends, and partners in crime. He describes his first exhibitions and his many trips around the United States, France, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia, and other countries.

This essay by journalist and critic Sergio Antillano (1922–99)—a friend of painter Héctor Poleo (1918–89) and connoisseur of his work—is one of the earliest and most complete biographical documents on the Venezuelan artist. At the end of the text, which has a great many illustrations, are images of works that evidence a synthesis of forms and colors, works that can be seen as part of Poleo’s somewhat geometric phase, when he produced many female faces and figures.

Record ID / Registro ID 📌 1172085
Researchers / Investigadores: Felix Hernandez

Art historian and curator Susana Torruella Leval provides an overview of the development of Puerto Rican art institutions and artist activism in New York from the 1950s to the 1990s. She argues that Puerto Rican artists have played key roles in preserving a Latin American presence in the United States. Toruella Leval observes that discourse on Puerto Rican art has been cyclical. In the 1950s, artists on the island of Puerto Rico were concerned with promoting national identity though the arts. In the 1960s, artists in New York continued to focus the issue of Puerto Rican identity in their work, but did so as a form of protest against racial and ethnic discrimination. Leval observes that in the 1980s and 1990s, Puerto Rican artists were affected by the booming interest in exhibiting and collecting Latin American art in the United States. The inclusion of Puerto Rican artists in exhibitions of Latin American and Latino art broadened their horizons, as well as catalyzed more complex renderings of Puerto Rican identity as hybrid and transnational.

Record ID / Registro ID: 📌842311
Researchers / Investigadores: Yasmin Ramirez

This newsletter is an open invitation to a lecture (to be accompanied by slides) by Alcides Lanza, the Argentine composer of electronic music. Either because of the topic or its contemporaneity, this lecture is closely related to what would be a landmark event for the CAYC: Arte de sistemas (1971), presented by the Buenos Aires center at the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires (MAMBA).

Alcides Lanza (1929–2024), composer, orchestra conductor, pianist, and music teacher, was born in Rosario, Argentina, and later became a Canadian citizen. In 1963 he was part of the first generation of students to receive grants from Centro Latinoamericano de Altos Estudios Musicales (CLAEM), which operated as part of the Instituto Torcuato Di Tella with funds provided by the Rockefeller Foundation. Under the direction of Alberto Ginastera, the CLAEM became the most avant-garde institution for music instruction in Latin America.

The lecture announced in the newsletter—at which Lanza talked about his works that combined the use of electronic equipment with reflections on different aspects of the human condition—was scheduled to take place at the same time as the exhibition Arte de sistemas (1971). The CAYC presented that event at the recently opened premises of Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires (MAMBA). The CAYC had offered an open invitation to local and international artists who were involved in the practice and research of a range of trends, including idea (Conceptual) art, Arte Povera, cybernetic art, proposal (or process) art, and openly political art.

Record ID / Registro ID 📌 1478594
Researchers / Investigadores: Gabriela Naso

Key to the ¡Aquí Estamos! initiative are emerging researchers who are well-positioned to make a significant contribution to this initiative and the field at large. Research fellowship opportunities recognize the importance of early career exposure to curatorial, conservation, and museum interpretation practices as well as archival and primary source research in cultivating the next generation of scholars and curators in the field of Latinx art.

Fellowships are offered to students at the graduate, and post-graduate levels depending on the specifications of the individual position. Full-time and part-time positions are available.

Please note that all applicants must reside and be eligible to work in the United States. Consult each fellowship description for additional eligibility requirements and fellowship terms.

Deadline to apply: June 27th, 2025

Link to the applications can be found in our bio or website.

This is a text by art historian Natalia Majluf, on the series of photographs Bajo el sol negro del Cuzco, a project completed in 1991 by photographer Milagros de la Torre in the city of Cuzco. Majluf states that these works, created using the techniques of the “minutemen” photographers that work in provincial city plazas, could initially be thought of as ethnographic or touristic photography. Nevertheless, when observing them closely, one discovers both the presence of a red tint that produces unusual diagonal framings, masks, and shadows, as well as the fact that one is viewing a negative (as opposed to a positive) image. This testifies to the homage being offered to the photographers of Cuzco, but also to Milagros de la Torre’s critical eye, who, in addition to using the technique employed by these artisans, also alludes to the complex themes of identity and representation in her work.
Read more on the powerful metaphors on our Documents Project, the link is in our bio.
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Record ID / Registro ID 📌 1293722
Researchers / Investigadores: Gabriela Germaná Roquez