Contemporary Art in Latin America, the second book in Black Dog Publishing's ARTWORLD series, is a bold and rousing exploration of the most significant art being created by Latin American's today. Emerging from complex cultural roots, Latin American art is extraordinarily diverse and original. This book covers a variety of contemporary art methods, looking at photography, installation art, sculpture, painting, textiles, and examines the styles, current perceptions and culture of this region. Contemporary Art in Latin America is an engaging, challenging and inspiring comprehensive survey of the most important art being made in the region today. With essays by esteemed writers and practitioners, and profiles of both established and emerging artists, this volume delves into the region's past, present and future, to examine its position within the contemporary global art world. The work featured shatters stereotypes and clear-cut distinction of the area, blending the personal and the political, the local and the global. Artists featured include Helio Oiticica, Doris Salcedo, Cildo Meireles, Lygia Clark, Jesus Rafael Soto, Lygia Pape, Gabriel Orozco, Oscar Munoz and Miguel Calderon. With beautiful images and an equally impressive list of contributors, this volume is the ultimate resource for anyone interested in art produced in Latin America today.

Conceptualism played a different role in Latin American art during the 1960s and 1970s than in Europe and the United States, where conceptualist artists predominantly sought to challenge the primacy of the art object and art institutions, as well as the commercialization of art. Latin American artists turned to conceptualism as a vehicle for radically questioning the very nature of art itself, as well as art's role in responding to societal needs and crises in conjunction with politics, poetry, and pedagogy. Because of this distinctive agenda, Latin American conceptualism must be viewed and understood in its own right, not as a derivative of Euroamerican models.

In this book, one of Latin America's foremost conceptualist artists, Luis Camnitzer, offers a firsthand account of conceptualism in Latin American art. Placing the evolution of conceptualism within the history Latin America, he explores conceptualism as a strategy, rather than a style, in Latin American culture. He shows how the roots of conceptualism reach back to the early nineteenth century in the work of Simon Rodriguez, Simon Bolivar's tutor. Camnitzer then follows conceptualism to the point where art crossed into politics, as with the Argentinian group Tucuman arde in 1968, and where politics crossed into art, as with the Tupamaro movement in Uruguay during the 1960s and early 1970s. Camnitzer concludes by investigating how, after 1970, conceptualist manifestations returned to the fold of more conventional art and describes some of the consequences that followed when art evolved from being a political tool to become what is known as "political art."

Artist, educator, curator, and critic Luis Camnitzer has been writing about contemporary art ever since he left his native Uruguay in 1964 for a fellowship in New York City. As a transplant from the "periphery" to the "center," Camnitzer has had to confront fundamental questions about making art in the Americas, asking himself and others: What is "Latin American art"? How does it relate (if it does) to art created in the centers of New York and Europe? What is the role of the artist in exile? Writing about issues of such personal, cultural, and indeed political import has long been an integral part of Camnitzer's artistic project, a way of developing an idiosyncratic art history in which to work out his own place in the picture.

This volume gathers Camnitzer's most thought-provoking essays--"texts written to make something happen," in the words of volume editor Rachel Weiss. They elaborate themes that appear persistently throughout Camnitzer's work: art world systems versus an art of commitment; artistic genealogies and how they are consecrated; and, most insistently, the possibilities for artistic agency. The theme of "translation" informs the texts in the first part of the book, with Camnitzer asking such questions as "What is Latin America, and who asks the question? Who is the artist, there and here?" The texts in the second section are more historically than geographically oriented, exploring little-known moments, works, and events that compose the legacy that Camnitzer draws on and offers to his readers.

Artist, educator, curator, and critic Luis Camnitzer has been writing about contemporary art ever since he left his native Uruguay in 1964 for a fellowship in New York City. As a transplant from the "periphery" to the "center," Camnitzer has had to confront fundamental questions about making art in the Americas, asking himself and others: What is "Latin American art"? How does it relate (if it does) to art created in the centers of New York and Europe? What is the role of the artist in exile? Writing about issues of such personal, cultural, and indeed political import has long been an integral part of Camnitzer's artistic project, a way of developing an idiosyncratic art history in which to work out his own place in the picture.

This volume gathers Camnitzer's most thought-provoking essays--"texts written to make something happen," in the words of volume editor Rachel Weiss. They elaborate themes that appear persistently throughout Camnitzer's work: art world systems versus an art of commitment; artistic genealogies and how they are consecrated; and, most insistently, the possibilities for artistic agency. The theme of "translation" informs the texts in the first part of the book, with Camnitzer asking such questions as "What is Latin America, and who asks the question? Who is the artist, there and here?" The texts in the second section are more historically than geographically oriented, exploring little-known moments, works, and events that compose the legacy that Camnitzer draws on and offers to his readers.

From reviews of the first edition: "The book is an essential source for understanding not only Cuba and its visual imagery but also the stuff of Latin American art." -- Artforum "Camnitzer . . . is sensitive to the issues faced by Cuban artists, and provides acute insights into the problems faced by artists in developing countries in attempting to place their work internationally while locating it solidly in national and cultural concerns." -- Art Book Review Quarterly "Making a supreme effort to remain politically unbiased, Camnitzer treats the key issues of the role of art in a socialist nation, the artists' dilemma of individuality versus social commitment, censorship, and access and lack thereof. His direct, almost conversational style makes for an informative and consciousness-raising reading. The artists emerge as distinct individuals." -- Choice ." . . invaluable in providing the 'feel' of contemporary Cuba." -- Latin American Research Review

Starting with the groundbreaking 1981 exhibit called "Volumen I," New Art of Cuba provided the first comprehensive look at the works of the first generation of Cuban artists completely shaped by the 1959 revolution. This revised edition includes a new epilogue that discusses developments in Cuban art since the book's publication in 1994, including the exodus of artists in the early 1990s, the effects of the new dollar economy on the status of artists, and the shift away from socialist themes to more personal concerns in the artists' works. Twenty-four new color plates augment the more than 200 b& w illustrations of the original volume.

From 19 November 2013 to 6 April 2014, the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain will be showing America Latina 1960-2013, organized in collaboration with the Amparo Museum in Puebla (Mexico). The exhibition offers a new perspective on Latin American photography from 1960 to today, focusing on the relationship between text and the photographic image. Bringing together more than seventy artists from eleven different countries, it shows the great diversity of photographic practices by presenting the work of documentary photographers as well as that of contemporary artists who appropriate the medium in different ways. This catalogue of the exhibition offers a vast panorama of the artistic production of the last fifty years. Including over 400 black-and-white and color reproductions, it explores the wealth of photographic work while shedding light on the historical and artistic context that spawned it. In addition to scholarly texts and artist bios, descriptions of works and a detailed timeline provide a deeper understanding of the visual languages specific to the continent. Chronicling the vital legacy of Latin American artists, the book shows the scope of their influence beyond their cultural and geographical territory.