Arte Iberoamericano fin de siglo I Politics of Difference: Ibero-American Art at the End of the Century

The exhibit Politics of Difference, organized by Spain’s Generelitat Valenciana, brings together 96 contemporary artists from 26 Ibero-American countries. The exhibition, whose first stop is Recife, Brazil, will go on to several countries in the Americas before reaching Valencia, Spain. It is the first of many mega shows of Latin American art organized in Europe and the United States that has in fact been held in Latin America. According to their place of origin, eleven curators were responsible for selecting the artists: Ticio Escobar (Paraguay), Gabriel Peluffo Linari (Uruguay), Virginia Pérez Rattón (Costa Rica), Víctor Zamudio Taylor (United States), Justo Pastor Melado (Chile), Aracy Amaral (Brazil), Cuauhtémoc Medina (Mexico), Cecilia Fajardo Hill (Venezuela), Michelle Marxuach (Puerto Rico), Kevin Power (The Caribbean), and Fernando Castro (Spain). Organizing a show that proposes to research a specific geographical and cultural context (which goes against the grain of current curatorial tendencies) inevitably leads us, on the one hand, to ask ourselves if there is an identity common to the production of Ibero-American artists; and on the other, to search for the particularities of the art produced in each of the countries represented. The curators themselves have reflected on these topics on the essays they have written for the important catalog accompanying the show.