In this text, Shifra Goldman examines the problematic homogenization of the idea of “Hispanic” art and culture that was promoted by the exhibition Hispanic Art in the United States: Thirty Contemporary Painters and Sculptors organized by The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston in 1987. She traces how the term “Hispanic” was devised, during the late 1970s, as a way for the government and marketers to “package” the heterogeneous Latino communities of the United States. Goldman describes the sculpture and painting selected for the show as work of high quality and great artistic interest. However, she criticizes the curators for taking a position in which they claim to favor the “artistic” values of the works over the “sociological.” As a result, Goldman argues, the diverse histories of the artists’ are obscured, and instead, through the catalog essays and the thematic grouping of the installation, superficial and stereotypical ideas of “Hispanic” art as primitive, folkloric, religious and traditional are presented. Because of the curators’ impulse to locate a Hispanic style, many key artists making highly politicized art were left out of the exhibition. Ultimately, Hispanic artists’ acceptance into the mainstream seems to be, problematically, the measure of success, and the question of what is the contribution of Latin American artists in the U.S. remains unanswered by such an exhibition.
