The author of this article, Aracy Amaral, discusses the comment she made concerning exhibitions of “Latin American art” in the United States, explaining that this is an absurd description because there is no artistic school involved, much less a common aesthetic among the countries of the region. On the other hand, Amaral points to the fact that Latin American artists are not included in North American or European exhibitions, and wonders whether to blame a form of discrimination or ignorance about their work. In her opinion, the basic problem has nothing to do with the quality (or lack thereof) of the artists’ work but rather is the result of a mistaken idea that “Latin American art” is limited to questions of identity or exoticism, and deals exclusively with magic and “traditional” subjects. Amaral recognizes that if there were a “cultural policy” that promoted the work of [Latin American] artists’ work (at both a local and international level), it would go a long way toward eliminating these misunderstandings, and would also encourage an “acquisitions policy” designed to build up our public collections.     

Aracy A. Amaral (b. 1930) is a historian and art critic who has taken a very keen interest in Latin American art since 1975. She took part in the Austin Symposium in Texas and subsequently established relationships with Latin American critics such as Damián C. Bayón (1915–95) from Argentina—the organizer of the event, Peruvian Juan Acha (1916–95) who lived in Mexico, and Marta Traba (1923–83), who was from Argentina, but who had settled in Colombia.

In this article, which was recently published in Brazil, Amaral rejects the tendency to view “Latin American” art as though it was homogenous; that is, something perceived as uniform by the large power centers. She detects a prejudiced attitude that she believes can only be overcome through the adoption of an “internal cultural policy” in every country in Latin America. The exhibition that sparked Amaral’s comment has been at the center of a long debate both in the United States and abroad, Art of the Fantastic, held at the Indianapolis Museum of Art and cocurated by Holiday T. Day and Hollister Sturges.  

Volume one of the ICAA Critical Documents series—assembled by Héctor Olea, Mari Carmen Ramírez, and Tomás Ybarra-Frausto, Resisting Categories: Latin American and/or Latino? (Houston: MFAH-ICAA, 2012)—included a special chapter devoted to the matter of “Destabilizing Categorizations” (vol.1, “Exhibiting Entrenched Representations”), which highlighted the case that arose from the Tenth Pan-American Games held in Indianapolis in 1987. See Art of the Fantastic (prologue and introduction) in [doc. nos. 1065311 and 1065330].

In addition, the following section (“Questioning Stereotypes,” vol. 2) includes a 1987 essay by Aracy Amaral that discusses “the fantastic”: “‘Fantástico’ são os outros” [doc. no. 776644].