NEW YORK, NY.- Americas Society presents the second part of This Must Be the Place: Latin American Artists in New York, 1965–1975, a group exhibition that explores the artworks, performances, and experimental practices of this generation of artists who lived in New York City in the 1960s and 1970s. Diversifying the city’s artistic life, these artists helped shape New York into the global art center it is today.
The artworks presented in this exhibition are central to understanding the social and political landscape in the Americas and the tensions and bridges between north and south, exploring issues of migration, identity, politics, exile, and nostalgia. For Part II, the new works on view explore the body as theme and medium, and in doing so, offer new understandings of identity. Together, the works redefined the parameters and aesthetics of so-called “Latin American” art.
The show features more than 40 artists from Latin America and the Caribbean. Additionally, the exhibition highlights the important contributions and solidarity initiatives of groups and collectives such as CHARAS, Taller Boricua, Latin American Fair of Opinion, An Evening with Salvador Allende Concert, Brigada Ramona Parra, Contrabienal, Cha/Cha/Cha, Young Filmmakers Foundation, Young Lords, and El Museo del Barrio.
To display the breadth of the artistic production in the period, the show is presented in two rotating installations with the same artists but different works: Part I was on display from September 22 through December 18, 2021, and was named one of the best art exhibitions of 2021 by The New York Times.
“Part II of the show continues to demonstrate these artists’ investigation of issues of identity and migration in works experimenting with the latest trends of the period, with a strong focus on the use of body as a medium and as a topic to explore these topics,” says Americas Society Visual Arts Director and exhibition curator Aimé Iglesias Lukin. “Their contributions revealed a more diverse and cosmopolitan scene than typically portrayed in the historiography of postwar American art. For these artists, ‘Latin American’ was not a label they necessarily identified with before arriving in New York, but rather one made relevant by shared experiences and a newfound sense of kinship,” says Iglesias Lukin.
The exhibition will be accompanied by two publications: an illustrated guide to the exhibition featuring a curatorial text along with the full exhibition checklist published in September 2021, and This Must Be the Place: An Oral History of Latin American Artists in New York, 1965–1975, a standalone book that highlights the voices of the artists and documents of that time to be published in March 2022. This publication is co-published with the Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA).
Americas Society will continue with the series of public, in-person, and virtual programs accompanying the show, including panel discussions, performances, and regular free gallery tours. Americas Society and ISLAA will hold the conference Call for Papers: This Must Be the Place: Latin American Artists in New York, 1965–1975 in conjunction with the exhibition on March 24–25, 2022.
