Decentralizing Conceptual Art's Internationalism: Latin American artists in Western Europe, 1968-1979

Project Information

COART-INT

Grant agreement ID: 842714

DOI

10.3030/842714

Project terminated on 28 February 2023

EC signature date 28 March 2019

Start date 1 September 2019

End date 31 May 2023

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 281 358,72

EU contribution

€ 281 358,72

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITEIT VAN AMSTERDAM
Netherlands

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - COART-INT (Decentralizing Conceptual Art's Internationalism: Latin American artists in Western Europe, 1968-1979)

Reporting period: 2019-09-01 to 2022-08-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The project aimed to investigate the transnational networks of Latin American artists in Western Europe and construct a revisionist history of post-1945 conceptual and fluxus art based on these findings.

The project had four key objectives. The first was to: expand our understanding of Latin American and European conceptualist art practices through a transnational context. Second: comprehensively reassess regional art histories – Belgian, Dutch, English and Latin American – of this period, giving a more layered history of the semi-peripheries’ importance in the formation of Conceptual art, with a focus on the way artists acted on local scenes. Third: identify and analyse specific artworks within a framework of Conceptual art’s internationalism and to discuss how these works are intricately defined by and vehicles for artist’s nomadic condition and spatial exploration within it. Finally: map out different models, meanings and discursive constructions of internationalism in the 60s and 70s.

The project resulted in establishing a decentered, transnational network of artists in Belgium, the Netherlands and England, but also Italy and German Democratic Republic, who were connected through their art practices and work. My findings established that their histories of migration were propelled by a multitude of professional and personal factors and that once in Europe they formed a diasporic community of art marginal to but linked to the dominant centers of conceptual and fluxus art. This knowledge is significant in the writing of narratives that foreground transnational mobility and migration, diasporic identity, relational histories across borders through artistic and cultural production.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Since the start of the reporting period I have been actively developing and completing my COART-INT project with various stages of data collection, research, interpretative analysis of material, disseminating and communicating my results through publications and public events. Below is a more detailed summary of the work described. The first stage of the reporting period was a concentration of four aspects: 1) initial project management 2) data collection 3) early stage research 4) professionalization. The second stage of the reporting period primarily consisted of: 1) interpretive analysis 2) dissemination and communication. Communication and dissemination took form as a seminar in the Department of Arts and Culture based on my project’s research in 2019 and 2020. In 2021 I co-organized an online workshop with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago that explored concepts and methods of transnational research in the field of art history. From 2022-2023 I prepared a two-day international symposium in collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Art at the University of Sāo Paulo. The planned conference (scheduled for 8-9 June 2023) brings an interdisciplinary group of scholars, museum professionals and artists from Latin America, Europe and the United States to the University of Amsterdam to examine new research on Europe and Latin American relational histories through art. Finally, a series of publications disseminate and communicate my project’s results to academic and larger audiences. A special edited journal has been in preparation since 2021 with the journal Stedelijk Studies, this is a special collaboration with the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam’s research and publications team stemming from my project’s research. Three scientific articles have been prepared during the reporting period. One article was published in 2022 in the peer-reviewed journal Arts and two articles have been accepted and are scheduled for publication in 2024 in the journals: Stedelijk Studies and Modos (2024). Additional essays were published in more public venues, including the contemporary art magazine Art Monthly, the Belgian daily newspaper De Standaard and finally the digital magazine RKD Bulletin by the Netherlands Institute for Art History. All publications are available as open access.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

This project has brought new light on postwar histories of art in Europe and Latin America and the entanglements between them, forge new dialogues about these histories across regions and enhance the public's awareness of art's relationship to timely topics such as migration, mobility, diaspora and transnational identities. The results are evident the completion of the project’s deliverables, which aimed to organize an overview of artistic production and highlight contact zones, networks of collaboration, key artworks and projects from the historical period.

Since 2021 the preliminary results and emerging developments have been shared on an ongoing basis through presentations, open access and other public facing publications in Europe, Latin America and the United States. These presentations and publications have shared new and critical insights into the histories of migrant artists in Europe and their impact on the transatlantic relations with students, academic scholars, museums professionals and a wider readership. These publications have brought public attention to the existence of significant archival material and its usefulness. In one case, the publication on the artist David Lamelas and his work in Belgium generated public attention that influenced a museum’s conservation of his public artwork. The communication of the project’s results has also highlighted broader issues of migration, diaspora, national borders, transnational identities and methodological problems within art historiography. Finally, the academic events (workshop and the forthcoming international symposium) have drawn audiences outside of academia and facilitated productive conversations across regional borders on the important ties between Europe and Latin America. Further exploitation of the results are foreseen with a publication of the conference proceedings with Amsterdam University Press, the forthcoming publications in the journals: Stedelijk Studies and Modos, as well as the book monograph. These publications will generate more visibility of the project’s results, but also ongoing conversations and hopefully further research on the topic.American and European conceptualist art practices through a transnational context.

International symposium flyer