Pan American Modernism: Avant Garde Art in Latin America and the United States

Featuring the work of 43 Latin American artists and 26 artists from the United States, Pan American Modernism explores the rich visual dialogue that exists between objects produced by artists working in 13 countries in North, South, and Central America during the 60-year period between 1919 and 1979. Rather than perpetuating a North American-centric hegemony, which tends to diminish and polarize works of art produced by Latin American artists, the exhibition analyzes how Pan American artistic exchanges, rather than stylistic transmission, constructs a fuller understanding of modernism as an international phenomenon across the Americas.

Developed by the Lowe Art Museum at the University of Miami, Pan American Modernism showcases more than 70 important works of art, many of which have not been previously exhibited. Several influential Pan American artists are represented, including Eduardo Abela, Romare Bearden, Fernando Botero, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Joaquín Torres-García, Adolph Gottlieb, Hans Hofmann, Lee Krasner, Wifredo Lam, Roberto Matta, Robert Motherwell, Gordon Matta-Clark, Amelia Peláez, Man Ray, Diego Rivera, Ben Shahn, and Edward Weston among many others. The inclusion of such seminal artists allows for the examination of topics such as Mexican muralism, abstract expressionism, modernist photography, and geometric abstraction in constructivism, minimalism, and optical art to explore commonalities and disconnects throughout the Americas.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website