Modern Masters from Latin America: The Pérez Simón Collection
San Diego Museum of Art
Through March 11th, 2018e
Article by Cathy Breslaw
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| Diego Rivera Portrait of Maria Felix oil on canvas 1948 |
Modern Masters
from Latin America: The Pérez Simón Collection is part of the broadly
based Pacific Standard Time LA/LA, a far-reaching and ambitious exploration of
Latin American and Latino art. Supported by grants from the Getty
Foundation, exhibitions and associated events are taking place through March
2018 at more than 70 cultural institutions across Southern California. Pérez
Simón, a Mexican businessman and collector from Mexico City, generously
provided 100 paintings of his over 3,000 works in collection to be exhibited
together for the first time in the United States at the San Diego Museum of Art. Curated and organized by San Diego Museum of
Art Executive Director Roxana
Velásquez, this exhibition covers artworks from the early 1800’s to the first
decades of the 21st century. Featured artists include: Fernando
Botero, Félix González-Torres, Frida Kahlo, Wilfredo Lam, Roberto Matta, José
Clemente Orozco, Alfredo Ramos Martínez, Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros,
Jesús Rafael Soto, and Rufino Tamayo. Countries represented in this exhibition
are Argentina, Chile, Columbia, Cuba, Mexico, Peru, Brazil and Uruguay. Some
underlying themes of these works reference modern colonial histories with the
importance of landscape painting in the formation of distinctive national
identities, the development of avant-garde styles, modern depictions of
indigenous peoples and customs, the age of the metropolis and modernism. Many
of the artists studied with masters in Europe where they were exposed to
Cubism, Futurism, Impressionism, and
other art movements, then returning to their home countries to develop and share their
distinctive voices. The exhibition styles range from abstraction to realism,
with portraits as well as landscapes. The approximately 70 artists included in
this exhibition provide insight into the complex histories of these countries
that share their beginnings as settled primarily by Spain and Portugal, but
have their own notable presence and identities. Viewing this broad spectrum of
paintings introduces audiences to the divergent historical and more current
circumstances of Latin American countries – the variety of ethnicities, the politics
and culture, as well as commonalities among them.
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Frida
Kahlo, Girl form Tehuacán, Lucha María or
Sun and Moon (Niña tehuacana, Lucha María o Sol y luna), 1942. Oil on
Masonite. Colección Pérez Simón, Mexico © Rafael Doniz.
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Courtesy of tJoaquín Torres García, Composition on Sun (Composición con sol), 1943.Oil on fibreboard on chipboard. Colección Pérez Simón, Mexico © Rafael Donizhe Estate of Joaquín Torres-García.
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Fernando de Szyszlo, House Eight (Casa-ocho), 1978. Oil on
canvas. Colección Pérez Simón,
Mexico © Arturo Piera.
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