Modern Masters from Latin America: The Pérez Simón Collection
San Diego Museum of Art
Through March 11th, 2018
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| Diego Rivera Portrait of Maria Felix Oil on Canvas 1948 Coleccion Perez Simon, Mexico Arturo Piera |
Article by Cathy Breslaw
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.
