Simultaneous abstractions: Nasreen Mohamedi and the constellation of Latin American Art

ANDREA GIUNTA (AUTOR)

Paris

Simposio; South-South Axes of Global Art; 2015

Artl@s, programme d?histoire spatiale et transnationale des arts

Any evident theme is visible in the drawings of Nasreen Mohamedi. Observing them from my foreigner condicion, I search for marks of a distinct identity. Apparently, her works could belong to any European or Latin American abstract artist. The common base is that all of these works came out of a global climate marked by postwar abstraction. This presentation explores the reasons of this homogenizing perception and test a hypothesis I have been developing concerning the art of the postwar period in global capitals?a hypothesis that might overthrow the idea of the periphery and advance instead a notion of simultaneous avant-gardes; that is, avant-gardes engendered in the specific climate of the postwar period, which developed in distinct ways in different cities worldwide. I try to avoid notions such as ?decentered,? ?peripheral,? or ?hybrid,? because they function around an imbalance, a center that is taken as a parameter. I would like to analyze a constellation of images in order to explore the cultural materials that are condensed within it, and the intervention its appearance came to mean in a particular situation.