Session at the College Art Association CAA2020 annual conference, 12-15 February 2020, Chicago
Chairs: Elize Mazadiego (emazadiego@ucsd.edu) and Eve Kalyva (e.m.kalyva@gmail.com)

In 2017, the exhibition Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960-1985 opened at the Hammer Museum, UCLA as part of Getty’s Pacific Standard Time initiative: LA/LA. The exhibition presented works by 120 women artists active in Latin America and the United States, claiming to be the “first survey of radical and feminist art practices in Latin America and among Latina artists in the United States.”
Working back from this exhibition, this session seeks to examine the representation and construction of “Latin America”, “Latin American art” and more specifically “Latin American women” through a survey of exhibition histories and strategies of display. In the case of Radical Women, curators Cecilia Fajardo-Hill and Andrea Giunta focused on the heterogeneity of postwar feminist artistic practices, adding specificity to the topic of global feminisms in art while countering the dominant narrative of Western and of particularly U.S. feminism.
This panel invites discussion on how the framework of feminism can help explore, counter, complicate and (re)construct Latin American identities and art histories. What particular gaps in knowledge and access to it do shows that focus on women artists aim to fill, and how do they upset canonical readings of (Western) art history? What nuances arise from using the framework of feminism, and what alternative frames of reference and readings of Latin American women have become available? Since new perspectives should ideally avoid the pitfalls of the past, how can exhibitions negotiate and resist the objectification of genders and identities? If art exhibitions can generate critical dialogue, how is this achieved and reflected in exhibition design and public engagement, and how does curatorial research inform scholarship?

To submit a paper proposal, please use CAA’s proposal form found at https://caa.confex.com/caa/2020/webprogrampreliminary/meeting.html.

Proposals should be 250 words max, and accompanied by a 2-page CV. Please send your proposals directly to the session chairs Elize Mazadiego (emazadiego@ucsd.edu) and Eve Kalyva (e.m.kalyva@gmail.com)
Deadline to submit a paper proposal: 23 July 2019
Conference presenters must be CAA members. Notifications for selection will be sent out by 22 August 2019.