This study of the Latin American art song and its development in the context of musical nationalism shows how the song is a mirror in which the processes of conformation to Latin American national identity are reflected.

This collection of essays, curriculum units, and study guides on Latin American art and musical traditions is designed to help interested teachers take a comprehensive approach to teaching these subjects. The introduction features the essay, "Media Resources Available on Latin American Culture: A Survey of Art, Architecture, and Music Articles Appearing in Americas" (K. Murray). Section 1, The Visual Arts of Latin America, has the following articles: "The Latin American Box: Environmental Aesthetics in the Classroom" (R. Robkin); "Mascaras y Danzas de Mexico y Guatemala" (J. Winzinger); "The Five Creations and Four Destructions of the Aztec World" (C. Simmons; R. Gaytan); "Art Forms of Quetzalcoatl: A Teaching Guide for Spanish, History, and Art Classes" (A. P. Crick); "The Art and Architecture of Mesoamerica: An Overview" (J. Quirarte); "Interpreting the Aztec Calendar" (L. Hall); "Mexican Muralism: Its Social-Educative Roles in Latin America and the United States" (S. Goldman); "Mexico: An Artist's History" (K. Jones); "A Historical Survey of Chicano Murals in the Southwest" (A. Rodriguez); and "El Dia de los Muertos" (C. Hickman). Section 2, The Musical Heritage of Latin America, has an introduction: "The Study of Latin American Folk Music and the Classroom" (G. Behague) and the following articles: "Value Clarification of the Chicano Culture through Music and Dance" (R. R. de Guerrero); "'La Bamba': Reflections of Many People" (J. Taylor); "The Latin American Art Music Tradition: Some Criteria for Selection of Teaching Materials" (M. Kuss); "Mariachi Guide" (B. San Miguel); "'El Tamborito': The Panamanian Musical Heritage" (N. Samuda); "A Journey through the History of Music in Latin America" (J. Orrego-Salas); "A Multicultural Tapestry for Young People" (V. Gachen); and "A Survey of Mexican Popular Music" (A. Krohn). A list of Education Service Centers in Texas is in the appendix. (DB)

Explores how one group of Latin American artists express their relationship to American art, history and culture.

This comprehensive survey examines Latin American music, focusing on popular—as opposed to folk or art—music and containing more than 200 entries on the concepts and terminology, ensembles, and instruments that the genre comprises. The rich and soulful character of Latin American culture is expressed most vividly in the sounds and expressions of its musical heritage. While other scholars have attempted to define and interpret this body of work, no other resource has provided such a detailed view of the topic, covering everything from the mambo and unique music instruments to the biographies of famous Latino musicians. Encyclopedia of Latin American Popular Music delivers scholarly, authoritative, and accessible information on the subject, and is the only single-volume reference in English that is devoted to an encyclopedic study of the popular music in this genre. This comprehensive text—organized alphabetically—contains roughly 200 entries and includes a chronology, discussion of themes in Latin American music, and 37 biographical sidebars of significant musicians and performers. The depth and scope of the book's coverage will benefit music courses, as well as studies in Latin American history, multicultural perspectives, and popular culture.

In this uniquely wide-ranging book, David Craven investigates the extraordinary impact of three Latin American revolutions on the visual arts and on cultural policy. The three great upheavals - in Mexico (1910-40), in Cuba (1959-89), and in Nicaragua (1979-90) - were defining moments in twentieth-century life in the Americas. Craven discusses the structural logic of each movement's artistic project - by whom, how, and for whom artworks were produced -- and assesses their legacies. In each case, he demonstrates how the consequences of the revolution reverberated in the arts and cultures far beyond national borders. The book not only examines specific artworks originating from each revolution's attempt to deal with the challenge of 'socializing the arts,' but also the engagement of the working classes in Mexico, Cuba, and Nicaragua with a tradition of the fine arts made newly accessible through social transformation. Craven considers how each revolution dealt with the pressing problem of creating a 'dialogical art' -- one that reconfigures the existing artistic resource rather than one that just reproduces a populist art to keep things as they were. In addition, the author charts the impact on the revolutionary processes of theories of art and education, articulated by such thinkers as John Dewey and Paulo Freire. The book provides a fascinating new view of the Latin American revolutionaries -- from artists to political leaders -- who defined art as a fundamental force for the transformation of society and who bequeathed new ways of thinking about the relations among art, ideology, and class, within a revolutionary process.

Projects that bring the ‘hard’ sciences into art are increasingly being exhibited in galleries and museums across the world. In a surge of publications on the subject, few focus on regions beyond Europe and the Anglophone world. Decolonizing Science in Latin American Art assembles a new corpus of art-science projects by Latin American artists, ranging from big-budget collaborations with NASA and MIT to homegrown experiments in artists’ kitchens. While they draw on recent scientific research, these art projects also ‘decolonize’ science. If increasing knowledge of the natural world has often gone hand-in-hand with our objectification and exploitation of it, the artists studied here emphasize the subjectivity and intelligence of other species, staging new forms of collaboration and co-creativity beyond the human. They design technologies that work with organic processes to promote the health of ecosystems, and seek alternatives to the logics of extractivism and monoculture farming that have caused extensive ecological damage in Latin America. They develop do-it-yourself, open-source, commons-based practices for sharing creative and intellectual property. They establish critical dialogues between Western science and indigenous thought, reconnecting a disembedded, abstracted form of knowledge with the cultural, social, spiritual, and ethical spheres of experience from which it has often been excluded. Decolonizing Science in Latin American Art interrogates how artistic practices may communicate, extend, supplement, and challenge scientific ideas. At the same time, it explores broader questions in the field of art, including the relationship between knowledge, care, and curation; nonhuman agency; art and utility; and changing approaches to participation. It also highlights important contributions by Latin American thinkers to themes of global significance, including the Anthropocene, climate change and environmental justice.

This authoritative and beautiful book presents the first continuous narrative history of Latin American art from the years of the Independence movements in the 1820s up to the present day. Exploring both the indigenous roots and the colonial and post-colonial experiences of the various countries, the book investigates fascinating though little-known aspects of nineteenth and twentieth-century art and also provides a context for the contemporary art of the continent.