By Laura Gatewood
Diego Rivera freshly re-installed at LACMA
LACMA recently unveiled its re-installation of a first-class collection of Latin art representing the Pre-Columbian era to present day in the fourth floor galleries of the Arts of the Americas building. The star of the Pre-Columbian installation, Jorge Pardo’s undulating wooden framework and colored glass lamps and curtains lining each room, heightens the historical value of the collection through the juxtaposition of modern design and native art.
Alongside the Pre-Colombian works is a strong collection of colonial art, including a charming Book of Hours and paintings by Miguel Cabrera; it maintains the high level of quality found throughout the rest of the installation.
The modern and contemporary collection is a masterclass survey of Latin painting over the last hundred years, including excellent examples from the Mexican triumverate of Rivera, Siqueiros, and Orozco, and an exquisite painting from 1939 by Chilean surrealist Roberto Matta which displays the extremes to which the artist successfully manipulated spatial ambiguity on canvas.
Also included are prime works by modern and contemporary artists such as Cuban Wifredo Lam, Uruguyan constructivist Joaquin Torres-Garcia, and Belgian-born Francis Alys.
Viewers already fans of Latin American art will be thoroughly satisifed and those who are fairly new to it will be turned on to both its aesthetic pleasures and artistic merits.