Realidades : El Arte Figurativo Latinoamericano
- Amanda Baldi
- Mar 21
- 3 min read
Updated: Apr 12
Realities: Latin American Figurative Art
MFA Boston - Art of the Americas: Gallery 335
Visited: 20 March 2025
Gallery 335 in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston relegates itself to discussing how and why modern artists in Latin America represent people. There are 13 artworks in this gallery - seven of which were done by six different womxn artists (Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo, Maria Izquierdo, Frida Kahlo, Rosa Rolanda, Maria Auxiliadora.) While not all of the artists in the gallery were Latin American themselves, they all lived/worked in Latin America during their career. The two-sided influence on style and cultural worldview is seen throughout the artworks included. You see the cross-atlantic exchange of ideas and influence flow reciprocally throughout different artists’ works, such as that of Fernando Botero’s (1932-2023) bronze sculpture, Venus (1977-78.) With the name of his piece and the nude form of a woman with a cloth, Botero references the ancient greek sculpture Venus de Milo (2nd Century BC) by Alexandros of Antioch. Botero takes his own spin on the figure, making her fuller and inflating her proportions in both an act of admiration and defiance to distinguish a Latin American identity in a Euro-centric worldview of art history.
Another example lies with Leonora Carrington (born English, migrant to Mexico; 1917-2011.) Carrington explored folk tales with influence from her home country expressed freely with assistance from her personal and artistic exploration of magical beliefs and lore. The strict following of the church in the United Kingdom limited magical possibilities, whereas folk traditions in Latin America allowed alternative world-views.
Gallery 335 highlights the identity of modern Latin-American artists for who they are. It does not focus solely on the traditional historical art canon’s (which is very euro-centric) influence on Latin America, but also acknowledges the influence of Latin-American’s history and culture on makers in its own right.
Within this gallery some of the strengths lie not only in the acknowledgement and inclusion of womxn artists, but also in the inclusion of the spanish language throughout the gallery. Not only does the introduction wall text include Spanish, but it begins with Spanish. The typical norm in American museums utilizes the English language first, and sometimes includes Spanish or another language below. In this exhibition, in correct correlation with the topic of the room, the curators opted to acknowledge Latin America by using a romance language used commonly throughout the area. While a great first step, I would have loved to see this continue by including Spanish on each artworks individual wall plaque as well; however, text about each piece was only available in English. Overall, the language aspect of this gallery culminates to a half-win with more work to be done moving forward.
Terms:
Womxn : n. Alternative spelling of woman/women. Used in practice with intersectional feminism to avoid the suggestion of sexism as perceived in the spelling sequences m-a-n and m-e-n. The “x” also signifies a departure from the conventional spelling which historically is centered around and exclusive to cisgender women. Intended to be inclusive of all gender identities (ie. trans women and noninary people).
Latin America : Designated by the set of countries on the American continent where Romance Languages (such as Spanish, Portuguese and French) dominate. It includes Mexico, most of Central and South America, the Caribbean, Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Haiti. You can find a more complete general summary of Latin American areas and history here!
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