Abstraction in Reverse

Most of the books about modern art in South America have focused on particular artists or nations. There has been no book-length history of the movement as it evolved across the continent until now. Alexander Alberro has written that book. Profusely illustrated and beautifully written, it explores how artists working in several cities (Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Caracas, Sao Paulo, and Rio de Janeiro) in the mid-twentieth century altered the nature of modernist art. Its thesis is as radical as the art of the time: in breaking with the core dictums of European and US abstract art, these artists re-imagined the relationship of art to its public, granting the spectator a greater role in the realization of the artwork. In this new conceptualization the artwork was no longer considered a thing made in advance of the context in which it is shown, but rather a dynamic force or event that can only be produced at the site where the art object and the spectator meet. Ahead of its time, this art anticipated Happenings in NYC and Europe in the late 1950s and early 1960s."