Arte Vida: Acciones por Artistas de Las Américas, 1960-2000(Art life: Actions by Artists from The Americas, 1960-2000)

A survey of performative actions created by Latin American artists during the last four decades of the Twentieth Century shape the exhibition entitled Arte≠Vida: Acciones por Artistas de Las Américas, 1960-2000, inaugurated on December 9, on the second floor of the Museo de Arte del Banco de la República in Bogota. Curated by Deborah Cullen, the exhibition consists of more than 400 objects, including documents, photographs, memories, objects, and other materials that, more than just narrating social, cultural, and political contexts of their authors, document the development of an artistic tendency (performance) in the continent. Among the artists represented in the exhibition are: Chilean Alejandro Jodorowsky and Argentine Alberto Greco, both pioneers of the art actions during the 1960s; Argentine Marta Minujín; Brazilians Lygia Clark and Hélio Oiticica; Cuban Ana Mendieta and New Yorker Rafael Montañés-Ortíz, both important names in the artistic development of Latin America; Mexican Guillermo Gómez-Peña; Dominican Silvano Lora; Colombian María Teresa Hincapié and Guatemalan Regina José Galindo, each of whom developed powerful proposals during the end of the 20th century. More than a fixed and totalizing chronology, this exhibition proposes a point of departure for new studies, research, contrasts, debates, etc., which lead to the construction of a more complete understanding of what the practice of performance was, and continues to be, in Latin America.