Firelei Báez: MoMA Reinterpreting Latin America's Colonial History

Buenos Aires Times, May 5, 2023

Buenos Aires Times

 

New exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art offers a retelling of the European colonisation of Latin America through the eyes of contemporary artists

 

A new exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) offers a retelling of the European colonisation of Latin America through the eyes of contemporary artists. The 65 works by 40 artists of different styles take a "critical" look at the colonial history of the region as told by cartographers, missionaries, scientists and adventurers.

 

The exhibition, which is entitled Chosen Memories, includes paintings, photographs and sculptures, and offers a "revitalisation" of Latin America's cultural heritage, according to MoMA. The artists delved into the past "as a means to repair histories of dispossession, reconnect with undervalued cultural legacies, and strengthen threads of kinship and belonging," curator Inés Katzenstein said in a statement.

 

Dominican Firelei Báez juxtaposes a European map from the 1540s with a mythical female creature to embody "the fears and desires of European conquerors" to unknown cultures.

 
74 
of 1339