Lamenting the under-representation of Latin American artists in major museum collections has long been a habit amongst liberal art-world types. So kudos to the Guggenheim in New York, for putting their money where their mouth is and organising this touring show, which features 45 works from the region.
Many of them are excellent, not to mention historically important, such as Alfredo Jaar’s ‘A Logo for America’: an iconic, incendiary electronic billboard piece originally shown in Times Square in 1987. And there are plenty of smart pieces by younger artists too. What’s interesting is watching certain trends emerge. There are installations that explore archives and institutional displays, like Mariana Castillo Deball casts of Victorian archeological artefacts. Video art is another strong suit, such as funny and disturbing works by Javier Téllez, feauring animal-masked psychiatric patients and human cannonballs launched across the Mexico-US border.
Where the exhibition falters is in relying on too many shallow, one-linerish sculptures – largely from trendy Mexico City types like Damián Ortega and his abstract modernist sculptures made from tortilla crispbread. Sadly, my guess is that the best work by these big-hitters is in collections that are private, rather than public.