art_history
Art and Art History

Permanent Seminar in Latin American Art

ABOUT THE SEMINAR

The Permanent Seminar in Latin American Art is the new initiative organized by Professors Andrea Giunta and Roberto Tejada since their arrival to UT in September 2008, with the support of the Department of Art and Art History and the College of Fine Arts. Focusing on Latin American and U.S. Latino art, the permanent seminar is an open-ended research space dedicated to the creative production of knowledge; participation includes graduate students, artists, art historians, curators and critics from UT and from Latin America. The Permanent Seminar's mission is to establish a critical working group of faculty, researchers and graduate students who meet regularly to discuss and develop research projects in progress. It provides a unique exploratory context for analyzing the process of change in modern and contemporary Latin American art in a global setting. It also provides a welcoming place for dialogue with scholars from abroad.

The Permanent Seminar is a setting based in the knowledge community and creative power prompted by non-curricular, interpersonal exchange; its purpose is to activate critical debate. The Permanent Seminar has no beginning and no end, but is rather a work in progress for UT faculty and graduate students, together with visiting international scholars, to potentially discover ideas. The Permanent Seminar aims to renew contacts between young researchers, to create an international network for the exchange of ideas concerning Latin American art, and to disseminate current research.

The Permanent Seminar proposes to advance creative inquiry at other research centers fostering kindred energies with the aim of designing a network of permanent seminars. This network will be open to the circulation and reception of students and researchers interested in discussions about Latin American art and visual studies in general.

The seminar will focus on modern and contemporary art, with perspectives offered by diaspora studies, the analysis of colonialism, migration, and exile, including those junctures that put forward interdisciplinary viewpoints (art history and the history of images in general.)

The Permanent Seminar in Latin American Art proposes, in its initial stages, a program based on four forms of interchange, two of which are already effective:

  1. To host visiting artists and scholars who will offer presentations to the Permanent Seminar and our classrooms. We have invited Graciela Sacco (Argentina), Tania Bruguera (Cuba-USA); Cuauhtémoc Medina (Mexico); Roberto Jacoby (Argentina), Claire Fox (USA) and Ken Gonzales-Day (USA).
  2. To organize dialogue sessions among graduate students. We are currently planning an International Research Forum on Transnational Latin America (Transnational Latin American Art) organized by The University of Texas (Department of Art and Art History and College of Fine Arts), the University of the Arts London and the University of Essex (UK).
  3. To establish a system of long-term interchanges between UT students and other academic centers to conduct field work for individual research.
  4. To promote the creation of seminars on Latin American and U.S. Latino art at other research centers in Latin America, Europe, and the United States, serving also as a network for visiting scholars.

DIRECTORS

Dr. Andrea Giunta
Professor, Latin American and Latino Art
Department of Art and Art History
University of Texas at Austin
agiunta@mail.utexas.edu

Dr. Roberto Tejada
Associate Professor, Modern Mexican, Chicano, and Contemporary U.S. Latino Art
Department of Art and Art History
University of Texas at Austin
tejada@mail.utexas.edu