{"id":1798,"date":"2013-12-05T16:41:54","date_gmt":"2013-12-05T21:41:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.hampshire.edu\/theharold\/?p=1798"},"modified":"2013-12-05T17:03:50","modified_gmt":"2013-12-05T22:03:50","slug":"the-curatorial-category-of-latino-art-a-discussion-between-hampshire-alum-alex-rivera-and-washington-post-art-critic-phillip-kennicott","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.hampshire.edu\/theharold\/2013\/12\/05\/the-curatorial-category-of-latino-art-a-discussion-between-hampshire-alum-alex-rivera-and-washington-post-art-critic-phillip-kennicott\/","title":{"rendered":"The Curatorial Category of Latino Art: A discussion between Hampshire alum Alex Rivera and Washington Post art critic Phillip Kennicott"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hampshire alum Alex Rivera recently challenged Phillip Kennicott, chief art critic on The Washington Post, in the November 1 Washington Post Style Blog. Rivera questioned Kennicott\u2019s round criticism of, \u201cOur America: The Latino Presence in American Art\u201d currently on display at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Rivera, a digital media artist and filmmaker who graduated from Hampshire College in 1995, challenged Kennicott\u2019s claim, \u201cthat the show\u2019s lack of focus was \u201ca telling symptom of an insoluble problem: Latino art, today, is a meaningless category.\u201d<\/b> Rivera wisely asks how Latino art can be critiqued as too broad a category when American art is widely categorized as American.
\n\"Screen<\/a>Kennicott writes:
\nSo from the very beginning we have curatorial acknowledgement that the category is \u201can imperfect composite construct\u201d and isn\u2019t \u201csettled or clear cut\u201d and it can\u2019t \u201cshoulder the divergent histories\u201d it seeks to contain. And the work it is supposedly able to do\u2013indicator of descent, shared experience and art historical marginalization\u2013is in fact so broad that it can\u2019t really focus the exhibition. The last two of these subcategories in the definition Ramos offers\u2013shared experience and art historical marginalization\u2013are more useful than the first\u2013indicator of descent\u2013and they would offer grounds for a better exhibition. But it would have to be much better focused than what is on display at the Smithsonian.<\/p>\n

Rivera replies, \u201cI don\u2019t doubt the show is imperfect, and worthy of critique. I don\u2019t doubt that the show is broad in nature. But in the future I hope to read reviews that take me into the show, on the show\u2019s terms. Reviews that help me understand what specifically works and what doesn\u2019t. And reviews that accept as a starting point that presenting the work of people who inhabit big categories like \u201cLatino Artists\u201d is vital and urgent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clearly the curatorial category of Latino art is playing an important role in establishing the need for curating content by often marginalized artists.<\/p>\n

Read the full discussion online in Nov 1. 2013 The Washington Post Style Blog<\/a><\/p>\n

or, check out the exhibition online <\/a><\/p>\n

If you are interested in learning more about curatorial studies at Hampshire College, be sure to explore the Institute for Curatorial Practice<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Alex Rivera is a digital media artist and filmmaker, best known for his Sundance award-winning feature film \u201cSleep Dealer.\u201d His film and digital media work has been screened at The Berlin International Film Festival, the Museum of Modern Art, The Guggenheim, The Getty, Museum, Lincoln Center, PBS, and other international venues.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hampshire alum Alex Rivera recently challenged Phillip Kennicott, chief art critic on The Washington Post, in the November 1 Washington Post Style Blog. Rivera questioned Kennicott\u2019s round criticism of, \u201cOur America: The Latino Presence in American Art\u201d currently on display at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Rivera, a digital media …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":304,"featured_media":1802,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37110],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hfj-library","column","threecol","has-thumbnail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.hampshire.edu\/theharold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1798"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.hampshire.edu\/theharold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.hampshire.edu\/theharold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.hampshire.edu\/theharold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/304"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.hampshire.edu\/theharold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1798"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sites.hampshire.edu\/theharold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1798\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1803,"href":"https:\/\/sites.hampshire.edu\/theharold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1798\/revisions\/1803"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.hampshire.edu\/theharold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.hampshire.edu\/theharold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.hampshire.edu\/theharold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.hampshire.edu\/theharold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}