A New Generation Of Latino Art

Latino and Latin American art have for long remained underrepresented in most mainstream museums in the United States. But as Kirstin Valdez writes in The New York Times Style magazine, it is worth taking the time to acknowledge artists from throughout the hemisphere, and particularly the diaspora and legacy of Latino art in the United States.

It is vibrant and diverse, and it is quite akin to the present moment, where talk about nationality and walls is all the rage. Her piece can be read as an introduction to the multi-faceted work of Latino artists.

Common experiences, diverse identities

From the get-go, it's important to establish that "Latino" is a very broad brush category. It encompasses dozens of cultures, identities, origins, and histories, and contrary to Latin American art's historical division by nationality, Latino art is "less about a single ethnic origin than it is a shared experience".

Valdez delves into a few of the common experiences and themes portrayed by this new generation of artists: Some of these fall into lazy narratives that dominate popular culture, she writes, including the hopes and travails of migrants and their journeys, lives in their communities, and the perils of adapting to a different culture.

Other, more interesting proposals, rebuke these clichés and offer a more in-depth look at the Latino experience: Aliza Nisenbaum's rich paintings, for example, pay homage to the style of the first Mexican and Argentine painters to exhibit in the US, while rendering often overlooked moments and characters — rather than obsessing about the legal status of migrants, then, she goes for the people, their relationships, their shared history, and their contradictions.