Norton Museum exhibition looks at Latin American art with fresh eyes

The Body Says, I Am a Fiesta: The Figure in Latin American Art is the first show in a new initiative to promote the work of Latin American artists at the Norton Museum in West Palm Beach

Ideas about Latin American art and artists are changing, and if the viewpoints expressed in an exhibition at the Norton Museum are any guide, it’s about time.

The Body Says, I Am a Fiesta: The Figure in Latin American Art is the first exhibition of the Norton’s new initiative to re-evaluate the contributions and impact of Latin American artists, whose work has been under-represented in North American museums, according to Elliot Bostwick Davis, director and chief executive officer of the museum in West Palm Beach.

The exhibition, which covers the work of artists active in Latin America and the United States between the 1930s and the 2010s, explores the ideas and emotions communicated by depictions of the human body.

Artists featured include the “Big Three” Mexican muralists ⁠— Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros, as well as Rufino Tamayo, Ana Mendieta, Vik Muniz, Felix Gonzalez Torres, Manuel Alvarez Bravo and Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons. Many of the works, most drawn from the Norton’s collection, are on view for the first time.

The exhibition takes its name from a poem in “Walking Words,” a book by the late Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano. After the church, science and advertising take their shots at defining the body, the poem concludes with the line “The body says: I am a fiesta.”

The exhibition makes a statement from the start by dividing the works between two floors.

A gallery on the first floor adjoining the American art galleries features older art. It’s anchored by works by Rivera, Orozco and Siqueiros. Alongside them are photographs by Bravo and works by lesser-known artists such as Amelia Pelaez del Casal and Miguel Covarrubias.

A gallery on the second floor is dedicated to more contemporary art.

Davis thought it was important to position the Mexican muralists close to the American modernists, said exhibition curator J. Rachel Gustafson, an assistant curator at the Norton.

That’s because when we use the term American, we often think only of the United States, she said.

But the Mexican muralists and other artists in the show “exchanged their ideas throughout the Americas and Europe,” she said.

Rivera’s sketch for “Androcles and the Lion,” from 1949, is a good example. The title seemed to imply that it was preliminary work for a painting. But Gustafson’s research revealed it probably was a sketch for a movie based on George Bernard Shaw’s play by the same name. Gabriel Pascal hired Rivera to be the movie’s production designer. But he couldn’t drum up funding and the movie was never made.

Other works by the muralists include Rivera’s 1931 painting “El Amigo de Frida” (Frida’s Friend), Orozco’s 1932 lithograph “Unemployed,” and Siqueiros’ 1937 lithograph “Militar” (Soldier).

On the second floor, literal representations of the body diminish as many artists use stand-ins to suggest a human presence.

That’s true of Salvadoran artist Ronald Moran’s “Botas” (Boots), from 2005. The empty white boots are made of Dacron, a polyester fabric.

“There’s a political statement in it,” Gustafson said. “Moran says there has to be in his art. His experience has been one of living among violence because of the political unrest in his country.”