Contemporary Latin American Art

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Contemporary art in Latin America grew from strong modern roots. Brazil's Neo-Concrete artists had already invited people to handle and wear works: Hélio Oiticica's Parangolés (1964) were capes made to be danced in. Under military rule between the 1960s and 1980s, artists in Argentina, Chile and Brazil turned to coded conceptual actions, printed matter and fleeting interventions that could slip past censors.

Doris Salcedo fills domestic furniture with concrete in memory of Colombia's disappeared. Teresa Margolles works with materials from Mexico City's morgue to confront violent death. Damián Ortega suspended the dismantled parts of a Volkswagen Beetle in Cosmic Thing (2002). Vik Muniz recreates images in sugar, chocolate, dust or rubbish before photographing them, and Marco Maggi makes microscopic incised drawings on aluminium foil, paper and acrylic sheet. Fernando Botero, working in a different vein, painted and sculpted figures of swollen volume. Look for everyday materials carrying political memory.