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Pop América, 1965-1975

Original Traveling Exhibition

February 21 – July 21, 2019
Antonio Caro, Colombia Coca-Cola, 1976. Enamel on sheet metal, edition 11/ 25, 19.5 x 27.5 inches (49.53 x 69.85 x 2.86 cm). Collection of the MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Purchased with funds from the Alan May Endowment. Image courtesy of the artist and Casas Riegner, Bogota, Colombia. © Antonio Caro.

Despite the wide appeal of Pop art’s engaging imagery, the broader public remains unaware of the participation and significant contribution of Latin American and Latino/a artists working at the same time and alongside their U.S. and European counterparts. The Nasher Museum presented Pop América, 1965-1975, the first exhibition with a hemispheric vision of Pop. The exhibition made a timely and critical contribution to a more complete understanding of this artistic period.

“We are incredibly honored to present this exhibition, which has been years in the making and reflects groundbreaking research by guest curator and Duke professor Esther Gabara,” said Sarah Schroth, Mary D.B.T. and James H. Semans Director of the Nasher Museum. “As the first exhibition to present a vision of Pop on the American continent as a whole, Pop América makes a critical contribution to understanding this artistic period and Latin America’s rich artistic heritage. At the same time, this will also be the first exhibition to consider Pop art throughout the Americas as an intentional strategy for communicating sensitive, politically challenging content.”

 

Vital Dialogue Crosses Borders

Rubens Gerchman, Tropicália ou panis et circencis (Tropical or Bread and Circuses), 1968. Album cover (front shown only), original pressing, 12.59 x 12.59 inches (32 x 32 cm). Collection of Marcelo Noah and Marina Bedran © Rubens Gerchman Institute, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Image courtesy of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina. Photo by Peter Paul Geoffrion.
Rubens Gerchman, Tropicália ou panis et circencis (Tropical or Bread and Circuses), 1968. Album cover (front shown only), original pressing, 12.59 x 12.59 inches (32 x 32 cm). Collection of Marcelo Noah and Marina Bedran © Rubens Gerchman Institute, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Image courtesy of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina. Photo by Peter Paul Geoffrion.

Pop América featured nearly 100 works by a network of Latino/a and Latin American Pop artists connecting Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico and the United States, introducing new historical frameworks that will reshape debates over Pop’s political neutrality, social inclusiveness and aesthetic innovations in the United States.

The artists in the exhibition created a vital dialogue that crossed national borders, and included Judy Baca, Luis Cruz Azaceta, Jorge de la Vega, Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, among others. United by the common use of Pop’s rich visual strategies, the artists made bold contributions to conceptualism, performance and new media art, as well as social protest, justice movements and debates about freedom.

Pop América opened on October 4, 2018, in San Antonio, Texas, at the McNay Art Museum, which partnered with the Nasher Museum to stage the exhibition, and ran until January 13, 2019. The exhibition was on view at the Nasher Museum from February 21 through July 21, 2019, before traveling to the Block Museum at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, from September 21 through December 8, 2019.

Pop América was complemented by free programs and events, including an opening talk by Duke Professor Esther Gabara on Feb. 21; a conversation with artists Minerva Cuevas and Rupert Garcia on March 20; film screenings; Family Day events; gallery tours; a teacher workshop with artist Judy Baca; a Duke student opening event on February 28 and more. Nasher Museum members at the Sustainer level and above were invited to an exclusive Director’s Preview celebration of the exhibition on February 20.

VIDEO

First Bilingual Nasher Exhibition: Pop América, 1965–1975

Pop América Soundtrack

Pop America, 1965-1975 is accompanied by a playlist of songs from the decade, compiled by guest curator and Duke Professor Esther Gabara along with Natalia de la Rosa, Daniel Escoto and Marcelo Noah.

Artists in the Exhibition

Antônio Henrique Amaral (Brazil); Asco [Collective] including Harry Gamboa, Jr. (California), Gronk (Glugio Nicandro) (California), Willie F. Herrón III (California), and Patssi Valdez (California); Luis Cruz Azaceta (Cuba); Judith F. Baca (California); Antonio Berni (Argentina); Antonio Caro (Colombia); Melesio Casas (Texas); Eduardo Costa (Argentina); Geraldo de Barros (Brazil); Jorge de la Vega (Argentina); Antonio Dias (Brazil); Marcos Dimas (Puerto Rico); Emory Douglas (Michigan); Felipe Ehrenberg (Mexico); Marisol (Escobar) (France); José Gómez Fresquet (Frémez) (Cuba); Rupert García (California); Rubens Gerchman (Brazil); Edgardo Giménez (Argentina); Alberto Gironella (Mexico); Beatriz González (Colombia); Juan José Gurrola (Mexico); Robert Indiana (Indiana); Carlos Irizarry (Puerto Rico); Roberto Jacoby (Argentina); Julia Johnson-Marshall (England); Nelson Leirner (Brazil); Roy Lichtenstein (New York); Anna Maria Maiolino (Brazil); Raúl Martínez (Cuba); Cildo Meireles (Brazil); Marta Minujín (Argentina); Sergio Mondragón (Mexico); Gronk (Glugio Nicandro, California); Hélio Oiticica (Brazil); Claes Oldenburg (Sweden); Lázaro Abreu Padrón (Cuba); Dalila Puzzovio (Argentina); Margaret Randall (New York); Hugo Rivera-Scott (Chile); Emilio Hernández Saavedra (Peru); Rubén Santantonín (Argentina); Elena Serrano (Cuba); Dugald Stermer (California); Jan Stornfelt (birth place unknown); Taller 4 Rojo, including Diego Arango and Nirma Zárate (Colombia); Nicolás García Uriburu (Argentina); Andy Warhol (Pittsburgh); Lance Wyman (New Jersey).

Featured Featured Photo Gallery

Opening Events: Pop América

24 Images Published

Exhibition Catalogue

The Nasher Museum has published the hardcover catalogue Pop América, 1965-1975, on the occasion of the exhibition of the same name. Felipe Ehrenberg, Caja no. 25495 (Box no. 25495) (detail), 1968. Acrylic on wooden box with marbles, 39.37 x 31.49 x 4.33 inches (100 x 80 x 11 cm). Collection of the Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC) de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Mexico City. Courtesy of Reina María de Lourdes Hernández Fuentes.

The Nasher Museum has published the hardcover catalogue Pop América, 1965–1975, on the occasion of the exhibition of the same name. The bilingual (English/Spanish) 216-page catalogue explores Pop art as a hemispheric phenomenon and offers a radical new view onto the postwar “American way of life” and Pop’s presumed political neutrality. Reconstituting a network of artists from the decade, Pop América reveals the skill with which Latin American and Latino/a artists adapted familiar languages of mass media, fashion and advertising to create experimental art in a startling range of mediums. The exhibition catalogue was edited by guest curator Esther Gabara, E. Blake Byrne Associate Professor of Romance Studies and Associate Professor in the Department of Art, Art History & Visual Studies at Duke. Gabara’s rich introductory essay “Contesting Freedom” is accompanied by eight texts grounded in original archival research and narrate transnational accounts of how artists remade América. Contributors include Natalia de la Rosa, Sergio Delgado Moya, Pilar García, Jennifer Josten, Camila Maroja, Alonso Rodrigo, Roberto Tejada and Lyle W. Williams. Pop América was designed by Reneé Cagnina Haynes. The catalogue is distributed by Duke University Press and available for purchase at the Nasher Museum Store.

Featured Featured News

Nasher Wins First-Ever Sotheby’s Prize

The first-ever Sotheby’s Prize was awarded in Fall 2017 to a Nasher Museum exhibition planned for 2019, Pop América, 1965-1975. The Nasher is one of two winners of the inaugural Sotheby’s Prize, meant to support e...

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Featured Featured Articles

Pop América, 1965-1975: The Américan Scene

The Nasher Museum presents a timeline to complement the exhibition Pop América, 1965-1975, across a 6-by-20-foot wall in the Great Hall. The...

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Featured Featured Photo Gallery

Opening Events: Pop América

24 Images Published

Support

Pop América, 1965-1975 is co-organized by the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, and the McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas. The exhibition is guest curated by Esther Gabara, E. Blake Byrne Associate Professor of Romance Studies and associate professor of Art, Art History & Visual Studies at Duke University.

Pop América, 1965-1975 is a recipient of the inaugural Sotheby’s Prize and is supported by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Additional thanks to the Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA) and to its President and Founder, Ariel Aisiks.

This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

At the Nasher Museum, this exhibition is made possible by the Nancy A. Nasher and David J. Haemisegger Family Fund for Exhibitions; Mary Duke Biddle Foundation; Fox Family Foundation; Ann Chanler and Andrew Scheman; Katie Thorpe Kerr and Terrance I. R. Kerr; Lisa Lowenthal Pruzan and Jonathan Pruzan; Kelly Braddy Van Winkle and Lance Van Winkle; Parker & Otis; and Karen M. Rabenau and David H. Harpole, MD.

Support from Duke University is provided by the Vice Provost for the Arts; the Global Brazil Lab and the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute; the Dean of the Humanities; the Departments of Romance Studies and Art, Art History & Visual Studies; the Duke Brazil Initiative; the Office of the Provost; and the Office of Global Affairs.

 

Events Related to Pop América

Past Events
Event Date Saturday, May 25, 2019 | 10:15 AM12:15 PM
Category Nasher Creates

Creative Writing in the Galleries: Art & Your Imagination inspired by Pop América

This is a recurring event, View All Occurrences
Photo of a sketchbook with writing and illustrations.

“Creative Writing in the Galleries: Art and Your Imagination” (three parts). Join Mara Shurgot for three consecutive creative writing workshops. All are welcome! Beginners and experienced authors find inspiration from ...

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Featured Featured Articles

Pop América Course Portfolio

Pop América was a new, three-course portfolio offered in Spring Semester 2018 that contributes to the exhibition, Pop América, 1965-1975. All courses feature independent and collaborative research in the arts, and...

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