Before it names a region, an identity, or a community of origin or destination, “Latin America” names overlapping territories and intertwined histories, a zone of political, cultural, and symbolic disputes shaped by colonial invasions, independence movements, authoritarian modernization projects, and Indigenous, Black, feminist, and ecological struggles. Consolidated in the nineteenth century, the term refers to Mexico, Central America, parts of the Caribbean, and South America, where languages of Latin origin, particularly Spanish and Portuguese, predominate. To think about Latin America, therefore, is to grapple with an unstable idea. Latin American Histories takes this instability as its starting point: it does not seek a totalizing synthesis of the continent, nor does it attempt to establish a fixed definition of what Latin America means. The exhibition looks to the past and present, asking how the region was and continues to be invented, contested, and reinvented.

Occupying all five exhibition floors of the Pietro Building, the exhibition brings together 187 works by 148 artists from 20 countries. The selection encompasses Latin America and its diasporas, as well as contexts historically connected to the region. It brings together works from the MASP collection with loans from museums and public and private collections in Brazil and abroad. Rather than organizing Latin American art according to national schools or chronological sequences, the exhibition adopts a thematic structure, bringing different periods into dialogue: precolonial objects coexist with contemporary works, devotional and religious images with conceptual works, and documents and maps with paintings, photographs, and videos.

The exhibition is organized into five sections, each occupying one floor of the Pietro Building. The World Turned Upside Down, on the sixth floor, examines the European invasion of the Americas and the role of images in describing, classifying, and administering colonial territories. The Rhetoric of Progress, on the fifth floor, addresses projects of modernization and industrialization and the promises of rationality that produced factories and planned cities, but also inequalities and violence. Sociedades Americanas, on the fourth floor, turns to forms of collective life and political imagination, revisiting pedagogical and emancipatory traditions and experiences of community organization. Estamos em salsa, on the third floor, traces the routes of circulation of sounds, commodities, and images, as well as the migrations and diasporas that transformed Latin American cultures. The Falling Sky, on the second floor, draws on contemporary Indigenous thought to reflect on the exhaustion of modern utopias and brings together works around technology, ecology, and the dream in the face of the devastation produced by the idea of progress.

Latin American Histories presents the region as a territory of conflict and creation, whose histories, shaped by fractures, overlaps, and persistence, continue to be produced and contested in the present.

Latin American Histories is curated by Amanda Carneiro, curator, and Julieta González, adjunct curator of modern and contemporary art, with curatorial assistance from Teo Teotônio, curatorial assistant. The exhibition is part of the year dedicated to Latin American Histories, which also includes solo exhibitions by Carolina Caycedo, Claudia Alarcón & Silät, Coletivo Acciones de Arte, Damián Ortega, Jesús Soto, La Chola Poblete, Manuel Herreros de Lemos and Mateo Manaure Arilla, Pablo Delano, Rosa Elena Curruchich, Sandra Gamarra Heshiki, Santiago Yahuarcani, and Sol Calero, as well as exhibitions in the Video Room by Clara Ianni, Claudia Martínez Garay, Edgar Calel, Oscar Muñoz, and Regina José Galindo.

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Participating artists

Abdias do Nascimento
Adriana Varejão
Adriene Jenik
Agostinho Batista de Freitas
Aleijadinho
Alessandro Balteo Yazbeck
Alexander Apóstol
Alexander Luna
Alfredo Jaar
Alfredo Zalce
Aline Motta
Alma López
Ana Mercedes Hoyos
Ana Segovia
Andrés Curruchich
Angela Detanico
Anna Bella Geiger
Anna Maria Maiolino
Antonio Caro
Asociación de Artistas Populares de Sarhua
Unknown artist (Cusco School)
Ayrson Heráclito
Beatriz González
Belkis Ayón
Calimocho Styles (Eduardo Abaroa and Rubén Ortiz Torres)
Carlos Garaicoa
Carlos Herrera
Carlos Raquel Rivera
Carmézia Emiliano
Carolina Caycedo
Cecilia Vicuña
Cildo Meireles
Cinthia Marcelle
Cisco Jiménez
Clara Ianni
Claudia Martinez Garay
Claudia Andujar
Clemente Padín
Coco Fusco
Dalton Paula
Damián Ortega
Daniel Lind Ramos
Denilson Baniwa
Detanico Lain
Diego Rivera
Djanira
Dora Longo Bahia
Doris Salcedo
Edgar Calel
Edgardo Aragón
Elizabeth Catlett
Engel Leonardo
Enrique Chagoya
Ethel Shipton
Fermín Revueltas
Firelei Báez
Francis Alÿs
Francisco Laso de los Ríos
Frente 3 de Fevereiro
Gabriel Fernández Ledesma
Gabriel Sierra
Gala Porras-Kim
Germán Venegas
Guadalupe Maravilla
Guillermo Gómez-Peña
Harun Farocki
Heitor dos Prazeres
Hiram Maristany
Inca (Unidentified)
Jacques Bedel
Jaider Esbell
JAMAC (Ageu Pereira, Bruno O., Izabel Gomes, Jadiel Pereira, Janaú, Mônica Nador, Rayana Paixão and Thais Scabio)
Jean-Baptiste Debret
Joaquín Torres García
Jorge Bodanzky
Jorge Caraballo
Jose Antonio da Silva
José Clemente Orozco
Juan Araujo
Juan Downey
Juan O’Gorman
Laura Lima
León Ferrari
Leon Hirszman
Leopoldo Méndez
Lenora de Barros
Lola Alvarez Bravo
Luchita Hurtado
Lucio Costa
Magdalena Jitrik
Manuel Chavajay
Gobelins Manufactory
Marcel Gautherot
Marcela Cantuária
Marcelo Cidade
Márcia X
Marcos Dimas
María de la Paz Jaramillo
María Magdalena Campos-Pons
María Teodora Méndez de González
Mariana Castillo Deball
Maris Bustamante
Matías González Chavajay
Mauricio Lupini
Miguel Covarrubias
Minerva Cuevas
Nao Bustamante
Nohemí Pérez
Olinda Silvano
Oscar Murillo
Osvaldo Pitoé
Pablo Leon de la Barra
Pancho V.
Paloma Contreras Lomas
Paulo Nazareth
Paulo Pedro Leal
Pedro Rafael González Chavajay
Pepón Osorio
Podeserdesligado
Rafael Tufiño
Randolpho Lamonier
Raphael Montañez Ortiz
Regina Silveira
Renata Lucas
Rivane Neuenschwander
River Claure
Roberto Sifuentes
Rosana Paulino
Rubén Ortiz Torres
Rubén Rivera Aponte
Sandra Gamarra
Sandra Vásquez de la Horra
Santiago Yahuarcani
Seba Calfuqueo
Sergio Vega
Solange Pessoa
Théodore de Bry
Thiago Rocha Pitta
Thomas Glassford
Teresa Margolles
Tina Modotti
Venuca Evanan
Ventura Profana
Vivian Caccuri
Wifredo Lam
Xul Solar