CFP: Presences and Processes in Latin American Sculpture (College Park, 26-27 Oct 2022)

Re·cast / Re·fundiciones: Presences and Processes in Latin American Sculpture

College Park, Maryland, 26–27 Oct 2022
Deadline: 15 Aug 2022

The University of Maryland Art Gallery and the Art Museum of the Americas (AMA) announce a Call for Proposals for the Symposium Re·cast / Re·fundiciones: Presences and Processes in Latin American Sculpture. The symposium will be held on October 26/27, 2022, at the University of Maryland as part of the public program for the exhibition, Re·cast 22 Sculptural Works from the AMA Collection, on view in Fall 2022 at the University of Maryland Art Gallery.

Curated by a group of graduate students from the UMD Department of Art History & Archaeology, the exhibition initiates new conversations about the artists, artworks, and cultural agents present in the collection of the Art Museum of the Americas | Organization of the American States (OAS). Established in 1957 by the OAS Permanent Council, AMA has accumulated a vast collection of artworks that bear witness to the emergence and consolidation of modernist movements and the divergent processes of artistic production across the region during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

The Symposium Committee invites paper proposals from graduate students, artists, and emerging scholars that analyze sculptural practices in the artistic production of the Americas during the 20th and 21st centuries. The malleable nature of the term “sculpture” and the pluralist paths followed by artists during this period allows us to invite contributions that address themes including:

·         Artistic processes and techniques of sculpture in Latin America, the Caribbean, and/or the Americas

·         Materiality and modernism in sculpture

·         Sculpture and representations of the body and various facets of identity, including gender, race, sexuality, class, and ability

·        Political, decolonial, and feminist critiques of modernism from the Latin American perspective with attention to their manifestation in sculptural practices

·        Public sculpture, monuments, and the relationships between sculpture and national identities in Latin America

·         Sculpture as embodiments of the modernizing spirit in Latin American cities

·        Theories of perception, haptics, and the sensorial nature of sculpture

·        Non-traditional and non-tridimensional practices of sculpture

·        Collecting practices of sculptural works from Latin America

Interested participants are invited to submit a 300-word abstract and a CV/Resume no longer than three pages to recastsymposium@gmail.com by August 15, 2022. Accepted participants will be notified by September 2nd, 2022. Proposals can be in English, Spanish, and/or French.

Re·cast / Re·fundiciones: Presences and Processes in Latin American Sculpture will be held in person in College Park, Maryland, and will include a roundtable with Latin American artists represented in AMA’s collection moderated by Director Adriana Ospina. We are prepared to adjust the symposium’s format as needed on account of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Please direct any questions to the Symposium Committee at recastsymposium@gmail.com.