The Avant-garde Networks of Amauta: Argentina, Mexico, and Peru in the 1920s

Curators: Beverly Adams y Natalia Majluf

Coordinator: Beatriz Jordana Trisán

Assistant Coordinator: Joel Butler Fernández

Date: February – May 2019

Venue: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain

Exhibition website

 Exhibition Video

Without doubt, the Peruvian journal Amauta  (1926–1930), founded and directed by José Carlos Mariátegui (Moquegua, Peru, 1894 – Lima, Peru, 1930), was one of the most influential publications in twentieth-century art. Conceived as a platform for the core debates on modernity, and in contrast to other avant-garde publications, Amauta was not the expression of one group, nor did it seek to impose one sole aesthetic or political program. Rather, it aspired to become a medium with which to explore and discuss different movements of social transformation. Its broad network of agents and correspondents in Latin America and Europe helped to cultivate the publication, with a sizeable print run of between three and four thousand copies, and shape its substantial international impact. It is this open and diverse approach that has enabled the present exhibition — in essence, limited to one periodical — to constitute a panoramic survey of Latin American avant-garde movements.

Featuring over 250 works, this show, through the invaluable collaboration of the José Carlos Mariátegui Archive, brings together not only those reproduced in Amauta but also a wide-ranging selection inspired by the exchanges that took place on the pages of the journal; works which are largely contemporary to the publication and span different mediums and formats — from painting, drawing, sculpture and photography to popular art and documentation. The artists represented include Ramón Alva de la Canal and Diego Rivera (Mexico); Camilo Blas, Martín Chambi, Julia Codesido, Elena Izcue, César Moro and José Sabogal (Peru); Norah Borges, Emilio Pettoruti and Alejandro Xul Solar (Argentina); Carlos Mérida (Guatemala); and Tina Modotti (Italy), to mention but a few.

*This exhibition is organized by the Blanton Museum of Art and the Museo de Arte de Lima in collaboration with the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía and the support of Promperú.