El rol del dibujo contemporáneo en la decolonización del espacio latinoamericano

Abstract

This thesis proposes to analyze the exponential development of drawing in contemporary art through the observation of the Latin American scene. Focusing on the specificity of this field, it is presented as an itinerary guided by visual productions that, built upon drawing, experiment with deconstructive practices of colonial narratives that have shaped notions of space since modernity. This approach is grounded in the observation of the growing number of contemporary artists who, since the 1990s, have turned to drawing to structure their productions (Gómez Molina, 1999, 1995; del Valle de Lersundi, 2001; Stupía, 2014). Additionally, it draws from the observation of Latin American artistic proposals that challenge hegemonic narratives, analyzed from a decolonial perspective (Lander, 2005; Quijano, 2000; Mignolo, 2016; Castro Gómez, 2005). In line with the analyses of Hal Foster (2001) and Nelly Richard (2007), this study aims to address both the specific poetics of the works and the themes they tackle, conceived as inseparable dimensions.The first chapter seeks to contextualize the emergence of drawing through an analysis framed within Western modernity, observing pivotal shifts in the status of drawing in the artistic field, with an emphasis on the processes that led to its emancipation from the late 19th century onward. Subsequently, it examines the current prominence of drawing in contemporary art and outlines a brief genealogy of both European-North American and Latin American art (Rose, 1976; Ramírez, 1997). This critical path aims to highlight the center-periphery tension (Giunta, 2020), a key issue in the historiography of subalternized regions, with the goal of unraveling it and accounting for the specificity of Latin American drawing in the global scene.The following chapters address the proposed itinerary, structured around the work of three artists. Chapter 2 focuses on the work of Uruguayan artist Paola Monzillo, who, through drawing, interrogates the colonial dimension of the urban morphology of American cities. The work of Enrique Ježik forms the basis of Chapter 3, enabling reflection on the relevance of modern nations as categories for organizing Latin American territory, crystallized in nationality as a trait of social classification and enforced through borders as control mechanisms. Finally, Chapter 4 revolves around the work of Mauro Rosas, who challenges the 19th-century symbolic construction of Patagonia as a desert—a rhetorical device that enabled the Argentine state’s expansion over lands it sought to annex to the national territory. Based on the works that form the corpus, an analysis is proposed from both theoretical perspectives—the decolonial turn, visual studies (Guasch, 2003), and the archival turn (Giunta, 2010; Guasch, 2011; Tello, 2015; Foster, 2015; Cámara, 2021)—and through contextualization via comparative analysis with other manifestations in the Latin American field that share various aspects: the use of archives, the reworking of photographs, the disruption of cartography, and the exploration of installation, among others. The constructed corpus illuminates a well-trodden path in Latin American art, distinguished by its ability to channel challenges to colonial narratives that traverse us as vital axes. In this process, drawing is not used as a modern tool for representation and expression; rather, these traditional uses are dismantled and subverted through practices that exercise strategies of disciplinary emancipation emerging in the fragmented global artistic field and dynamics explored in the Latin American field, where it acquires a powerful political resonance.