Pablo Leon de la Barra, Diagrama Tropical / Nova Cartografia Tropical, 2010
an attempt to rethink art history from the tropics.
Invited by curator Kiki Mazzucchelli I developed this tropical diagram, an attempt and a first approximation to construct a new tropical history and historiography. The poster also includes the Novo Museo Tropical Manifesto, and is an attempt to create an expanded field for tropical manifestations, which de-localises it from any geography (or Brasilianity). As the Manifesto says: 'Being Tropical is not about location, it's about attitude.' As any collection, it is necessarily incomplete, please feel free to suggest names and moments you believe are absent. If you have some friends that we overlooked there are some extra bananas, fill in!
The poster bananeiro tropical was printed as an edition of A1 posters as part of the project 'O Cartaz Como Espaco Expositivo Expandido', curated by Kiki Mazzucchelli and designed by Mel Duarte, with the support of the Fundacao Bienal de Sao Paulo.
The Diagrama Tropical, was freely inspired (and a response to) Alfred Barr's 'Cubism and Abstract Art' MOMA diagram from 1936 and to Miguel Covarrubias' 'Tree of Modern Art' from 1933 and Ad Reinhardt’s response to it, 'How to Look at Modern Art in America', 1946.
Alfred Barr, 'Cubism and Abstract Art', Diagram, MOMA, 1936
Ad Reinhardt, 'How to Look at Modern Art in America', PM magazine, June 2, 1946.
Miguel Covarrubias, The Tree of Modern Art, Vanity Fair, vol. 40, no.3, May 1933, p.36 (in which Covarrubias, even coming from Mexico, ignored all non-western, non European art!)
the Diagrama Tropical is also inspired by the inverting strategies of Torres Garcia and Robert Smithson:
Joaquín Torres García, América Invertida, 1943
Robert Smithson, Inverted Tree, 1969
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