Here at Harvard, we are celebrating Latinx/Hispanic Heritage Month. With the diverse cultures represented in our Harvard students, staff, faculty, researchers and fellows, this month gives us an opportunity to celebrate the legacies, histories, and contributions of Hispanic, Latinx, Chicana, South American, Central American, Latino-Caribbean, and Afro-Latinx individuals and communities.
At the Fine Arts Library, we are highlighting Latinx/Hispanic artists’ works on social media. Home--So Different, So Appealing explores works by diverse U.S. Latinx and Latin American artists whose practices engage with the concept of home.
“Home signaling a dwelling, residence or place of origin embodies one of the most basic concepts for understanding an individual or group within a larger physical and social environment. Yet home has been a little noted, although prevalent, feature in art since the 1950s, a period in which artists challenged the traditional object of the visual arts through the use of material and media culture, new forms, and performative actions and processes.” (Publisher’s note)
Image 1: Front cover
Image 2: Leyla Cárdenas, Excision, 2012, Peeled paint, recovered wallpaper, cement, plaster, wire, and wood, 122”x 168” x 4 3/4"
Description: Large rectangle wood frames stand in the center of the gallery. Inside the frame, which includes peeling paint, are flattened chairs and a desk.
Image 3: Guillermo Kuitca, Le Sacre, 1992, Acrylic on fifty-four mattresses with wood and brass legs, 47 1/4”x 23 5/8”x 7 7/8” each
Description: A number of mattresses on the gallery floor. Mattresses bear maps of random places from around the world.
Image 4: Daniel Joseph Martinez, The House That America Built, 2004/2017, SmartSide, plywood, dimensional lumber, and Martha Stewart paint, four unique architectural blueprints, 156”x 132”x 168”
Description: A large brightly painted house sits in the middle of the gallery. Painted mainly in yellow and orange. The house is slightly split in the middle.
Home--So Different, So Appealing Chon A. Noriega, Mari Carmen Ramírez, Pilar Tompkins Rivas. Los Angeles, California: UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Press: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Houston, Texas: Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2017 Distributed by University of Washington Press. 288 pages: illustrations English HOLLIS number: 990152435020203941
