Parallel modernities. Notes on artistic modernity in the Southern Cone of Latin America: The case of Paraguay

Abstract

The author of this article is one of the most important intellectuals in the Latin American artistic scene. Focusing on the particular case of Paraguay, which was governed by the dictatorship of Alfred Stroessner from 1954 until 1989, Escobar traces the modernist impulse in Paraguay and traces its complicated and disturbed relationship with European and North American models and antecedents: Neo-Impressionism, Cubism, Expressionism, Abstraction, and similar. While they reflect the particular political conditions under which the artists worked, the diverse and many-voiced Paraguayan responses also offer an exemplary set of responses that shed light on the development of twentieth-century modernist art and visual culture across the broader South American continent