A SCANDALOUS EXERCISE: THE POLEMICS OF RAFAEL FERRER’S AVANT-GARDE ART IN PRINTED MEDIA, 1961–1966
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18485/f_zsmu.2023.19.4Keywords:
Avant-garde art, Puerto Rico, Rafael Ferrer, printed media, reception studyAbstract
During the early 1960s in Puerto Rico, it was customary for the printed media to publish general information about exhibitions: a brief biographical note on the artist and the amount, size, and medium of the exhibited pieces. These publications were carried out by journalists, there were no art critics working in local newspapers at the beginning of the decade. The lack of cultural journalism at the time could be the reason why there are countless inconsistencies in the historiographical texts, which have greatly hindered an orderly and contrasted record of the basic facts. Nonetheless, the scarcity of cultural journalism, provoked the emergence of the ‘amateur voice’ of the public, enunciating their perception of art in the columns in local newspapers. This article examines Rafael Ferrer’s (1933) avant-garde works during the first half of the 1960s, the polemics they incited in Puerto Rican printed media, and its repercussions in the construction of the Puerto Rican art canon.
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References
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