The Guggenheim Museum Presents UNDER THE SAME SUN: ART FROM LATIN AMERICA TODAY, Now Thru 10/1

By: Jul. 25, 2014
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From June 13 through October 1, 2014, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York will present the exhibition Under the Same Sun: Art from Latin America Today, which, along with in-depth education programs and online learning tools, inaugurates the second phase of the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative. Organized by Pablo León de la Barra, Guggenheim UBS MAP Curator, Latin America, the exhibition features contemporary works by 40 artists and collaborative duos representing 15 countries, including Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Puerto Rico (United States), Uruguay, and Venezuela. Following its presentation in New York, Under the Same Sun: Art from Latin America Today will travel to Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (MAM) and Museo Jumex in Mexico City.

Featuring approximately 50 works including installations, mixed-media works, paintings, photographs, sculptures, videos, and works on paper, Under the Same Sun considers some of the most significant contemporary art practices in Latin America today. This presentation is the second of three exhibitions in the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative. The artworks in the exhibition, along with others acquired as part of the initiative, will become part of the Guggenheim's permanent collection under the auspices of the Guggenheim UBS MAP Purchase Fund.

As part of Under the Same Sun, Alfredo Jaar's A Logo for America (1987) will be featured on digital screens in Times Square in collaboration with Times Square Arts and Times Square Advertising Coalition (TSAC), August 1-31, from 11:57 pm to midnight as part of the Midnight Moment program. An early electronic billboard intervention that overlooked a U.S. Army recruiting station, the work shows the statement "This Is Not America" written across an outline map of the United States, the same line written across an image of the U.S. flag, and the word "America" across a map inclusive of all the Americas-North, Central, and South.

Under the Same Sun is accompanied by a range of public programs. Highlights include exhibition film screenings and a Cinema Tropical film series, artist performances, afternoon discussions with artists, an academic symposium, and gallery tours in Portuguese, and Spanish. Education tools developed for the exhibition include a bilingual English/Spanish family and teacher's resource guide developed in collaboration with exhibition artist Luis Camnitzer, family and school programs, teacher's workshops, and a multimedia app.

Richard Armstrong, Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation, stated: "In our galleries and our theater, online, and in the street,Under the Same Sun challenges us to renew our thinking about art in Latin America, and rewards us with a constellation of experiences from the present moment and the recent past. Pablo León de la Barra's research and exhibition exemplify our goals through the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative, as we forge new relationships across the region, add to our growing collection of contemporary Latin American art, and provide our audiences with exceptional new opportunities to engage in dialogues that transcend geographic boundaries."

"The Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative helps provide a holistic view of some of the world's most dynamic and fast-changing regions," says CEO, UBS Wealth Management Jürg Zeltner. "With this collaboration we align a global, cultural perspective with our experience in the emerging markets."

Exhibition Overview
Demonstrating that Latin America cannot be reduced to a single, homogeneous entity, Under the Same Sun examines the diversity of recent creative responses to shared realities molded by colonial and modern history, repressive governmental policy, economic crisis, and social inequality, as well as by periods of economic development and social progress. Despite financial growth and increased stability in most of the continent over the past decade, Latin America remains divided by class and ethnic difference, and marked by political and economic upheaval. Under the Same Sun presents recent art that addresses the past and present of this subtle and complex situation, and which explores possible alternative futures. The works are organized within six themes:

• Abstraction addresses the rational, geometrical visual language that came to prominence after the Second World War and is today filtered through contemporary concerns.
• Conceptualism includes works by pioneering Latin American Conceptualists who were active in the U.S. during the 1960s, '70s and '80s, many of whom are still working today. The forms of engagement they advanced continue to be investigated by younger artists.
• Modernities questions the disjunction between modernity's ideals and its imperfect realities, and includes work by artists dealing with the legacy of modernism today.
• Participation/Emancipation invites mental or physical participation on the part of the visitor, allowing him or her to become an active part of the artwork.
• Political Activism addresses the social and political contexts in which art is created and confronts the ways in which Latin American artists have turned their practices into forms of dissent, protesting against foreign political and economic influences, dictatorial political regimes, and the violence of the drug trade.
• The Tropical acknowledges the effects that location and nature (including climate) have on cultural production, but presents the argument that being "tropical" is ultimately a question of attitude that transcends such concerns.

"Under the Same Sun might be understood as an attempt to redraw cultural and artistic maps within the Americas, to remove boundaries, and to create new relationships among different artistic centers," León de la Barra stated. "Despite the contradictions and conflicts in our histories, both colonial and modern, and despite the specificities that must be recognized and honored, we truly all live under the same sun, and must learn to acknowledge that what's happening elsewhere is as important as what's happening immediately around us. The more aware and the more in dialogue we are with what's happening elsewhere, the more we will learn as artists, as people, and as communities, and the more we will be able to create new ways of thinking."

The list of artists participating in the exhibition is attached to this release.

The Guggenheim's History of Engagement with Latin America
The second phase of the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative continues the museum's long history of engagement with Latin American art, beginning withThe Emergent Decade: Latin American Painters and Painting in the 1960s, an exhibition organized by former Guggenheim Director Thomas Messer in 1964. Since that time the museum has been developing its collection of art from Latin America to include key works by artists such as Francis Alÿs, Julieta Aranda, Félix González-Torres, Wifredo Lam, Jac Leirner, Matta, Ana Mendieta, Ernesto Neto, Gabriel Orozco, Doris Salcedo, Jesús Rafael Soto, Rufino Tamayo, Joaquín Torres-García, many of whom have been represented in recent group or solo exhibitions at the museum.

Under the Same Sun: Art from Latin America Today is organized by Pablo León de la Barra, Guggenheim UBS MAP Curator, Latin America, with assistance from Amara Antilla, Curatorial Assistant, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Nancy Spector, Deputy Director and Jennifer and David Stockman Chief Curator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, and Joan Young, Director of Curatorial Affairs, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, provide curatorial oversight for the entire initiative.

Education and Family Programs
A wide array of public programs will be presented in conjunction with Under the Same Sun, with full details and ticketing information posted atguggenheim.org/publicprograms.

Highlights include The Tropical Uncanny: Latin American Tropes & Mythologies, a film series on Fridays from August 8 through September 26 co-presented with Cinema Tropical; and a discussion program entitled Siesta Talks: Art in the Afternoon featuring exhibition artists Iván Navarro and Erika Verzutti. Performances will be given by artists Tania Bruguera, in September, date to be announced, who will focus on messages of inclusion by Pope Francis, the first Latin American Pope, and by Pablo Helguera, on June 18, whose performance-lecture reprises On the Future on Art, a 1969 lecture series at the Guggenheim Museum convened by art historian Edward Fry, as a way to examine how our ideas about art are colored by language, location, personal experience, and the passage of time.

Curator's Eye exhibition tours will be guided by Pablo León de la Barra on June 20, 2 pm in English; August 29, 2 pm in Spanish. A Conservator's Eye tour will be led by conservator Joanna Phillips on July 18, 2 pm. Mind's Eye tours, which utilize verbal description, touch, and shared observations of the exhibition, are scheduled for July 7 at 7 pm and July 9 at 2 pm. In addition, ongoing exhibition tours will be offered every Saturday at 12 pm, alternating between Spanish and Portuguese.

On Friday, September 19, the Guggenheim Museum will host an academic symposium titled La Universidad Desconocida (The Unknown University). During the forum, artists, curators, and scholars will address the cultural and historic specificities of Latin America through critical issues in contemporary art practice.

Along with a Family Activity Guide, there are various programs for families with children ranging from ages 3-14. Programs include Summer Sunday Tours; aPictures Come to Life performance with storyteller Jeff Hopkins on June 15, at 1:30 pm and 2:30 pm; and The Sound of Art: Family Tour and Workshop on September 7, which encourages participants to create musical mobiles from found objects. Families are invited to participate in Open Studio in the Sackler Center's Studio Art Lab and to Just Drop In! to explore exhibition highlights though interactive creative projects from June 15-September 28. Teenagers are invited to Finding Your Place: A Tour and Workshop for Teens on September 20, led by teaching artist Antonia Perez. For more information as well as specific age participation recommendations, visit guggenheim.org/familyprograms.

Guggenheim UBS MAP Online
The Guggenheim UBS MAP online platform encourages a cross-cultural dialogue about contemporary art and cultural practice in the initiative's three regions of focus. Guggenheim.org/MAP features videos about and featuring the artists, curators, public programs, and exhibitions; access to learning tools, such as Curriculum Guides and Family Guides; archival transcripts and audio from symposia and workshops; in-depth artist profiles; and three blog series, which examine cultural production, research, and dialogue in the regions. Perspectivesincludes texts, audio, and video from curators, art historians, artists, and regional experts who share their views about artistic production and everyday life in their countries; Dispatches highlights research visits by Pablo León de la Barra across the region; and On the MAP features upcoming programming, insights, and highlights from the initiative, as well as links to events relevant to the MAP regions.

Launched today, MAP Navigator encourages visitors to browse MAP's vast library of digital content by connecting assets to points on the globe. Through new interactive features, users can visualize the global scope of the project and make connections across regions by exploring videos, blog posts, audio recordings, artworks, background on the artists, and other resources.

About Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative
Inaugurated in April 2012, the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative is a multi-year collaboration that charts contemporary art practice in three geographic regions-South and Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East and North Africa-and encompasses curatorial residencies, international touring exhibitions, audience-driven education programming, and acquisitions for the Guggenheim's permanent collection. All works have been newly acquired for the Guggenheim's collection under the auspices of the Guggenheim UBS MAP Purchase Fund. The initiative builds upon and reflects the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation's distinguished history of internationalism and significantly increases the Guggenheim's holdings of art from these dynamic communities.

About the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation
Founded in 1937, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation is dedicated to promoting the understanding and appreciation of art, primarily of the modern and contemporary periods, through exhibitions, education programs, research initiatives, and publications. The Guggenheim network that began in the 1970s when the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, was joined by the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, has since expanded to include the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (opened 1997), and the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi (currently in development). Looking to the future, the Guggenheim Foundation continues to forge international collaborations that take contemporary art, architecture, and design beyond the walls of the museum, including with the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative, and with The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Chinese Art Initiative. More information about the Foundation can be found atguggenheim.org.

About UBS
UBS draws on its 150-year heritage to serve private, institutional, and corporate clients worldwide, as well as retail clients in Switzerland. Its business strategy is centered on its global wealth management businesses and its universal bank in Switzerland. Together with a client-focused Investment Bank and a Global Asset Management business, UBS will expand its wealth management franchise and drive further growth across the Group. UBS is present in all major financial centers worldwide. It has offices in more than 50 countries, with about 35% of its employees working in the Americas, 36% in Switzerland, 17% in the rest of Europe, the Middle East and Africa and 12% in Asia Pacific. UBS employs about 60,000 people around the world. Its shares are listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange.

Visitor Information
Admission: Adults $22, students/seniors (65+) $18, members and children under 12 free. The Guggenheim's new, free app, available with admission or by download to personal devices, offers an enhanced visitor experience. The app features content on special exhibitions, some also available in Spanish, includingUnder the Same Sun: Art from Latin America Today as well as access to more than 1,400 works in the Guggenheim's permanent collection and information about the museum's landmark building. A verbal imaging guide for the collection is available for visitors who are blind or have low vision. The Guggenheim app is sponsored by Bloomberg.

Museum Hours: Sun-Wed, 10 am-5:45 pm; Fri, 10 am-5:45 pm; Sat, 10 am-7:45 pm; closed Thurs. On Saturdays, beginning at 5:45 pm, the museum hosts Pay What You Wish. For general information, call 212 423 3500 or visit the museum online at: guggenheim.org and guggenheim.org/connect.

Photo Credit: Amalia Pica, A ∩ B ∩ C, 2013. Acrylic shapes and occasional performance, overall dimensions variable. Solomon R. Guggenheim, New York, Guggenheim UBS MAP Purchase Fund © Amalia Pica. Installation view: Under the Same Sun: Art from Latin America Today, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, June 13-October 1, 2014. Photo: David Heald © Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.








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