Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/496780
CULTURED 165 In an unassuming vitrine in the first gallery of MoMA's expansive new exhibition "Latin America in Construction: Architecture 1955-1980" sit seven small black-and-white photographs of side-by-side Mondrian-like constructions. The buildings comprise Casa Estudio—the modernist house and studio constructed for Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera by Juan O'Gorman between 1931 and 1932. While these small paper artifacts at the start of the show are easy to breeze by, their inclusion is emblematic of the exhibition's grand ambition—to undo a history of exclusion and Eurocentrism at MoMA. "Our first exhibition, the one that founded the architecture department in 1932, the International Style show did not include any works from Latin America," says Patricio del Real—who, along with Barry Bergdoll, Jorge Francisco Liernur and Carlos Eduardo Comas—has combed through numerous archives for the past four years to assemble the sprawling show. Leaning over the vitrine, del Real explains that although these photos were in the MoMA collection at the time of its landmark 1932 show, the building was passed over for inclusion. "We are being self reflective of things that MoMA did not see in 1932 that actually could have been included in what is called 'International Style,'" del Real says. Twenty-three years after its "International Style" show, MoMA mounted "Latin American Architecture since 1945"—a groundbreaking exhibition that reflected the frenzy around Latin American architecture at the time. "Latin America in the 40s and 50s became such an object of contemplation and admiration, and there was such an intensity of interest in the U.S. and Europe," says del Real. Affonso Eduardo Reidy's Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro, 1934-1947