BY KAREN BOSSICK
Mexican artist Frida Kahlo employed a folk-art style to explore questions and identity, post-colonialism, gender, class and race in Mexico.
Tarsila do Amaral, who grew up on a coffee plantation in Brazil, invented a unique form of modern art in Brazil that utilized her country’s indigenous forms.
Learn about these artists and others, including Maria Izquierdo from Mexico; Lygia Clark and Lygia Pape from Brazil, and contemporary artist Cecilia Vicuna from Chile, when Courtney Gilbert presents an art history lecture titled “Making Art, Making Change: Women Artists in Latin America.”
The lecture featuring Gilbert, Sun Valley Museum of Art’s curator of Visual Arts, will be livestreamed from 6 to 7 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 27 via Crowdcast.
The presentation, which examines the ways 20th century female artists across Latin America used their practices to push for social change. They used such artistic techniques like surrealism and geometric abstraction to advocate for the change they hoped to see in the world.
The lecture is part of SVMoA’s current BIG IDEA project, “Deeds Not Words: Women Working for Change.” The project was designed to coincide with the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which gave women the right to vote.
Courtney Gilbert holds a Ph.D. and a master’s degree in art history from the University of Chicago and a bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College. Before joining SVMoA in 2006, she worked at the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin, where she coordinated the planning for a major exhibition of Latin American abstract art.
She has also taught art history at Columbia College Chicago and Texas State University. Gilbert received a Fulbright Fellowship for her dissertation research in Mexico and recently completed her term as chair of the Ketchum Arts Commission.
“Courtney has a wealth of knowledge when it comes to art history, and we are excited to have her deliver another informative lecture,” said Jeanne Knott, Visual Arts Class Assistant at SVMoA.
Pre-registration for the art history lecture is required. Tuition is $10 for SVMoA members and $12 for nonmembers. An online link will be provided following registration. To register visit svmoa.org, call 208-726-9491 or visit The Museum box office at 191 Fifth Street East in Ketchum.