Beyond National Identity: Pictorial Indigenism as a Modernist Strategy in Andean Art, 1920-1960 (Refiguring Modernism)

Indigenism is not folk art. It is a vanguard movement conceived of by intellectuals and artists conversant in international modernist idioms and defined in response to global trends. Beyond National Identity traces changes in Andean artists’ vision of indigenous peoples as well as shifts in the critical discourse surrounding their work between 1920 and 1960. By challenging the notion of pictorial indigenism as a direct expression of national identity, Greet demonstrates the complexity of the indigenists’ critical engagement with European and pan-American cultural developments and presents the trend in its global context. Through case studies of works by three internationally renowned Ecuadoran artists, Camilo Egas, Eduardo Kingman Riofrío, and Oswaldo Guayasamín Calero, Beyond National Identity pushes the idea of modernism in new directions—both geographically and conceptually—to challenge the definitions and boundaries of modern art.