Abstract: Abstract art emphasizes the formal, aesthetic value of geometric or organic forms. A purely abstract artwork is devoid of reference to people, places, or things in the physical world. Anthropophagism: Accounts and legends of the conquest of the Americas refer to the existence of anthropophagism – cannibalism – among the indigenous groups of certain countries, such as Brazil. In 1924, the poet Oswald de Andrade used anthropophagy to describe the assimilation and digestion of elements of European and American culture by modern artists and intellectuals in Brazil. Appropriation: To appropriate is to take or borrow something and incorporate it into a work of art. Its uses are widely varied: Artists can appropriate objects, materials, concepts, and even cultural or artistic traditions. The appropriation may be of an industrial production technique or of an aesthetic ideology. Appropriation has become a basic practice in contemporary art, at least since Marcel Duchamp appropriated often mass-produced objects and created his “readymade” works. Automatism: Surrealists used the term “automatism” in the 1920s to describe spontaneous writing or painting undertaken to freely express the workings of the subconscious. The Surrealists saw automatism as a means to free themselves from any preconceived notion or artistic style and achieve the truest, most individual approach to creative expression. French Surrealist André Masson pioneered automatism in art with his “lightning” drawings. Automatism was later taken up by the New York Abstract Expressionists and describes the freehand “action” painting style of Jackson Pollock. Bicho: In Portuguese and Spanish, bicho signifies an animal, insect, or a fantastic monster. In 1960, Lygia Clark gave the name Bichos to her series of three-dimensional hinged metal works that can be folded into different shapes. In the mid-’70s, Gego gave the name to works made of wire, plastic netting, and found objects. Co-plane: The artists belonging to the Grupo Madí in Buenos Aires sought to break down the conventional structure of paintings. They coined the word “co-plane” to describe the plane, or surface, of a work that was divided, broken into parts, or otherwise irregular. Conceptual art: Conceptual art focuses on ideas rather than artistic objects. Conceptual usually refers to forms of contemporary art other than painting and sculpture, particularly performance, happenings, and environmental art. Conceptual artists use photographs, texts, and ephemera to document their ideas, or to testify to events that occur outside the gallery or museum. In the 1970s in Latin America, the Conceptual movement addressed local political and social issues; Pop art and Surrealism influenced its style. Concrete: Concrete art refers to abstract works in the constructive tradition by artists who aspired to eradicate representation and subjectivity in art. This quest for objectivity reflected the theories of Theo Van Doesburg, who in 1930 defined an art of absolute clarity and precise mechanical technique, excluding all organic forms. Six years later, Max Bill bestowed the designation Concrete on an objective, abstract art closely linked to mathematical theory. Constructive: Constructive derives from Constructivism but is devoid of the political connotation that can be implied when referring to the ideologies of the Russian Constructivists. In Latin American tradition, Constructive is generally synonymous with geometric abstraction and Concrete art. Constructive works of art are abstract and are based on geometric principles. Dripping: A painting technique in which the artist drips paint onto the canvas, dripping is the English version of the French term coulure, used to designate a technique initially practiced by Belgian painter Bram Van Velde. In the 1940s, Jackson Pollock developed a freestyle dripping technique to create his action paintings. After the 1950s, dripping was practiced by painters such as Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí. Droguinha: In Portuguese, droguinha signifies a little, unpretentious thing. The Brazilian artist Mira Schendel used the term for her numerous works made of knotted or braided rice paper. Eurocentric: The tendency to judge the social, political, cultural, or anthropological reality of a given community according to the criteria of European culture denotes a Eurocentric point of view. The culture of Europe becomes the legitimizing frame of reference, to the exclusion of any alternative reality. Favelas: Shantytowns of precariously built houses and shacks known as favelas have mushroomed in and around Brazil’s urban centers. Hélio Oiticica and other artists have interpreted the irregular architecture of these settlements in their locally inspired abstract works. Immaterial: Every visible shape implies a material form, making it practically impossible to conceive of an immaterial work of art. Modern and contemporary artists have nonetheless attempted to dematerialize defined forms in their work through abstraction, kinetic effects, and Conceptual art. Imprint: A mark or trace left behind by an object in an imprint, represented in a painting by a mark, a line, or a brushstroke. An imprint may have a symbolic meaning, indicating the presence of an object or idea, or it can exist as a purely abstract form. Installation: Emphasizing the experience of art rather than the aesthetic appreciation of individual objects, an installation is a site-specific, interdisciplinary art form. An installation brings together an ensemble of elements that should be perceived as one Conceptual work united by the artist’s idea. Such multimedia works can include painting, sculpture, found objects, performance, sound, photography, and video. With precedents in Pop art and the happenings of the ’50s and ’60s, installation art emerged in the 1970s as artists’ response to the formal restrictions of curated exhibitions and the commercial values of the art world. Today, an installation can be a permanent site-specific work as well as a temporary environment. Integration of the arts: Starting in 1953, Carlos Raúl Villanueva orchestrated the integration of various forms of art with architecture at the Ciudad Universitaria de Caracas (University City of Caracas, site of Venezuela’s Central University). The pioneering Venezuelan architect invited Carlos Cruz-Diez, Alejandro Otero, Jesús Soto, and other artists to create site-specific works on the campus. The works were installed among the university buildings or incorporated into the campus architecture. Kitsch: “Low art,” or kitsch, generally denotes the aesthetics of the bourgeoisie and refers specifically to the mass-produced decorative or functional artifacts of popular culture. Kitsch is thought to be synonymous with bad taste. Some contemporary artists appropriate elements of kitsch in their works, blurring boundaries between high and low culture to question the accepted definition of art and comment on society’s values. Literal: Often used when describing minimalism, the literal in art refers to objective, or Concrete, artworks. Literal is the opposite of symbolic. Memory: All forms of art draw in some way from memory, whether they are depictions of a place or an occurrence, or creative interpretations and fantasies of the real. Figurative and abstract works can be inspired by an artist’s personal memories or historic events. Works of art that evoke the past contribute to the collective memory. Mestizo: Latin America is commonly described as a mestizo, or mixed, region. The concept of mestizaje refers to the emergence of a new native culture born from the blending of indigenous, European, and African people. Mobile: American artist Alexander Calder invented the mobile in 1932. The movable sculptural assemblages suspended in space, which Marcel Duchamp christened “mobiles,” were born of Calder’s desire to create paintings that move in the air. Many artists, including Carmelo Arden Quin, have since constructed mobiles of wood, metal, or other materials. Comprised of separate parts that hang from thread or wire and sway in the wind, a mobile is a form of Kinetic art. Möbius strip: A one-sided surface created by joining the ends of a paper strip after twisting one end 180 degrees is a Möbius strip. A line drawn the length of this surface passes from the interior to the exterior of the strip without encountering any obstacle. Conceived in 1858 by German mathematician August Ferdinand Möbius (1790-1868), the strip is a visual paradox and symbol of infinity that has been employed in the work of Max Bill, Lygia Clark and other modern artists. Monochrome: A painting made with shades of a single color is known as a monochrome. The monochrome was heralded in 1919 with Kasimir Malevich’s work White on White. In the first part of the 20th century, the one-color canvas was seen by many as a sign of the death of painting, but it proved to be a catalyst for the rebirth of painting through abstract experimentation. Modern and contemporary artists have continued to experiment with monochromatic painting. Optic: A term that generically relates to sight, optic in art refers to a work that creates a visual illusion or deformation. Op-art paintings and Kinetic sculptures create these optical effects. Optic also refers to the strictly visual nature of purely abstract works. Penetrable: A work is penetrable when the spectator can enter inside of it. In the mid-1960s, Hélio Oiticica conceived works called Penetrables, cabins or labyrinths that could be explored by the viewer. Several years later, Jesús Soto created his Penetrables constructed of suspended colored plastic tubing. Perception: Perception is the process by which people relate to the world through their five senses and their entire bodies. According to a maxim attributed to the Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, nothing can penetrate the intellect without first having been experienced by the senses. All of the senses are involved in every act of perception, even though one of them may be used to a greater degree at any given moment. Periphery: In geometry, the periphery is the external border of a figure. By extension, periphery is used to refer to areas of the world or communities that have been excluded from mainstream culture. Artists in Latin America have frequently been perceived as or have considered themselves to be on the periphery of the international artworld. Place: Art can represent a real or imagined location. A landscape painting may faithfully document the geography of a place. A representational or abstract work of art, however, can also depict a symbolic, nonexistent place constructed from artists’ perceptions, memories, and imaginations. Native and foreign perspectives on place are a frequent focus of Latin American theory and art. Relativity: Albert Einstein’s early 20th-century theories of special and general relativity established basic concepts of time, space, and gravity that became the foundations of physics and astronomy. The concept of relativity states that there is no absolute motion in the universe, only relative motion. Einstein’s essential tenet of space-time experience has influenced artists of the Concrete movement, who based the structure of their abstract paintings on scientific principles. Reticular: Grids and squared surfaces are structural foundations of modern abstract art. The term “reticular” encompasses all possible variations of the grid, from the strictly geometric, as in the paintings of Piet Mondrian, to the most organic and purposefully imprecise, such as Gego’s weblike Reticuláreas. Serial: Paintings and sculpture composed of repetitive patterns or created in series can be referred to as serial works. Venezuelan Kinetic artists and the members of the Brazilian Concrete and Neo-Concrete movements frequently repeated motifs of abstract forms in their works. They also produced many works in series. Structure: The structure of an artwork refers to its composition and supporting materials. Abstraction excludes figurative references from a work of art, placing value only on the work’s formal structure. In the mid-20th century, international abstract art movements set out to revolutionize the traditional structures of painting and sculpture by creating new art forms and using unorthodox materials. Universalism: Many Latin American artists have sought to produce works that could be considered universal. Artists such as Venezuela’s Alejandro Otero chose abstraction as a means to free art of local references so it could transcend specific cultural context and be appreciated internationally. Joaquín Torres-García’s theory of Constructive Universalism fused international abstraction with symbols drawn from pre-Columbian cultures and geometric forms that reflected the local architecture of his native Montevideo. Utopia: The interminable quest for utopia, defined as a perfect world, a paradise, or a harmonious social construct, is frequently expressed in art. A utopian vision may refer to an ideal future, a free society, or the remembrance of an unspoiled past. Utopia is always an unobtainable, imaginary world.