Tate Liverpool
15 October 2005 – 26 March 2006
Inverting the Map showcases contemporary Latin American art from the Tate Collection. The works are by a wide range of artists from different generations, countries and circumstances but the display brings to light their similarities and differences, revealing the breadth and complexity of contemporary art from the region.
Latin American art is a new area of collecting for Tate, a development which aims to broaden the geographical scope of the existing collection. Since 1999, Tate has made a series of acquisitions within this area of works produced from the late 1960s until today. This is the first time many of the recent acquisitions have been displayed since they were acquired by Tate and the first time many of these works have been exhibited in the UK.
Inverting the Map features art by key figures, including Cildo Meireles, Eugenio Dittborn and Luis Camnitzer, whose careers began during the 1960s and 1970s and who have exerted a particular influence on younger generations of artists. It also includes important acquisitions by major contemporary artists such as Guillermo Kuitca, Doris Salcedo and Carlos Garaicoa, as well as a number of works by young, emerging artists including Jorge Macchi, Sebastian Diaz Morales and Santiago Sierra. The common themes and practices that can be discerned in the works are not necessarily exclusive to Latin America, but on the contrary characterise much contemporary art being produced today. Such concerns include the city as a space of chance encounter, imagination, alienation and violence; maps, borders and the politics of location; economies of work/labour and the effects of globalisation; systems of repression, domination and control (such as censorship); the fragility of the body; the melancholy of loss and mortality. The works encompass a broad range of media including sculpture, video, photography and installation.
Tate Liverpool has devoted its entire second floor to the display, providing a prominent showcase for the activities of the Latin American Acquisition Committee. The display is accompanied by a programme of events.