Guggenheim UBS MAP Purchase Fund
Rafael Ferrer
b. 1933, Santurce, Puerto Rico Biography
Artforhum, 1972. Vinyl, overall dimensions variable, unique. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Guggenheim UBS MAP Purchase Fund 2014.60 © Rafael Ferrer
Artforhum appeared first in the form of a multicolored neon sign that was shown in the artist’s 1971 solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Since then, he has returned to it as a way to proclaim his discontent with the status of art as a product made by and for an elite. The work reads as a pun on Artforum, the name of the iconic art-industry journal. The resultant word, a contraction and corruption of the provocative question “Art for whom?,” suggests not only that the magazine has routinely ignored art produced outside the European-North American axis, but also invites the viewer to question his or her own cultural position.
June 13–October 1, 2014
This exhibition reconsiders the state of contemporary art in Latin America, investigating the creative responses of artists to complex, shared realities that have been influenced by colonial and modern histories, repressive governments, economic crises, and social inequality, as well as by concurrent periods of regional economic wealth, development, and progress.
