Diálogo

This volume marks Diálogo's 20^th anniversary since publication, with two interesting themes of historical value (and a special announcement coming in issue 20:2). Since moving to biannual publication in 2012, Diálogo has alternated between humanities and social sciences-oriented approaches, preparing special topics on culture and religion, immigration, history, poetry, socially-committed writers and contemporary writing by Native/original peoples. Our extensive issues have collected scholarship on Latin American and U.S. Latino issues by diverse and wide-ranging contributors. And we have had the great pleasure of working with fascinating experts for each special theme.

Now, Volume 20:1 embarks on hemispheric forays examining the impact of art in the 20^th century, with articles on artists and movements that traverse boundaries and physical borders. Responses to our Call were carefully reviewed and selected by our Guest Thematic Editors, art historians Olga U. Herrera and María C. Gaztambide:

Herrera is long-term director of the Washington D.C. office for the national consortium Inter-University Programs for Latino Research (IUPLR), and one of the main organizers of the IUPLR-sponsored, biennial Latino Art Now! conference held in Chicago in 2016, featuring exhibitions at various major venues, with extensive participation by both artists and art scholars. Gaztambide is associate director for the International Center for the Arts of the Americas (ICAA) at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, where she oversees a significant documents project (locating manifestos, theoretical and original visual documents by key artists and thinkers). Their extensive research and contacts brought to fruition a unique collection of critical thought on Latin American and Latina/o art.

This special issue is not perhaps, a common approach to the world of art, focusing from concepts of aesthetic or traditional production. The scholarship in this issue, as noted by Herrera and Gaztambide in their introduction, surpasses "fixed conceptions" of geography, nationality, and even artistic movements. Unusual partnerships and strategies are explicated, including constructions of nationhood that remove cultural and historical facts. New perspectives are offered on artistic disobedience and integrated processes, transnational public art and exhibitions that interact with the public. Please begin your reading with the meticulous introduction by Herrera and Gaztambide, in itself a manifesto for this issue.

The articles in reflective commentary call for attention to new trends in methodologies, new media, civic engagement by artists, and responses to global as well as local political and social issues, often issuing from violence. This may not be an easy issue to read, but definitely an insightful and important rendering of scholarship. The interviews and book reviews offer additional insights on crucial issues of dislocation and humanitarian crises.

What is Art but the legacy of human civilizations? A poignant comment made by a child years ago—(I was a newspaper journalist, accompanying a group of schoolchildren to an art exhibit; afterward they created their own paintings)—upon asking what art meant to her, was that, "Art is life." Indeed. Through art we learn about ourselves, our past and present. Examining, even experiencing the process of art, reveals what we—ourselves and our predecessors—have done. The materials used by artists often represent materials we have been using, or discarding, as sharply demonstrated by Chicago sculptor Alfonso "Piloto" Nieves Ruiz, whose work, mixing clay with urban waste, is featured on the cover of this issue. His project in "recycling" through art speaks to larger issues of denial and decadent realities, but also considerations of regeneration and spiritual reconnection, which can impact our present. Nieves is both teacher and artist, practitioner and thinker. Here the artist articulates the process of a society we may presently experience, but also how it will be measured, and preserved, for viewers in the future.

Having recently viewed a marvelous exhibit at the Field Museum in Chicago—an extensive array of terracotta figures of early China, unearthed in 1974—I was awestruck by how works of sculpture reveal cultural [End Page 1] bonds and lived existence. While denoted "Qin Shihuang's Army," the figures included were not only numerous standing warriors, but also figures in process of everyday life, and people...