"In December 1983 the Argentine Conceptual artist Marta Minujin and a group of helpers spent 17 days building a full-scale model of the Parthenon in a public park in Buenos Aires," begins the Roberta Smith review of the current exhibit at El Museo del Barrio in New York City. The model was built with books that had been banned by the Argentine juntas. It "stood for about three weeks. Then the public was allowed to disassemble the piece and keep the books," the article says.
"Arte No Es Vida: Actions by Artists of the Americas, 1960-2000" looks like a rich survey of Conceptual art happenings from Latin America and a worthy precursor to what promises to be a landmark exhibit upcoming at LACMA in Los Angeles, "Phantom Sightings: Art After the Chicano Movement." That show opens in April, and I've been told it will be traveling to Mexico City. The East L.A. "art outlaws" Asco are set to be a prominent thematic force in "Phantom Sightings," as I wrote in this LA Weekly piece. Interestingly, the New York Times piece on "Arte No Es Vida" notes that Asco works are present in that exhibit. The implication is that in the new narratives of art history, Los Angeles is a location within Latin America.