Introduction: Art and Music in a Globalizing Latin America / Arte y música en una América Latina globalizada

Abstract

Latin American art and music have transfigured localized forms of aesthetic expression. Contemporary artists, often formed by more than one culture, can only be understood adequately through a dynamic concept of culture. With the postmodern change of the notion of art, boundaries of artistic activity have weakened. Indigenous artists and popular musicians indicate, however, that Latin culture has been globalized as a result of the creative interaction and the commodification of African, Hispanic (or Luso-Brazilian) and indigenous cultural productions. Here, the question of power comes up: Who defines the authentic? Which arts are accepted in world art? What is Anthropology’s responsibility in the art debate e.g. when giving guidelines for museums collecting strategies? Have the transcendence of national boundaries and the active dissemination of artistic knowledge and practices radically altered the artistic processes in Latin America? To what extent do transformations of geometrical patterns in indigenous body paint, pottery, basketry, and weaving modify the constitution of cosmologies they originate in? Does the diffusion of Latin and Caribbean musical forms represent an expansion of popular experiences or of the culture industry? What does the process of hybridization of these art and musical forms tell us about the interactions among Latin American populations?