Contemporary Art of El Salvador, 1977-2018

FAIN: HB-273461-21

Kency Cornejo, PhD
University of New Mexico (Albuquerque, NM 87106-3837)

Research and writing leading to a book about contemporary art in El Salvador and its US-based diaspora, from 1977 to 2018.

Contemporary Art of El Salvador, 1977-2018 will be the first art historical book to research forty years of art from El Salvador and its US-based diaspora. The time frame covers prewar, civil war, and post-war periods which led to waves of migration to the U.S. and a reputation as the most dangerous country in the Americas. Simultaneously, artistic production reached unprecedented growth leading to decades of art that gained international attention but have yet to be critically researched. How did the social-historical context lead to experimentation in art that responds to violence, memory, migration, and diaspora? I argue it is through art production that Salvadoran artists counter the narratives of death, poverty, and victimhood that dominate popular opinion about the smallest country in the isthmus and reveal the creative resilience of humanity. It contributes to the humanities by analyzing how artists use creativity to document and theorize global phenomena across borders.

Associated Products

Art and Resistance in Afro-Central America (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Art and Resistance in Afro-Central America
Author: Kency Cornejo
Abstract: Afro-Central Americans, including the Garinagu, Miskito, and Bay Island Creole peoples, are an integral presence of Central American history and culture with unique ethnogeneses, challenges, and forms of resistance. Yet, due to anti-black racism and polices that extend throughout Latin America, this population is made invisible, impeding or excluding Afro-Central Americans from resources, history, and from positions of political power—including within the artworld. This presentation will center on how artists expose and confront anti-blackness in Central America while honoring a long Afro-Central American presence and unique forms of resistance in the isthmus. Among other questions, In this paper I ask: how do artists make visible an erased history of Afro-descendants in Central America, from slavery, labor, migration, to modern social movements? And how do contemporary issues, such as tourist development, land rights, policing, and extraction, manifest in Afro-Central American artistic and creative practices? (The research presented on one of the artists discussed in this presentation came from the grant research conducted while in El Salvador)
Date: 11/5/2023
Primary URL Description: n/a
Secondary URL Description: n/a
Conference Name: American Studies Association Conference (Montreal, Quebec, Canada)

Art of Central American and its Diaspora (Course or Curricular Material)
Title: Art of Central American and its Diaspora
Author: Kency Cornejo
Abstract: Findings and images from the research were incorporated into my course this fall on Central American art.
Year: 2023
Audience: Graduate

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