Joaquín Torres García and Jorge Oteiza: Actuality of modernist projects from transatlantic shores

Abstract

This article problematizes the recent interest on the peripheral modernist projects of two key artistic figures with an interrelated trajectory in the second half of the 1930s: Joaquín Torres García (1874-1949) and Jorge Oteiza (1908-2003). The artistic work of both authors has lately been exposed within the global artistic circuit, and it is the goal of this article to analyze such endeavors taking as a starting point the influence Torres García had on Oteiza. In order to do so, I will base my readings on Andreas Huyssen´s concept of “modernism” as well as Jurgen Habermas´s postulate at the beginning of the 1980s: the hypothesis that modernity is “an unfinished project”. My goal is to unveil what we call the “shores” of official global discourses and exhibitions on peripheral modernisms. By “shores” I understand the sites that scape the imperial logic of late-capitalist accumulation.