Dematerialization

"More than fifty years after Lucy Lippard and John Chandler published 'The Dematerialization of Art' in Art International, Karen Benezra has added significant insight to the phenomenon as it developed in Latin America. The author’s efforts are magnified by a search of the literature, which reveals that as it relates to Mexico, Argentina, and Chile, not a great deal has been written in English on this subject. While it is clear that art has pretty much continued to materialize, the importance of conceptual art and the profound place it occupies in the history of twentieth and twenty-first century art cannot be denied. Benezra’s close look at major figures, such as Oscar Masotta, Tomás Maldonado, Felipe Ehrenberg, and Gui Bonsiepe, each of whom contributed to this movement in 1960s and 1970s Latin America, is timely and welcome."

— ARLIS/NA Reviews

"Karen Benezra offers, with impressive theoretical sophistication, new grounds for understanding the criticism, experimental art, and design practices in Argentina, Mexico, and Chile in the 1960s and 1970s. . . . [An]  impressively researched and argued study that uniquely brings together artists, authors, and designers to shed light on the role of aesthetics in transforming the social in a discussion that will be of interest to art historians, critics, designers, philosophers, and cyberneticians."

— caa.reviews

"Dematerialization: Art and Design in Latin America is a provocative and refreshing book both methodologically speaking and in terms of its content. Offering new directions for thinking about art and design ... in the context of advanced capitalism, Dematerialization is of interest to the fields of contemporary art history, critical theory, and cultural studies in Latin America." (translation).

— Transmodernity

"Dematerialization proposes new grounds for exploring an increasingly broad array of artworks that have at different times been described as conceptual, non-objectual, idea-based, media and performative (among others). . . Benezra’s approach to the social and political importance of art during this period in Latin America avoids the pitfalls of prevailing and tired tropes surrounding political and social art."