This course examines the emergence and development of Latin American modernisms in the visual arts. The first wave, from the 1920s to the 1940s in Brazil, Mexico and Cuba, witnessed the combination of European avant-garde tendencies such as post-impressionism and Cubism with local motifs in a quest to reflect a national identity. The second wave pertains to the post-World War II rise of abstraction in South America, specifically concrete abstraction in Argentina and Brazil and op and kinetic art in Venezuela. We will study these developments and a range of artists in their political and cultural context, specifically the process of nation-state building, the rise of populist ideologies, and the incidence of developmentalism in the Southern Cone during the 1950s and 1960s. Topics will include the strategies of modernity in Latin America, the role of the avant-garde group manifestos, the post-colonial legacy, and the meaning of abstraction within a turbulent political milieu. The course includes visits to museums and art galleries that specialize in Latin American art.