Art and Social Movements: Cultural Politics in Mexico and Aztlán by Edward J. McCaughan (review)

In the midto late 1970s, Cullen reports, Ferrer’s installations “included various elements: faces, maps, kayaks, and sculptural constructions, as well as iconic neon or painted words, and often a tarp or painted tent-like form” (73). His work increasingly included references to the Caribbean, in what some characterized as a “tropicalist” style (75). Ferrer continued to make major paintings during this period, though critics often characterize this work as a digression from his more important conceptualist and performative pieces. His latest works are highly playful, often taking the form of words on small blackboards and installations using words. Although Cullen carefully chronicles the life of Ferrer, this book falls short of offering any detailed analysis of the works of art. Instead, Cullen has produced a meticulous biography of Rafael Ferrer—a service that will doubtless be invaluable for any future analysis of this monumental figure. Throughout the text, Cullen does obliquely refer to the institutional prejudices that befell the Caribbean artist in both Puerto Rico and the United States, but these mentions never develop into an analysis of any depth. This is particularly lamentable because the book explains neither why Ferrer has been excluded from canons nor how the artist influenced peer participants in the process and conceptual movements, as well as later neo-expressionists. One area given short shrift is the artist’s recent body of works from the 2000s, in which Ferrer executed small-scale gouache paintings involving text. Like Ferrer’s own turn to neo-expressionism (there is little mention of postmodern painting or pastiche in this book), this set of paintings shows a prescient awareness of the so-called linguistic turn. This work would have provided a magnificent opportunity to interpret a Ferrer as a deconstructionist—indeed, deconstruction is a vital poststructural discourse rarely extended to artists from Latin American countries. Nevertheless, Cullen does a major job putting together the biography of a highly neglected yet outstanding talent. This book, with excellent illustrations, will prove an important resource for future generations of scholars, and aside from exhibition catalogs, it presently serves as the most authoritative text on Ferrer.