Humble art of life.

• Author: Gross, Liza
• Position: Latin American art works

On an extensive tour of the United States, Visiones del Pueblo is the first major exhibition to examine the rich folk heritage of Latin America

Some came from the harsh Bolivian altiplano. Others began their journey in agrarian Ceara, Brazil. Still others departed from Guatemalan towns with melodious names like Chichicastenango or Nahuala. They also came from Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Haiti and other lands of the vast region known as Latin America.

They did not all travel at once, but at different times over the course of three years. At the rendezvous point, in a teeming northern city made of concrete, glass and steel, men and women waited with anticipation. As each arrival made it to the Museum of American Folk Art in New York, it was eagerly, yet, gingerly uncrated in preparation for its metamorphosis from anonymous object to ambassador of a richly diverse folk art. One by one, the molas, lottery boards, stirrups, canes, ex votos, masks, puppets, chacanas, bowls, chap books, photographer's backdrops, statues and other items emerged from their protective cocoon to be placed in the rooms of the Museum.

The result was Visiones del Pueblo: The Folk Art of Latin America, the first major traveling exhibition to chronicle the folk heritage of the region through more than 250 historic and contemporary objects from 17 different countries. The exhibition and its national tour are made possible by Ford Motor Company.

Marion Oettinger, Jr., a cultural anthropologist and curator of the show, vividly recalls the day Visiones was conceived. "One afternoon in 1989, I received a telephone call from the late Dr. Robert Bishop, Director of the Museum of American Folk Art, asking if I would serve as Project Director and Guest Curator for a major exhibition of Latin American folk art that would open in New York some time during 1992." Oettinger, currently curator of the Folk Art and Latin American Art at the San Antonio Museum of Art, readily agreed. His chase for the objects began with a three-month stint in the caribbean and Venezuela during the fall of 1989. Six months later, he spent another three months in Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru. In between these two field trips, he made several visits to Guatemala and Mexico.

Some of the pieces were borrowed from museums and collectors, but the bulk of the exhibition was assembled by Oettinger the old fashioned way: through substantial legwork. He hunted for his prizes in market places, shops, and homes or workplaces of folk artists, all the while recording his experiences in a journal. The following entry, from 1989, recounts a visit to a wood-carver from the Andean city of Merida, in Venezuela: "I took a cab from the center of Merida to the home of Jose...