Dialogues across Rio de la Plata. Buenos Aires, Montevideo and the creation of a modern Academy in the early 20th century

Abstract

In the modernization processes of the Argentine and Uruguayan art systems that took place at the turn of the century, some common and peculiar dynamics can be recognized in comparison with the rest of Latin America. Therefore, it is fruitful to study the emergence of state institutions for art education in Buenos Aires and Montevideo from a regional perspective, including in the terms of analysis the cultural dialogue that permeated political borders. To this, it is useful to add a transnational perspective, reflecting on aspects linked to the circulation and contacts between ideas, models, and people. This approach enables us to recognize the artistic community of the Río de la Plata at the beginning of the 20th century as interconnected. This paper emphasizes art education as a privileged point of view to support this hypothesis, aiming to underline a singularity that differentiated the two countries in the Latin American context. Specifically, it delves into the processes of creation and consolidation of two institutions, the Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires and the Círculo Fomento de Bellas Artes in Montevideo, highlighting analogies and differences in their educational proposals in order to show the possibilities of promoting modern projects from the peripheries.