Branching Out

<p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>This chapbook examines the aestheticization of plants in colonial discourses and </span>charts visualizations of art histories that use the tree as a metaphor. In doing so Miriam Oesterreich considers <span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>how 'tropicalized' tree forms have been reappropriated to portray a more 'worlded' art history. </span>In<span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> the mid-twentieth century prominent visual artists including Miguel Covarrubias Alfred Barr and Ad Reinhardt featured trees of art as canonizing illustrations of Western art history. Using Pablo León de la Barra's poster </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Diagrama Tropical/Nova Cartografia Tropical</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> (2010) as a starting point </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Branching Out </em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>discusses works by contemporary artists from Latin America and the Caribbean to look at the subversive potential in reimagining plant images and metaphors. </span></p>