As of this September, the North American Academy of the Spanish Language (ANLE) has a new editorial organ for “the dissemination of articles, reviews, interviews, notes, and news about the plastic and visual arts created by Hispanic artists in the United States”: the journal ANLEARTE, whose first issue can now be downloaded online (PDF format).
The digital publication—edited by Cuban writer Joaquín Badajoz alongside Gerardo Piña-Rosales and Alister Ramírez Márquez, honorary director and secretary of the ANLE, respectively—is the first of its kind “dedicated exclusively to Hispanic visual arts in the United States,” as Badajoz himself pointed out on social media.
“This project is born from the desire to create a space that makes visible, celebrates, and reflects upon the artistic contributions of those who create from, in, or in dialogue with the Hispanic world, inside and outside the United States. We want this journal to be a bridge, a conversation in motion, a spark that awakens critical thought and reflection,” emphasizes ANLE’s Director Nuria Morgado in her presentation of the inaugural issue. “From the ANLE, we enthusiastically open this space as a meeting place for artists, critics, readers, and viewers. We invite you to discover these pages with open eyes and an attentive heart. May this first issue be the beginning of a long and fertile shared journey.”
The researcher, editor, and literary critic also offers a succinct warning that seems to allude not only to the spirit of this first issue but to the entire ANLEARTE project: “Many of the texts gathered here—such as Alister Ramírez Márquez’s essay on the dialogue between El Greco and Picasso or Silvia Betti’s study of the photographic series Homenajes by Gerardo Piña-Rosales—coincide on a fundamental idea: all art is, in essence, a constant conversation with the past. This dismantles the idea of the isolated genius, giving way to a more complex and generous vision of the artist as an interlocutor with their time and with past times. This perspective is complemented by a critical look at the processes of creation, memory, and the transmission of aesthetic and cultural knowledge,” she writes.
Furthermore, Morgado offers another clue—when referring to a photographic series by Gerardo Piña-Rosales, a feminist poem-performance by Tina Escaja, and the images by Manuel M. Martín-Rodríguez that trace “a visual genealogy of Chicano literature”—that seems fundamental to this editorial endeavor: “The art presented here also interrogates and destabilizes dominant categories.”
The ANLEARTE Editorial Board is composed of Jorge I. Covarrubias, Germán D. Carrillo, Daniel R. Fernández, Patricia López-Gay, Rosa Tezanos-Pinto, and Carlos E. Paldao.
