From kinetic space to neoconcrete space: The background of installation art in Latin America

During the 1950s, kinetic and neo-concrete art brought to life the impact of the avant-garde movements in Latin America. Through this development, artists embarked on a path of exploration around space, sensory phenomena and the active role of the viewer. In this article we seek to reconstruct a genealogy of installation art in the continent, based on the contributions of both these movements. We propose to focus on the critical analysis of written documents and emblematic works of the period, which answer some of the issues raised herein. In light of the results we obtained, we were able to verify that the first antecedents of installation art derived from the questions raised by these movements around the nature of the art object, the exhibition space and the role of the viewer.