Conclusion
These artists are just a small portion of the many nuanced perspectives which culminated in art undeniably unique to Latin America. What is important to recognise in charting these artists is that we are able to observe how each of them relied on ideas and work presented by other Latin American artists. This simple gesture demonstrates the success of their goal to create something exclusive to their experience. Refusal to accept colonial power dynamics and an authentic regard for the complexity of their own identity meant that what they produced was inevitably specific to their context. As Tarsila Do Amaral suggested, they took the structures and ideas which they could not disassociate from and used them to strengthen their own sense of identity. The duality expressed in Kahlo and Izquierdo’s work gave license to artists to accept the complexity of colonial identity and validated its place as a genuine cultural perspective. Activating and involving the audience in meaningful ways, in the vein of Oiticica and Soto, redefined the role of the artist and opened up new means of artistic expression. This freedom developed to the extent that artists like Cildo Meireles could then create art which dealt exclusively with critique of the Latin American canon of art. In this way, artists ultimately succeeded in the goal which defined the 1900s. They transformed from passive, colonial subjects to active, postcolonial agents.