Announcements

Call for Papers – Special Issue and Open-Themed Articles

The Lasar Segall Museum Journal announces that the submission period is now open for Issue No. 2 – Public Art for Many Audiences, to be published in late 2026. We are accepting submissions in the following categories:

Open-Themed Articles, in the areas of interest to the publication;
Articles related to the Issue’s Theme, a full description of which can be found below.
Visual essays.

The deadline for submitting texts is July 31, 2026.

We recommend that authors carefully read our journal’s submission guidelines before submitting their work (texts that do not comply with the guidelines will be automatically returned).

The editors and other staff members of the journal are available to answer questions; interested parties need only write to the email addresses listed on the Lasar Segall Museum Journal’s website.

 

LASAR SEGALL MUSEUM MAGAZINE SPECIAL ISSUE – ISSUE 2/2026


PUBLIC ART FOR MANY AUDIENCES: DYNAMICS OF PRODUCTION AND APPROPRIATION OF PUBLIC ART IN LATIN AMERICA

Guest Editors:

Rafael Dias Scarelli
Professor of Art and Image History at the School of Visual Arts, Federal University of Goiás (FAV-UFG). Ph.D. in Social History from the University of São Paulo.

Luis Gómez Mata
Professor at the Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana and Curator of the Museo Nacional de San Carlos. PhD candidate and Master’s degree in Art History from the Institute of Aesthetic Research at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (IEE-UNAM).


Beginning in the second half of the 19th century, and with increasing intensity through the first decades of the following century, the urban space of major Latin American cities became the setting for the installation of numerous public monuments, ranging from magnificent equestrian statues to herms, obelisks, and more modest columns. On the one hand, not only through public sculpture but also through urban toponymy, the aim was to honor the memory of those then recognized as national heroes—figures generally linked to the struggle for emancipation from colonial rule and the organization of the new national state—transforming the urban fabric into a “public history lesson,” to use the words of Rodrigo Gutiérrez Viñuales,1 or a “textbook of civic religion,” as Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo put it.2 On the other hand, amid the euphoria sparked by the economic progress resulting from the country’s full integration into the global market, this stone and bronze urban furniture also served to emulate the European model of a cosmopolitan city, viewed through the “mirror of Paris,” as José Luis Romero summarized.3 Latin American public art thus emerged, linked to monumental scale and noble materials, as well as to the self-celebratory effort of political and social elites to affirm the successful path toward modernity traversed by the young American nations up to that point, under their guidance.
Many decades later, while part of this urban statuary still stands, amidst the just anti-racist iconoclasm of social movements, the neglect of urban heritage by public authorities, and the indifference of most contemporary passersby, the public space of Latin American cities has come to embrace a variety of new forms of artistic and cultural expression. Often with a dissident and questioning slant, contemporary Latin American public art ranges from temporary and ephemeral initiatives to long-lasting interventions, promoted—with or without the endorsement of urban management bodies—by individual or collective artists and by political and social activist groups. Perhaps the only defining trait shared by this heterogeneous body of works linked to public art is the fact that, by coexisting in public space and facing “many audiences,” as the title of our Dossier expresses, they are subject to reinterpretations and re-significations driven by their urban context and by the potentially destructive interaction with city dwellers. “Without display cases or guardians to protect them,” as is the case in museums, notes Nestor Garcia Canclini, where “historical objects are removed from history and their intrinsic meaning is frozen in an eternity where nothing will ever happen again,”4 monuments and other works of art in public spaces are immersed in the contradictions of everyday urban life, vying for space with the nighttime glow of neon lights and advertising billboards.
The aim of the dossier Public Art for Many Audiences: Dynamics of Production and Appropriation of Public Art in Latin America is to welcome texts that explore some of the many possibilities of languages, formats, materials, and media through which contemporary Latin American public art manifests itself, ranging from sculptural monuments to mural art and graffiti. We hope that the contributions will highlight the “public” dimension of the work or artistic ensemble under analysis, exploring the possible meanings and conflicts that this dimension has engendered, whether in the context of its conception or implementation, or throughout the trajectory of these works after their entry into the public space. Being in the public space and speaking to many audiences—what might this mean, and what tensions might it generate, in the present or the past? These are the questions that will serve as the guiding theme for this Dossier. We believe there could be no more fitting proposal for the second issue of the Lasar Segall Museum Journal, an open-access publication linked to a public cultural institution, which we hope will also reach and engage with a wide range of readers.

1 Rodrigo Gutiérrez Viñuales. Monumento conmemorativo y espacio público en Iberoamérica. Madrid: Ediciones Cátedra, 2004, p. 9 [digital edition].
2 Mauricio Tenorio Trillo. I Speak of the City. Mexico City at the Turn of the Twentieth Century. Chicago: University of Chicago Press

3 José Luis Romero. A Brief History of Argentina. 5th ed. Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2013 [1st ed. 1965], p. 109.
4 Nestor García Canclini. Hybrid Cultures: Strategies for Entering and Leaving Modernity. São Paulo: Edusp, 2015 [1989], p. 301.

  • Call for papers

    2026-03-23

    Call for Papers – Thematic Dossier and Open Articles

    The Lasar Segall Museum Journal announces that the submission period is open for Edition no. 2 – Public Art for many Publics, which will be published at the end of 2026, accepting works in the following categories:

    1. Open Theme Articles, in the areas of interest of the publication;
    2. Articles related to the Theme of the Edition,
    3. Visual essays.

    The deadline for submission of texts is July 30, 2026.

    We recommend that authors carefully read the submission guidelines of our journal before submitting (texts that do not comply with the guidelines will be automatically returned).
    The editors and other parties responsible for the Journal are available for clarifications; interested parties may write to the email addresses available on the portal of the Journal of the Lasar Segall Museum.

    Read more about Call for papers