Princesses ruleGirls will be girls, even when parentswish they’d pick another role modelBy Wendy DonahueCHICAGO TRIBUNE

CHICAGO — Attorney DanielleColyer, 39, has a belly button pierc-ing and four tattoos, including adragon across her back. She used tohave Bozo-red hair, dress in vinyland vow that her baby would neverget sucked into the Cinderellavortex.

So how, she has wondered manytimes, did her baby grow into the 3-year-old Vivienne Colyer Malonewho prefers tutus, tiaras, princesses

and pink?Whenever she leaves their Chi-

cago home, Vivienne totes eightplastic Disney figurines of SnowWhite, Sleeping Beauty and peers ina blue velvet purse embroideredwith the word ‘‘Princess.’’ At bed-time, Vivienne lines up the rag-dollversions beside her, all of them‘‘beautiful, with their same Botox-looking face and deadpan stare intospace,’’ Colyer observes wryly.

Colyer, who also is social studies

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Candice C. Cusic CHICAGO TRIBUNE

Friends, ages 2 to 4, pose for photos at the ‘Disney on Ice: Princess Wishes’show in Illinois. Disney has elevated princess marketing to an art form.

Redefining arteBlanton exhibitmight reshapethe way peoplelook at LatinAmerican artBy Jeanne Claire van RyzinAMERICAN-STATESMAN ARTS CRITIC

Patricia Phelps de Cisneros re-members very well the last time aportion of her Latin American artcollection was exhibited at theUniversity of Texas’ Blanton Mu-seum of Art.

In fall 1999, about 40 vibrant ab-stract sculptures and paintingsfrom the 1950s and 1960s — just asample of Cisneros’ 3,000-plus col-lection, considered one of the bestin private hands — went on view ina cramped second-floor gallery atthe Ransom Center, which theBlanton was using for its exhibits.Though the venue was far fromideal, the kinetic, zoomy, geomet-ric artwork made an impression onsome UT administrators who cameto the opening reception.

Just perhaps not the kindCisneros had expected.

“I remember these officialswalking in and exclaiming ‘This isart from Latin America?’ ”Cisneros recalled recently. “To seethe shock on people’s faces thatsomething so pure and sophisti-cated could come from SouthAmerica was a shock to me. I real-ized how important it was to ex-plain to everyone possible thatLatin American art wasn’t all mu-rals and figurative scenes, FridaKahlo and bananas andwatermelons.”

Today Cisneros — who is the wifeof Venezuelan media magnateGustavo Cisneros — believes that’sgoing to be easier to explain. It’s notjust because a new exhibit from hercollection is now on view at theBlanton — the first major LatinAmerican show the museum haspresented in its spacious newbuilding, a show accompanied bythe publication of a major catalogand launch of an educational Website.

It’s because with “The Geometryof Hope: Latin American AbstractArt from the Patricia Phelps deCisneros Collection,” the Blanton— which has attracted 150,000 vis-itors since opening last April — fi-nally has the means, and the po-tential audience, to trumpet thestory it’s been quietly composingfor years.

Call it a breakout moment forLatin American art in this country.It’s certainly a breakout momentfor the Blanton. Its effort to changethe misconceptions about LatinAmerican art can be widely

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‘The Geometry of Hope: Latin American Abstract Art fromthe Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection’When: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.Tuesdays-Saturdays (Thursdays until8 p.m.), 1 to 5 p.m. Sundays throughApril 22Where: Blanton Museum of Art,Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard andCongress Avenue

Cost: $3-$5 (free on Thursdays)Info: 471-7324, www.blantonmuseum.orgExhibit tours: 2 p.m. Sundays throughApril 22 (free with museumadmission)

Rodolfo Gonzalez AMERICAN-STATESMAN

Patricia Phelps de Cisneros provided part of her expansive collection for the Blanton exhibit.

360austin360.com

Find more onFor a slideshow of ‘TheGeometry ofHope,’ go toaustin360.com. Formoreinformationon the Blanton, seeaustin360.com/blanton.

JaneGreig

Q: I am a high-school senior and our prom ison March 31. The group I am going with wantsto take pictures. We have looked at the UmlaufSculpture Garden, Laguna Gloria and ZilkerBotanical Garden. The problem is we wouldnot be able to get there in time to take picturesbefore they close. We are starting to worrythat we won’t be able to find anywhere to takepre-prom pictures. Any suggestions? — Lauren H.

A: Want a natural setting? Try Mount BonnellPark, 3800 Mount Bonnell Drive, or Wool-dridge Square, 900 Guadalupe St. Prefer a Tex-ana or Austin-esque backdrop? Visit the giantstar in front of the Bullock Texas State HistoryMuseum, 1800 N. Congress Ave.; the StevieRay Vaughan statue at the Town Lake hike-and-bike trail, west of South First Street; theparklike grounds surrounding the Capitol,Congress Avenue at 11th Street; or the “Greet-ings From Austin” mural on the south side ofRoadhouse Relics, 1720 S. First St.

Q: I am a native Austinite seeing so manyhigh-rises going up daily. Why have architectsgotten away from including the outside fire-exit slides in case of fires that many buildingshad years ago? — G.T.G.

A: The fire code no longer requires these exte-rior fire escapes, says Don Smith, assistantfire marshal for the Austin Fire Department.A high-rise is any building above 75 feet, thereach of a fire department ladder, Smith adds.Interior stairwells are pressurized with fansthat push smoke out of the stairwell. Inaddition, pressurized vestibule areas allowresidents who use wheelchairs a safe place(telephones included) to wait for assistanceduring an emergency.

During an alarm, all doors in these stairwellunlock automatically to allow firefightersaccess.

Q: My daughter is in the fifth grade and occa-sionally is required to do a project for schoolthat requires a typed paper. She desperatelyneeds help with keyboarding skills.

Is a class on typing/keyboarding for 11-year-olds available anywhere? — M.H.

A: Free classes on basic computer skills areavailable at the Austin Public Library’s FaulkCentral Library, 800 Guadalupe St. Call 974-7400 for details.

In addition, free classes for all ages in com-puter skills, such as keyboard and mousebasics, are offered by Austin Free-Net, 2209Rosewood Ave. or 236-8225. This nonprofit or-ganization provides technical expertise, ser-vices and equipment to community organiza-tions. Want to help? Volunteer your time ordonate items such as sturdy comput-er tables, rolling deskchairs, paper orcomputerequipment(PentiumIII or high-er).

Prefer tolearn at home?Pick up “Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing,” asoftware program designed to demystify theQWERTY keyboard.

Q: I read your recent column about what tocall relatives. My niece married a man whohas a brother. Several years later, my niece’ssister (also my niece) married her brother-in-law’s brother. Now tell me all the relation-ships. — Jean Wykes

A: In this case, your niece’s brother-in-law isa brother-in-law in two ways — as the brotherof her husband and the husband of her sister.

And the relationship of the children of theseunions? They would be double first cousins,according to the folks at the Texas State Ar-chives Commission Genealogy Division.

Contact Jane Greig at P.O. Box 670, Austin 78767; (512)445-3697; e-mail jgreig@statesman.com or fax (512) 445-3968. For more Jane Greig, visit www.statesman.com/life/greig.

Several Austinlocations wouldbe picture-perfectbefore prom

PHOTOS.COM

Architecturally OKA look at Oklahoma City’s

underratedbuildings and sights.

TRAVEL, PAGE J14

Desperatelyrewriting Susan

In her first posthumous collection ofessays, Susan Sontag revises her legacy.

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appreciated for the first time,instead of being shown in small,out-of-the-way campus digs thatfew found their way to.

Today, visitors to “The Ge-ometry of Hope” can learn aboutthe dynamic, logic-inspired ab-stract visual language that per-colated in cosmopolitan SouthAmerican cities in the 1950s and1960s. Perhaps more important-ly, they can wander upstairs andsee “America/Americas,” thepermanent installation of mod-ern and contemporary art thatunifies the Blanton’s collectionof art from 1900 to the presentday, organizing it based onchronology and aesthetic pro-gression, not geographic origin.

In other words, the Blantonand “America/Americas” isproposing a startling proposi-tion: It’s not “Latin American”art. It’s just art.

Geography andart history

Before this new art historycould be written, though, geog-raphy had to be redefined. Forone thing, Latin America isn’twhat — or even where — youmight think it is. In the broadestsense, it spans both hemi-spheres and oceans.

“There’s this perception thatLatin America is one monolith-ic entity,” says Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro, the Blanton’s curatorof Latin American art. “Andthat all you do is go south of theU.S. and get there and everyonespeaks one language — Spanish.And conversely, every one whospeaks that language and comesfrom that ‘one place’ has thesame traditions, ideas andbeliefs.”

“We have to rethink the waygeography and culture inter-sect,” he continues. “Previous-ly, there was always some big arthistorical theory that uniteseverything in Latin Americanart, then compares it with art inthe United States or Europe.That’s just not accurate.”

And that’s why Pérez-Barreiro included Paris as oneof six Latin American citieshighlighted in “The Geometryof Hope,” where abstract artfomented.

“Paris was most certainly ahub of Latin American abstractart,” says Pérez-Barreiro.

After all, the creative ex-change between the major At-lantic coast cities of SouthAmerica and European culturalcapitals was — and still is —inextricable. Caracas, Montev-ideo, Buenos Aires, Rio de Jan-eiro and São Paulo, fueled bytheir strong post-World War IIeconomies, were hotbeds ofmodernist thinking and societalprogress. A faith in science andits potential to better the worldinspired artists to create apurely abstract aesthetic lan-guage of vibrating lines, cleangeometric forms and kineticshapes.

It’s like the Blanton andscholars such as Pérez-Barreirohaving been saying for years:The development of modernLatin America art is insepara-bly linked to the development ofmodern art the world over.

The art worldtakes notice

“(The re-hanging of the per-manent collections at the Blan-ton) appears to be a small ges-ture, but it represents hugestrides in the field,” saysMarysol Nieves, assistant vicepresident of Latin American artin the New York office of theauction house Sotheby’s. “Themarket for Latin American arthas continued to expand during

the last decade with collectorsno longer coming primarilyfrom Latin America, but alsofrom the U.S., Europe and Asia.That shift is directly related tothe greater visibility museumsand other cultural organiza-tions have given to art fromLatin America.”

One of Brazil’s foremost con-temporary artists, Katie vanScherpenberg, who did a resi-dency at UT several years ago,says, “The Blanton has the pos-sibility to show Latin Americanart in another, much broaderlight, bringing people from allaround to see and perceive un-known forms of expression—not only Frida Kahlo exists.”

Van Scherpenberg’s com-ment is a reminder that thepresentation of Latin Americanart in this country has neverbeen politically neutral.

As the world slid toward glo-bal war in the late 1930s, theUnited States developed a keeninterest in the continent to thesouth and its abundance of nat-ural resources. Art was theperfect cultural arm of this newdiplomacy.

But after World War II, theU.S. had little need for LatinAmerica. And hence LatinAmerican art all but dropped offthe radar in this country, re-garded as little more than afootnote, folk art or exotica.

Then, in the 1970s, Americabegan a love affair with magicalrealism, thanks to Englishtranslations of books by LatinAmerican authors such asGabriel García Márquez. Thatin turn sparked interest in art-ists such as Kahlo. But the pop-ularity of Kahlo, Márquez andtheir like only served to per-petuate the misconception thateverything Latin American wasmystical, exotic and filled withfantastic color. In other words,ethnic.

Things were a little differentin Texas, though, with its his-torical and cultural ties toMexico. Back in 1940, UT wasthe first university in thecountry to establish an instituteof Latin American Studies, le-veraged in large part by a stronglibrary of Latin Americanmaterials.

When UT founded its first artmuseum in 1963, directorDonald Goodhall was a pioneer,collecting Latin American artwhen almost no other U.S. in-stitution did so. In the early1970s, New York art collectorBarbara Duncan began givinghundreds of artworks from hercollection, choosing UT specifi-cally because of its seriousstudy of Latin America.

More art world “firsts” fol-lowed. In 1981, UT establishedthe first professorship of mod-ern Latin American art historyin the country. And in 1988, theBlanton became the first muse-um in this country to hire afull-time curator of LatinAmerican art.

When discussions about anew museum building began inthe mid-1990s, Blanton curatorsalso began thinking of a newway to showcase their art of the

20th century. The forward-thinking “America/Americas”is the end result.

Cisneros picksthe Blanton

Patricia Phelps de Cisneroshas been watching UT for awhile.

Cisneros, who turns 60 thisyear, founded her ColecciónPatricia Phelps de Cisneros in1980. It’s an offshoot of theCaracas-based FundaciónCisneros, the philanthropic armof the Cisneros Group of Com-panies. One of the largest pri-vately held media conglomer-ates in the world, the CisnerosGroup includes in its vast hold-ings Venevision, Venezuela’sprimary television network,and significant shares inSpanish-language TV networkUnivision. The Cisneroses areranked No. 114 on Forbes mag-azine’s World’s Richest Peoplelist, with an estimated net worthof $5 billion.

Through her foundation andcollection, the petite, birdlikeCisneros spends her consider-able energy promoting LatinAmerican art by loaning worksto museums, organizing trav-eling exhibits and developingart education programs andmaterials. The foundation justrecently wrapped up an 11-country, eight-year tour ofmultiple exhibits around theworld.

“I’ve always thought of thecollection as functioning as amuseum without walls,”Cisneros says in her accent-freeEnglish as she wanders theBlanton exhibit before its open-ing. “Though we’ve lived withmuch of this art work in ourhome over the years, we’re re-ally just stewards of it. So it’simportant to me that the collec-tion go out and have a life of itsown.”

As the great-granddaughter ofNew York-born, Harvard-trained ornithologist and busi-nessman William H. Phelps,who settled in Venezuela in1897, Cisneros received much of

her education in the U.S. She andher husband have residences inCaracas, Madrid and Aspen,Colo., but spend much of theirtime in their Manhattan home.

For more than two decadesCisneros has been a trustee forNew York’s mighty Museum ofModern Art. She also sits onvarious committees at HarvardUniversity, the Americas Soci-ety and London’s Tate Gallery.

Yet when it came time to de-velop a more extensive rela-tionship with an institution, shechoose UT and the Blanton.Why?

“I would be very happy beinga student here,” Cisneros sayswith a laugh. “It has everythingI want.”

She has no current plans todivest her collection, and her fi-nancial donation to the Blantoncovered the seminar, catalogand exhibit expenses (she de-clined to make public the exactamount). But involving the nextgeneration of curators and arthistorians — and having thechance to broaden their knowl-edge of Latin American art —was the best way, Cisneros fig-ured, to change the course of arthistory itself.

“We’re fighting a lot of ster-eotypes about Latin America,”says Cisneros. “But art is a waythrough which people can getpast them.”

jvanryzin@statesman.com; 445-3699

GEOGRAPHY: Inthe world of art,Latin Americaisn’t merely southof the border

Continued from J1

‘Estudio 2 (Study 2),’1952Alejandro Otero

‘Ocho cuadrados(Eight Squares),’ 1961Gego

‘Parangolé P16 capa 12.Da adversidade vivemos(Parangolé P16 Cape 12.We Live From Adversity),’1965/1992Hélio Oiticica

‘Idéia visívle (VisibleIdea),’ 1956Waldemar Cordeiro

‘Função diagonal(Diagonal Function),’ 1952Geraldo de Barros

BLANTON MUSEUM OF ART IMAGES

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