Book Review: Visual Voyages: Images of Latin American Nature from Columbus to Darwin by Daniela Bleichmar

Of the nearly eighty Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA exhibitions, only a handful have dealt in any historic depth with the Americas. That lack of historic grounding has been one of the key fault lines separating these few but significant shows from the larger PST: LA/LA project sponsored by the Getty Foundation. How does one bridge the chasm between the contemporary art world and the ancient Americas except by contending with the very nature of colonization and colonialism? Visual Voyages: Images of Latin American Nature from Columbus to Darwin, co-curated by Daniela Bleichmar and Catherine Hess at the Huntington Library, stood out as a close and careful examination of the art...