This book is about the contemporary monochrome in Latin America. The monochrome is one of the most elusive and complex art forms of modern and contemporary art.
If we think about its origins or meaning, we find that the monochrome is many contradictory things. The monochrome is neither a movement nor a category; it is not an “ism” or a thing. It may be painting as object, the mate- rial surface of the work itself, or the denial of perspective or narrative or any- thing representational. The monochrome may indicate the impossibility of interpretation; it may represent the transcendental or constitute a search for the absolute; it may embody the ultimate critique of painting or it may be art rendered generic or uniform. The monochrome may be surrogate painting, that is, a painting reduced to a sign of painting. The monochrome may be a readymade, a found object, or an environment—anything in which a single color dominates.
