The Adventures of China Iron
by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara
tr. Fiona Mackintosh and Iona Macintyre
(Charco Press, Nov. 2019)
GABRIELA CABEZÓN CÁMARA’S THE ADVENTURES OF CHINA IRON
In a famous 1943 ink drawing, the Uruguayan artist Joaquín Torres-García portrayed South America through the perspective that had been used to depict North America. He called it América invertida—“Inverted America”—and, true to its title, placed the equator at the bottom of the image and the southern continent at the top. The point is simple yet powerful: there is no reason for Latin Americans to look elsewhere for aesthetic inspiration. Compass needles might be pulled inexorably toward magnetic north, but Torres-García indicates art need not orient itself in the same way. Cartography’s conventions are revealed to be contingent and even detrimental; the status quo, in his work, proves to be imbalanced—and ripe for upheaval.
