The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and its research institute, the International Center for the Arts of the Americas (ICAA), have announced that they will launch a landmark project in January of 2012: a digital archive of 20th-Century Latin American and Latino Art and a companion book series. From the Museum:

The material brings to life the ferment of international cultures, ideas and personalities that swept across 20th-century South America, the Spanish-speaking Caribbean and the North American Midwest, as artists, writers and intellectuals sought to define or challenge notions of a national art; art movements emerged in response to changing local political regimes, as well as to what was perceived as the onslaught of North American culture; and the contribution of Latin American artists to the early stages of avant-garde global movements that resulted in highly original artistic manifestations.

Read the full MFAH press release to learn more about this incredible resource of artists’ writings, correspondence, and other rare archival materials. The first volume in the series, Resisting Categories: Latin American and/or Latino, by Mari Carmen Ramírez, Héctor Olea, and Tomás Ybarra-Frausto, is now available for order from Yale University Press.