Edward Lucie-Smith discusses major subjects and issues: Magic Realism, Expressionism and other concepts shared with Latin American literature; the great muralists Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros and Jose Clemente Orozco; the interaction of politics, society and art; the continuing interest in folk art; and the dialogue between avant-garde European and North American movements and "indigenist" thinking in the work of artists such as Wifredo Lam, Matta, Rufino Tamayo and Frida Kahlo. A new final section presents the leading artists of today, some of whose work in the fields of interactive installation, photography and video art reveals a continent embracing the experimental and the new.