The editorial categories are research topics that have guided researchers during the recovery phase and continue to be the impetus behind the Documents Project’s digital archive and the Critical Documents book series. Developed by the project’s Editorial Board, each of the teams analyzed this framework and adapted it to their local contexts in developing their research objectives and work plans during the Recovery Phase. Learn more on the Editorial Framework page.
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David Alfaro Siqueiros explains that he is working with other painters and sculptors in Argentina and Uruguay to create a monumental visual arts movement for the masses. His goal is to remove works of art from museums, cemeteries, and private collections. He wants to liberate painting and sculpture from the scholastic confines of academic circles, and place them in public places where they can be seen in working class neighborhoods, to reintroduce them into the rational, democratic, collective process. According to him, there are precedents: the Mexican renaissance that led to mural painting, and the movement developed by the group of painters in his Equipo Ejecutor [Implementing Team] in Los Angeles, California. Siqueiros encourages the use of more appropriate modern tools, and predicts the creation of a Sindicato de Artes Plástics [Visual Arts Union].
David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896–1974) wrote this article, "Llamamientos a los Plásticos Argentinos" [A Call to Argentine Visual Artists] while he was in Argentina in 1933. He describes the steps that must be taken to create public art that doesn’t end up in museums or private collections but is for the benefit of the masses, whether because of its placement in streets and buildings or because of its subject matter. He endorses the idea that new materials must be used in the process. Siqueiros points out that this has already been done Mexico through the so-called Mexican renaissance. It is interesting to note his loyalty to traditional language in his use of the word "llamamientos" [appeals], which was part of the title of the essay he wrote in 1921 in Barcelona. He also mentions the term "Mexican renaissance" which was used in articles about the Mexican mural movement. Some ideas of this text by Siqueiros—published in Crítica (Buenos Aires, June 2,1933)—are also included in his manifesto titled "Ejercicio Plástico" [The Plastic Exercise]. It was written and signed with artists Antonio Berni, Lino Enea Spilimbergo, Juan C. Castagnino (Argentineans), and Enrique Lázaro (Uruguayan) that same year.