Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

The article “¡Que viva Manrique!” [Hooray for Manrique!], written by the editorial team at the Bogotá newspaper El Espectador and published on April 16, 1996, referred to Pedro Manrique Figueroa. Precursor del Collage en Colombia [Pedro [...]

This is an article written by the editorial staff at the weekly Magazine Dominical about the life and work of Alicia Tafur, the Colombian artist. It was written on the occasion of the “first large exhibition for Bogotá” at the Banco de la Repú [...]

In this interview written in the first person by journalist Soad Aljure, Colombian painter Fernando Botero discusses certain aspects of his life, his method, and his artistic credo from a perspective born of maturity and with a confidence born of [...]

Appearing in El Espectador, a Colombian daily newspaper with national circulation, this is an article on a press conference held by members of the Academia Colombiana de Historia [Colombian History Academy] through which they took their criticism of [...]

This biographical overview—the first one ever published in Antioquia on an artist from the region—begins by describing Colombian artist Francisco Antonio Cano’s humble background and difficult childhood. From a young age, Cano took an interest [...]

Walter Engel wrote the review “David Manzur. En la Biblioteca Luis-Ángel Arango”, which was published on October 1, 1961, in the daily newspaper El Espectador. This article analyzes important aspects of the visual arts in Colombia in the 1960s. [...]

This is an interview, complete with editorial comments, that was published in the newspaper El Heraldo de Antioquia on the occasion of the exhibition of works by the Colombian painter Débora Arango in Bogotá in 1940. Arango mentions the reactions [...]

This text by historian and critic Walter Engel may be the first essay to specifically focus on Eduardo Ramírez Villamizar’s work in relief, which Engel considers key to the artist’s transition from painting to sculpture. Engel’s provides a [...]

This article by the art critic Eduardo Márceles Daconte was published in the Sunday Magazine of the Bogotá daily newspaper El Espectador. The writer provides a brief account of the activities of the group El Sindicato, which emerged in Barranquilla [...]

Based on an interview with Gonzalo Ariza, this article, by the journalist Álvaro Monroy Caicedo, sets forth the opinions of this Colombian painter on the superiority of Eastern over Western art. He gives his opinions on Latin American art, art [...]

In this brief article, the journalist Amparo Hurtado discusses Alicia Tafur’s solo exhibition of twelve new sculptures at the Luis Ángel Arango Library in Bogotá. Hurtado describes how the sculptures are made with materials such as bronze, rods, [...]

This brief biography of Colombian artist Fabián Rendón by journalist Marisol Cano Busquets and poet Juan Manuel Roca is based on an interview held in Rendón’s studio. The authors consider Rendón a draftsman, printmaker, and a dedicated [...]

In the text “Invitación al sacrificio” [An Invitation to Sacrifice], commentator Alejandro Torres discusses the poetic quality of the staging and production in the work of the Mapa Teatro collective directed by Colombian artist Rolf Abderhalden [...]

The Colombian publicist and photographer Carlos Duque interviews Karen Lamassonne, the versatile young artist who has worked in the fields of painting, printmaking, the movies, and video art. During the course of the interview, Duque enquires about [...]

This article was written by “Eleuterio de Castro,” the pseudonym of the Colombian conservative politician who later became president of Colombia, Laureano Gómez Castro (1950?53) about an exhibition of painting by Ricardo Gómez Campuzano. The [...]

This interview by journalist Héctor Muñoz for the newspaper El Espectador was one of the first with painter Norman Mejía, from Cartagena, to be published in the press after he was awarded first prize at the 1965 edition of the Salón Nacional de [...]

Miguel Garzón, the journalist with the Bogotá newspaper El Espectador reported on the decision to eliminate prizes and honorable mentions at the XXIII Salón de Artistas Nacionales [XXIII National Artists’ Salon] in 1972. In his article, Garzón [...]

Olga Marín Arango’s article, “Memorias patrióticas de un voyerista” [Patriotic Memoirs of a Voyeur] was published on November 21, 1997, in the “Cultura/Espectáculos” [Culture and Entertainment] section of the Bogotá newspaper El [...]

In this interview, Feliza Bursztyn speaks about her work, and, in particular, about Homenaje a López [Homage to López] created to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in 1967. Homenaje a López was the subject of [...]

In this article, the art critic Walter Engel reviews the exhibition of monotypes presented by the artist Augusto Rivera at the Galería Colseguros in Bogotá. Engel highlights the artist’s successful use of the technique, explaining how Rivera [...]

Entitled “Por devoción al arte,” this article published on April 18, 1994 was written by Olga Marín Arango, editor of La guía, the cultural section of the Bogotá-based newspaper El Espectador. It reviews the Primer Premio del XXXV Salón [...]

The Colombian writer Álvaro Cepeda Samudio published an article that included a “brief biography” of the painter Noé León, in which he writes about the time when the art critic José Gómez Sicre paid León a surprise visit at his “humble [...]

The sculptor, Edgar Negret, refuted the statements made by a group of historians from the Academia Colombiana de Historia [Colombian History Academy], led by Germán Arciniegas, on the Monument to Bolívar commissioned for the celebration of the [...]

Colombian artist Gonzalo Ariza defends the autonomy of Latin American art and the internationalization of culture in a column written in response to a text by Argentine art critic Marta Traba, published in the magazine Mito. In her text, Traba [...]

The synopsis and the annotations in English are coming soon.                                However, our bilingual readers can click on “Español” to access this information in Spanish [...]

The article “Una mirada que atraviesa objetos”published in El Espectador newspaper discusses Colombian painter Carlos Salas’s conscientious work in the painting medium. Salas explores abstraction, the article asserts, with the rigor of his [...]