Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

In September 15, 1998, graphic artist Antônio Maluf writes to art historian Aracy Amaral regarding her book Arte Construtiva no Brasil Coleção Adolpho Leirner. Even before its release, in his view, the book was considered an [...]

In this brochure essay produced for Artistas de Campinas, the exhibition presented at the Galeria de Arte das Folhas in 1959, Waldemar Cordeiro discusses the non-figurative “trends” and “contents” he detects in the works shown [...]

The flier’s cover is illustrated with a work of geometric abstraction (with no mention of the painter’s name), but includes no title for the event. The eleventh edition of the salão paulista de arte moderna, organized by the state [...]

This text includes a few excerpts from the six lectures that Jorge Romero Brest gave in São Paulo in 1948. At that time, Romero Brest held an academic position at the Universidad de Montevideo and was the director of the magazine Ver y estimar [...]

This is the program for Amilcar de Castro, the exhibition of the artist’s metal sculptures that ran from October 14 to November 14, 1982, at the Galeria Raquel Arnaud (Babenco). The essay written by Ferreira Gullar is illustrated with Sin t& [...]

In this essay, Ferreira Gullar challenges the position taken by Rio de Janeiro’s so-called neo-Concrete artists in his account of the two movements’ shared history and disagreements. In his opinion, the genesis of Brazilian Concrete art [...]

In this essay, Ferreira Gullar describes the context in which the Neo-Concrete art movement was created by artists in Rio de Janeiro. He outlines the movement’s evolution as he identifies key developments in its history, such as the series [...]

In this essay, Ferreira Gullar offers a “panoramic view” of the developments and theoretical tenets of Neoconcrete art in Brazil. As in other essays [see in the ICAA digital archive “Da arte concreta à arte neoconcreta” (1315036)], Gullar [...]

In her introductory essay for As Bienais e a Abstração. A Década de ’50 (1978), the exhibition organized by the Museu Lasar Segall in 1978, Lisbeth Gonçalves explains that the goal of the event was to review [...]

In this essay Ronaldo Brito discusses Brazilian Constructivism as an integral part of an “organized cultural strategy” that was in effect from the 1940s to the 1960s and was closely aligned with “the country’s social and [...]

This is the catalogue published to accompany Camargo, the exhibition organized by the Gimpel Fils gallery in London. The Brazilian artist Sérgio Camargo’s works were exhibited there from November 17 through December 5, 1970. The [...]

Frederico Morais uses an extremely long title to provide a précis of his essay. But it only complicates the simplified narratives of a movement—whose embrace of doctrinaire Constructivism was followed by a critical rift between Concrete [...]

In this essay, Ferreira Gullar critiques the exhibition of works by São Paulo Concrete artists at the MAM-RJ (Museu de Arte Moderna de Rio de Janeiro, 1957). He also critiques Waldemar Cordeiro’s introductory essay and its assertion that [...]

In this essay, Ferreira Gullar articulates the position of the so-called Neoconcrete artists of Rio de Janeiro by tracing a shared history and points of divergence with the Concrete art movement. For Gullar, Concrete art begins in Brazil with the [...]

This flier—produced by the Galeria de Arte das Folhas for the Prêmio Leirner de Arte Contemporânea, 1960—names most of the members of the Concrete art Grupo Ruptura (with the exception of Judith Lauand). They are introduced by [...]

At an exhibition of works being considered for the Prêmio Leirner de Arte Contemporânea, 1959, at the Galeria de Arte das Folhas, Pietro Maria Bardi, the art critic and director of the Museu de Arte (later the MASP), discusses Giselda [...]

This group exhibition, held at the Galería de Arte das Folhas in November 1959, included works by Giselda Leirner, Maria Leontina, Tomie Ohtake, Hércules Barsotti, and Willys de Castro. The latter introduces Barsotti’s drawings [...]

Artes, the visual arts magazine, devoted a portion of its fifty-seventh issue (December 1983–January 1984) to this lengthy article about Maurício Nogueira Lima, with photos of the artist and a number of his works. The magazine, which is [...]

This essay by the Brazilian art critic Ronaldo Brito appears in the catalogue for the exhibition Milton Dacosta Anos 50 (1988). Brito describes Milton Dacosta’s Constructivist work, produced in the late 1950s, as a paradoxical hybrid after the [...]

Professor Walter Zanini, the director of the Museu de Arte Contemporânea (an affiliate of the Universidade de São Paulo), begins his introductory essay by congratulating the graphic artist and painter Lothar Charoux on behalf of the [...]

This newspaper article, dated November 1968, chronicles the interview in which Enock Sacramento asked the Concrete artist Luís Sacilotto about the recent opening of an exhibition of his works at the Salon de Arte Contemporânea de Santo [...]

At an exhibition of works being considered for the Prêmio Leirner de Arte Contemporânea at the Galeria de Arte das Folhas in 1959, the Neo-Concrete art critic and theorist Ferreira Gullar discusses the dominant features of Maria Leontina& [...]

This memorandum, addressed to Antônio Balbino, the Brazilian Minister of Education and Culture, was signed by hundreds of artists who demanded radical changes in the political decisions that restricted the import of ink, pigments, paper, and [...]

In this brief essay, which was published in the brochure for the 1960 Prêmio Leirner de Arte Contemporânea, Wolfgang Pfeiffer writes about a drawing of a fish on the sand by Moacyr Rocha that appears at the beginning of the essay. The [...]

In this brief essay, which appeared in the brochure produced for the 1960 Prêmio Leirner de Arte Contemporânea (Leirner Prize for Contemporary Art), Oswald de Andrade Filho—the son of the famous writer—describes Murillo [...]

This essay, written by Gilberto Mendes, the Brazilian composer of experimental music, appeared in the catalogue for the exhibition Projeto Construtivo Brasileiro na Arte (1977). Mendes provides a brief description of how creators of Concrete poetry [...]

This essay by the Brazilian art critic Wilson Coutinho appeared in the catalogue for the exhibition Ciclo de exposições sobre arte no Rio de Janeiro: 1. Neoconcretismo (Rio de Janeiro: Galeria de Arte BANERJ, 1984). The essay outlines [...]

In this brief essay, which was published in the brochure for the 1960 Prêmio Leirner de Arte Contemporânea, Wolfgang Pfeiffer discusses the spontaneity and imagination he sees in the work of Niobe Xandó. A self-taught painter, Xand [...]

In this essay, written for the paradigmatic exhibition Projeto Construtivo Brasileiro na Arte, Júlio Katinsky discusses the relationship between the Concrete art movement in São Paulo and industrial design. He points out that, in both [...]

In this essay, written for the paradigmatic exhibition Projeto Construtivo Brasileiro na Arte, Roberto Pontual discusses the survival of the Neo-Concrete art movement that existed “officially” for “a little less than two years, from [...]

This essay, by the Brazilian curator and art historian Aracy Amaral, appeared in the catalogue for the exhibition Modernidade: arte brasileira do século XX (Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, 1988). Amaral discusses the origins of the [...]

Décio Pignatari reviews the artist Raúl Porto’s work on the occasion of the inaugural Leirner de Arte Contemporânea (Leirner Prize for Contemporary Art) exhibition in 1960. The critique appeared in Jayme Maurício& [...]

In this essay Luiz Antônio de Figueiredo discusses some of the parallel developments in the fields of Concrete poetry and Concrete art. In the 1950s “they both started to map out the routes of non-figurative art, which was exploring [...]

This essay, written by Wilson Coutinho, the Brazilian curator and art critic, appeared in the catalogue for the exhibition Projeto Construtivo Brasileiro na Arte (1977). Coutinho discusses the context in which Concrete poetry developed in Brazil in [...]

In this poetic essay, which was included in the brochure produced for the Prêmio Leirner de Arte Contemporânea (Leirner Prize for Contemporary Art) in 1960, Décio Pignatari discusses the concept of “avant-garde” and [...]

Ferreira Gullar uses his newspaper column to reply to an article that appeared in the Correio da Manhã in which Waldemar Cordeiro challenged his review of an exhibition of works by Concrete artists from São Paulo at the MAM-RJ (Museu de [...]

In his introductory essay, Frederico Morais identifies the basic criteria underpinning the three retrospective exhibitions that were presented as part of the Ciclo de exposições sobre arte no Rio de Janeiro (1984). He briefly discusses [...]

In this rare essay about “realist” artist Thomaz Perina, the Brazilian Concrete art theorist Waldemar Cordeiro discusses the importance of this kind of work, describing it as “an art medium that still [in the early 1960s] harbors [...]

At an exhibition of works being considered for the Prêmio Leirner de Arte Contemporânea at the Galeria de Arte das Folhas in 1959, the art critic and businessman Wolfgang Pfeiffer discusses the parameters of Tomie Ohtake’s work. [...]

At an exhibition of works being considered for the Prêmio Leirner de Arte Contemporânea in 1959, this essay is about one of the artists whose work is part of the Adolpho Leirner Collection. Written by Theon Spanudis—one of the [...]