Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

This prescient op-ed takes the events at the 1968 Braque Prize (sponsored by the French embassy in Argentina) as a starting point and uses them to arrive at the conclusion that the finest artwork was the “uproar” that occurred due to the [...]

This United States academic journal disseminates the translation of the Cronología [Chronology] prepared by the artists reporting on the events that occurred throughout 1968, as well as other documents of their timetable, although with modified [...]

This article—a summary of Tucumán Arde [Tucumán is Burning] when it was still in the process of being realized—is of interest because it identifies the work as belonging to “Arte y comunicación de masas” [Art and mass communications], [...]

This document by the Equipo de Contrainformación [Counter-information Team] (the only material written by the group) is divided into three sections. The first is a declaration of principles; the second is the script for the historical account ( [...]

This unsigned report, published in Sobre Nº 1 [Envelope no. 1], documents the experiences of a group of artists who joined the strike committee of Fabril Financiera in February 1969. It discusses the difference between producing a work of art or an [...]

 In this unpublished text, [Margarita] Paksa traces the art history of western culture for the preceding five centuries. Her thesis is that the configuration of a new society would allocate an entirely different function to art within the immediate [...]

In this text León Ferrari (1920–2013) claims responsibility for three occurrences in 1968: the meeting between artists who had been linked to political art for some time with others who had just begun working in this trend; the breakup of the [...]

This early declaration—most likely written when Tucumán Arde [Tucumán Is Burning] was taking shape (early October 1968)—presents some of the basic ideas behind the group’s collective work. First, it denounces General Juan Carlos Onganía’s [...]

In this text, the work is presented as a joint production of the Grupo de Artistas Argentinos de Vanguardia (this is the only document in which they use that exact name) and the labor union. The basis of their denunciation of the government policy is [...]

This text is a detailed report prepared by the Tucumán Arde [Tucumán Is Burning] organizers that informed the press about the exhibition’s objectives, sent out briefly before the show’s inauguration at the CGT (Confederación General del [...]

This chronology begins in January and February of 1968, the starting point of the vanguard artists’ radicalization of that year, with a series of informal discussions about “the possibility of creating a cultural phenomenon” that would be “ [...]

This extensive article first appeared in La Gaceta [The Gazette], Tucuman’s most important newspaper, reporting on the first press conference given by the artists upon arriving at Tucumán for their second research trip in October 1968. Accompanied [...]

This note appeared in La Gaceta [The Gazette],Tucumán’s most important newspaper, reporting on the Rosario artists’ first exploratory trip to Tucumán in September 1968.  The trip had repercussions in the media, as seen by this account in the [...]

This short notice in La Tribuna, a Rosario daily newspaper, records the beginning of the artists’ journey to Tucumán. The work in progress is proposed as a collective effort that would integrate artists from different disciplines. Moreover, the [...]

This brief note, which appeared in Rosario’s most important daily newspaper, reports on the inauguration of the Tucumán Arde [Tucumán Is Burning] show at the CGT (Confederación General del Trabajo) headquarters in Rosario on November 3, 1968. It [...]

The incidents during the of the Premio Braque 1968 awards ceremony (brought about by the French embassy in Argentina) were a direct result of the boycott proposed by the artists in reaction to a censorship clause. In this newspaper article, with the [...]

This article, published in the young newsmagazine Boom (Rosario, Argentina, November 1968), narrates what happened during the “lock-up” action carried out by Graciela Carnevale at the “Ciclo de Arte Experimental” [Experimental Practices of [...]

The author of this text, Juan Pablo Renzi, introduces the happening of one of his fellow members of the Grupo de Arte de Vanguardia de Rosario, Argentina, just as he had done for Norberto Púzzolo. In the case of [artist] Jaime Rippa, Renzi points [...]

This is a review of an exhibition of new art that was held at the Faculty of Medicine during a symposium on social psychopathology. The event was a means of acknowledging the positive role taken by “dissatisfied youth,” both in visual arts’ [...]

The statement written by Fernández Bonina concerning the happening he presented at the Series is a brief description of the procedure (bring the viewers into an empty room, where there are no objects or other distractions of any kind). He also [...]

For their first presentation in the Ciclo de Arte Experimental [Experimental Practices of Art Series], this group of artists in Rosario, Argentina, printed a new flier that they all signed. The text outlined the premises and claims upon which the [...]

The foreword to this catalogue was written by Hugo Parpagnoli—the director of the Museo de Arte Moderno in Buenos Aires, at that time—highlights the important role played by Dr. Isidoro Slullitel, the private art collector. He was a rare [...]

This manifesto implies a new rejection of the sanctioned art circuit in the city of Rosario, Argentina. The text repeats the same messages expressed in the group’s first manifesto (“Ante la cultura mermelada [Concerning the Marmalade Culture [...]

Brazenly, this manifesto categorically rejects the official forms of art and its practices in the city of Rosario, Argentina. It also stresses the marked unity and mutual understanding among the Grupo de Arte de Vanguardia when the group‘s [...]

This text, written by Graciela Carnevale, explains her intention to lock the public into the exhibition space. She recalls being helped by Nicolás Rosa, and that the text was not circulated to the public until the happening was over. Carnevale makes [...]

Emilio Ghilioni and Rodolfo Elizalde describe their happening as an endeavor in tandem, the result of endless rounds of critical reexamination of both avant-garde art and the deteriorating state of the traditional nexus between the artwork and the [...]

Martha Greiner’s text suggests a Utopian world—in addition to quoting an excerpt from La revolución de las comunicaciones [The Communications Revolution] by Father Neil P. Hurley S. J.—which is connected by the recent advances in communication [...]

This is one of the key documents bringing to the fore the increasingly political radicalization of the late 1960s Argentinean avant-garde artists, as was demonstrated dramatically by a number of groups in a crucial year: 1968. The document is written [...]

This article includes the most significant sections of the report prepared by Miguel Murmis, Silvia Sigal, and Carlos Waisman, the sociologists and members of the CICSO (Centro de Investigación en Ciencias Sociales [Social Sciences Research Center [...]

Eduardo Ruano’s leaflet denounces the “cultural machine,” identifies a number of recent acts of censorship at different official art institutions (the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires), and denounces the [...]

This article reports on Eduardo Ruano’s budding artistic career, which was interrupted by his violent political actions at the museum. It also shows that the authorities were mistaken in believing that Ruano’s work was actually the panel that had [...]

This brochure—produced by FOTIA (Federación Obrera Tucumana de la Industria Azucarera [Federation of Sugar Industry Workers of Tucumán]), the sugar workers’ guild and union, and one of the most aggressive organizations in Tucumán—was among [...]

The FATRAC (Frente Antiimperialista de Trabajadores de la Cultura [Culture Workers’ Anti-Imperialist Front]) was the cultural arm of the PRT (Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores [Revolutionary Workers Party]), which played an active role in [...]

In this apocryphal newspaper article, the author relies on a number of the standard stereotypes that were used in the Argentine press at that time to refer to experimental art: snobbishness, frivolousness, madness, partying, irrationality, [...]

Written in a mocking, ironic tone, this article describes the details of a supposed happening that never actually happenedincluding where it took place, who was there, what they were doing, etc. A strange item is mentioned: the happening was supposed [...]

This short article was published in a medium that rarely paid attention to events in the art milieu. The publication was El Combatiente [The Combatant], an organ of the Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores (PRT) [Workers Revolutionary Party]. [...]