Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

Here, Sheila Leirner discusses the exhibition Interior Reliefs, by the U.S. artist Mary Dritschel, held at the Luisa Strina gallery in São Paulo. To this critic, the works exhibited have almost the same impact as the artist’s first exhibition in [...]

In this text, Icleia Borsa Cattani discusses the implications of globalization in contemporary art and its practice of separation, mentioning in passing the cultural consensus, the crisis in art, and the neutralization of criticism. Under such [...]

Renato Ortiz examines the concept of “identity” in the contemporary global world from a sociological perspective. Pursuant to Postmodernity—which he calls “radicalized modernity”—there is a multiplicity of [...]

This interview with art dealer Thomas Cohn took place on the occasion of the fifth anniversary celebration of the opening of his gallery in Rio de Janeiro. The background of those first five years is the pictorial axiology of the Geração 80, [...]

Ronaldo Brito understands Sérgio Camargo’s work as experimental contemporary sculpture, executed in a way that combines elements, although it is always concerned with volume and organic principles. In this 1990 article, Brito discusses the artist [...]

Guy Brett analyzes the relief carvings on wood done by Sérgio [de] Camargo in the 1960s, and comments on the materials, light, and surface. He mentions the artist’s use of wooden cylinders in a geometric as well as an organic sense, relating them [...]

The journalist and curator Lisette Lagnado interviews the gallery owner Fernando Millan, who was also the director of the MASP (Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo) in the 1940s. According to Millan, the secret of the museum’s success as an art [...]

In this text, Olgária Matos discusses the parameters of what is masculine and what is feminine, starting with the theoreticians collectively known as the Frankfurt School (Theodor W. Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, and Max Horkheimer). In the writer’s [...]

As this interview by Rodrigo Naves with Raquel Arnaud explains, Arnaud first got involved with the Brazilian art scene at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP) between 1968 and 1971, under the guidance of the museum’s founder and director, Pietro [...]

Looking to her background in philosophy, Otília Arantes analyzes the transformations that have ensued in the relationship between the viewer and the work of art. Structural changes in museums, she argues, have given rise to “new museums” [...]

In this critique ---which has a biographical tenor--- of the work of engraver Darel Valença Lins, poet and diplomat Vinicius de Moraes juxtaposes Darel’s origins with those of writer José Lins do Rego.  Although both were raised near sugar [...]

In 1961, the magazine ARTnews sent critic Harold Rosenberg to São Paulo to cover the opening of the VI São Paulo Biennial, which had been postponed due to the sudden resignation of Brazilian President Jânio Quadros a few months earlier. In this [...]

In this text, Nelson Brissac discusses aspects of current art interventions in what have been called “megacities.” Specifically, he presents as an example the fourth edition of the Arte/Cidade project (2002), which he curated. The event consisted [...]

Agnaldo Farias wrote the text presenting the exhibition Galeria Luisa Strina: 20 anos de arte brasileira, held at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP) in 1994. According to Farias, the show of artists still active who had previously exhibited work [...]

On the basis of a text by Robert Fontené, Lourival Gomes Machado formulates a criticism of theorists of abstraction, specifically of Fontené himself and of Belgian curator Léon Degand. Gomes Machado sees both those critics as advocates of a [...]

In this article, Lourival Gomes Machado discusses the major contribution that Concrete artists have made to the São Paulo art scene. In his view, their stimulating presence provoked a wide range of reactions years after the first exhibition of the [...]

In this text written in the late fifties, art critic Lourival Gomes Machado offers a critical overview of the state of Brazilian art while attempting to avoid the polemics that riddled the art milieu of the era, as he himself asserts. His assessment [...]

This text by art critic, professor, and journalist Lourival Gomes Machado takes stock of Brazilian art criticism after the II Congresso de Críticos held in 1961.  Gomes Machado was the coordinator of the section of that event dedicated to the [...]

Lourival Gomes Machado evaluates the works exhibited at the V Bienal de São Paulo, where he was once again the artistic director. He identifies a radical shift in the approach of both the Brazilian and the international works; whereas they had [...]

In this article, critic Sheila Leirner formulates the tie between the place where a work of art is produced and the work itself. In her view, artists can be divided into those who engage problems innate to art and those who make use of images for the [...]