Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

Journalist Joaquín Gabaldon Márquez praises the work La bruja [The Witch] by Oswaldo Vigas, suggesting it is imbued with profound intellectual meaning. He states that the work does not seek to reproduce nature, nor achieve pure abstraction; [...]

The historian Rafael Páez writes about the artist Armando Barrios in the thirteenth booklet of the collection entitled Pintores Venezolanos. In it we find the text “La nueva figuración” where Páez argues that this pictorial phase, begun in [...]

This essay by Héctor Mujica comments on the absence of rigorous and honest art criticism within the Venezuelan milieu. The author assumes a Marxist aesthetic as an analytical framework and applies it to the work of Alejandro Otero. In his commentary [...]

This essay by the researcher Zuleiva Vivas appeared in the catalogue for Antonio Lazo. Sentimiento, Convicción, Vivencias, the exhibition of works by the Venezuelan painter. In her essay—“La percepción de lo sensible ausente”—Vivas provides [...]

The critic Juan Calzadilla wrote one of the introductory essays for the exhibition Armando Barrios: Retrospectiva (Caracas: Galería de Arte Nacional, 1977). He discusses the painter’s evolution and the artistic language he consistently uses to [...]

Enrique Buenaventura reviews and critiques Gabriel Bracho’s first exhibition at the Museo de Bellas Artes in Caracas. The Colombian playwright identifies the artist as a realist painter who has not yet reached maturity, which is the reason why the [...]

In this critical essay, historian Juan Carlos Palenzuela discusses what he considers the meteoric rise of the career of Venezuelan artist Héctor Poleo, mentioning specifically the awards he won at a young age, his frequent travels, and his [...]

This essay was written by the critic Víctor Guédez for Alirio Oramas: del misterio a las revelaciones. Exposición antológica, 1946-2005, the exhibition of works by the Venezuelan visual artist Alirio Oramas. In his essay “La signología esoté [...]

Juan Calzadilla’s essay “Las apariciones de Salvador Valero” was one of stories, declarations, poems, and critical writings compiled by Carlos Contramaestre in the book Salvador Valero published by the Museo de Arte Salvador Valero in 1981. [...]

Researcher Félix Hernández wrote this essay entitled “Las capillas en nombre de ‘La Virgen de Coromoto’ y de ‘José Gregorio Hernández’” [Chapels in the name of the Virgin of Coromoto and José Gregorio Hernández’]. It is a multi- [...]

This text, entitled “Lazo o la nueva ética,” by researcher Ruth Auerbach was featured in the catalogue for Antonio Lazo: Sentimiento, Convicción, Vivencias, an exhibition of work by Venezuelan painter Antonio Lazo (b. 1943). At the beginning of [...]

The press release refers to the first exhibition of the work of Venezuelan artist Gabriel Bracho at the Museo de Bellas Artes de Caracas. The opening featured a large crowd from various segments of society. It reviews the great success in support and [...]

This text, entitled “Lo permanente,” is the first of three chapters in Víctor Guédez’s book Armando Barrios: Lo permanente, lo novedoso y lo influyente on Venezuelan artist Armando Barrios. In the section “La pintura y la música,” Gué [...]

This essay by Roberto Guevara entitled “Los objetos mágicos: la iniciación en una nueva era” was featured in the catalogue to the exhibition Mario Abreu. Pinturas y objetos. Exposición Antológica 1990, held at the Galería Municipal de Arte [...]

In this essay on Venezuelan painter Héctor Poleo, historian and critic Francisco Da Antonio focuses on the last twenty years of the artist’s production and ventures a stylistic chronology and interpretation of his art. For instance, he argues that [...]

In this interview, visual artist Manuel Quintana Castillo provides an analysis and criticism of the evolution of Venezuelan art. He asserts that the aesthetic values of young artists of the sixties are not as coherent as those of the members of Los [...]

“Manuel Quintana Castillo. Visible/Legible” by Juan Carlos Palenzuela is the introduction to the exhibition catalogue for Manuel Quintana Castillo: Bañarse en el mismo río, which toured internationally. The text begins with an account of the [...]

This essay by Víctor Guédez entitled “Manuel Quintana Castillo: Una visión retrospectiva” was featured in the catalogue for the exhibition La piel del tiempo: Manuel Quintana Castillo, held at the Fundación Galería de Arte Nacional in 2002. [...]

The essay “Anotaciones para los fragmentos de un muro escrito” by art historian and critic Juan Calzadilla was featured in the catalogue to the show Fuera de juego. Exposición antológica. Manuel Quintana Castillo held at the Fundación Museo [...]

In this text, essayist José Balza places the early work of Marco Miliani in the context of the stimulating artistic and intellectual scene in Venezuela in the fifties and sixties. Balza cites writers and art critics who have followed Miliani’s [...]

In his introduction to the catalogue Metamorfosis encontrada: Exposición individual de Mauro Mejías, critic Víctor Guédez considers the psychological, aesthetic, and formal aspects of the work by Mauro Mejías on exhibition. In Guédez’s view, [...]

This text is a review of the well-attended exhibition of work by Gabriel Bracho held at the Salón del Museo de Bellas Artes. The text describes Bracho as a good draftsman and colorist; it addresses his Marxist inclination and concern with social [...]

The deterioration of the site occupied by the Taller Libre de Arte (TLA) [(in Caracas)] was evident in this [March 4, 1967] news item. The news piece reported on an order to repair the sanitary facilities and electrical system of the workshop and the [...]

This 1958 review by the Catalan art critic Alberto Junyent of the painter Héctor Poleo’s first exhibition at the Galería Drouant in Paris casts a spotlight on the Venezuelan artist in the French capital. Referring to this event, Junyent takes [...]

This essay by curator and critic Axel Stein was one of the texts featured in the catalogue to Carlos Sosa. Pinturas, an exhibition of work by Venezuelan artist Carlos Sosa (b. 1950). Stein begins with the early stage of Sosa’s production, when [...]

The essayist José Balza wrote “Ovalles: La oscura floresta,” which appeared among the texts in the catalogue for the exhibition Lenin Ovalles: Flora Full Oil, held in Caracas at the Museo de Arte La Rinconada in September - October 1989. After [...]

Entitled “Pascual Navarro: de la abstracción a la figuración,” this essay by researcher Cruz Barceló (b.1953) was featured in the catalogue to the show Pascual Navarro. Imágenes y percepciones de un tiempo. Exposición antológica 1945-1965, [...]

In this text, the critic Francisco Da Antonio reviews an exhibition of drawings by the Venezuelan painter Pascual Navarro held at Galería XX2 in Caracas. The review questions the intrinsic nature of a retrospective exhibition that does not include [...]

In this essay, curator María Luz Cárdenas provides a brief chronological overview of the work of Venezuelan artist Pedro Morales, placing Morales’s production in a timeframe that spans from 1988 to the mid-nineties. During that period, the [...]

This unsigned newspaper article [dated September 2, 1960,] comments on the detention in México of the painter David Alfaro Siqueiros. As a result, 90 Mexican visual artists withdrew from participating in the Second [Inter-American] Painting and [...]

In this text, historian José María Salvador discusses Pinturas topológicas/Superficies activas, asolo show of work by Manuel Quintana Castillo held at Galería Altamira in Caracas in 1993. Salvador focuses on the aesthetic, technical, and [...]

“El surrealismo de Poleo” is the third of five chapters in Simón Noriega’s book La Pintura de Héctor Poleo. In the chapter’s third section, entitled “Poleo y la cultura figurativa de los años cuarenta”, Noriega reports that the [...]

In this essay, the art critic Denys Chevalier presents the reasons why he finds the aesthetics of Héctor Poleo’s work similar to those of Symbolism. According to Chevalier, during that period of the Venezuelan painter’s artwork (late 1960s to [...]

This unsigned article reports on the first exhibition at the Taller de Arte Realista (TAR), presenting drawings and paintings presented in its own studios. Throughout the text, the writer outlines the motivations and positions that govern its [...]

Drawn from the content of the three chapters in the book by Manuel Quintana Castillo Cuadernos de pintura, this selection, the text “Reflexiones sobre el constructivismo,” can be found in Chapter III. In it, the essay writer informs us that it [...]

According to the essayist Pedro Lobos, the exhibition of works by the young painter Gabriel Bracho represents an evolutionary trend in the history of art in which the subject and its anecdotes play an essential role; the difference being that, in [...]

Rafael Pineda, the critic who wrote the preface for this group exhibition of works by members of the Taller Libre de Arte (TLA), sought to organize a universal language of Venezuelan painting. In this text, Pineda points out that the TLA members [...]

Historian Rafael Páez writes the thirteenth installment about the collection on Venezuelan painters, which is dedicated to Armando Barrios. The text “Tradición sin servilismo” [Tradition without Servility] was taken from this installment, [...]

Historian José María Salvador wrote the essay “Una obra, una idea, una personalidad” [A Work, An Idea, A Personality], included among the texts for the exhibition catalogue Lo espiritual en el arte. Juan Félix Sánchez, [Spirituality in Art: [...]

The visual artist Carlos Contramaestre begins his essay by describing the emblematic role that Cúpira, the work by Manuel Quintana Castillo (1928?2016), played in the evolution of Venezuelan art. He then discusses the artist’s studies, his first [...]

In this essay, the writer Pedro Beroes discusses various aspects of the life and work of the Venezuelan painter César Rengifo, focusing on the visual art works he produced in Venezuela, Chile, and Mexico. Beroes mentions the nationalist tone of [...]