Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

Perán Erminy discusses popular art in Venezuela during the II Bienal Nacional Salvador Valero de Arte Popular held in Trujillo (estado Trujillo) in 1988. He also looks back, to colonial times and the early twentieth century. Erminy recalls the first [...]

In this document, the art critic Willy Aranguren reviews the origins of the interest in popular art in Venezuela. He places it in the late 1940s, when the Taller Libre de Arte (TLA) took the initiative to show that side-by-side with art in the [...]

In this article the Venezuelan researcher Alfredo Chacón discusses the Venezuelan concept of popular art. He asks: When do we talk about popular art? He goes on to explore different social factors that define what Venezuelans consider “popular [...]

This text by curator Zuleiva Vivas provides a visual overview of and a reflection on the works by Ricardo Alcaide, Nelsón Garrido, María Eugenia Arria, Alberto Asprino, Mauricio Lupini, Alfredo Ramírez, Luisa Richter, Fabiola Sequera, Jesús [...]

In this text on the 58º Salón Michelena (Valencia, state of Carabobo) written in the year 2000, art critic Juan Astorga discusses the relationship between art and technique to reflect on the definition and meaning of “art.” Astorga defines art [...]

One of the objectives of this article by the art historian Juan Carlos Palenzuela was to analyze the Venezuelan art world of the 1980s. The writer also established the guidelines applied to organizing the second Bienal de Artes Visuales Christian [...]

Critic Willy Aranguren provides a chronological account of the role of the Salón de Arte in the development of the visual arts in the Barquisimeto region of the state of Lara, where the biennial is organized. Aranguren makes use of historical [...]

Abdel Hernández, the Cuban critic and writer, discusses the VII Bienal Nacional de Dibujo de Caracas (Museo de Artes Visuales Alejandro Otero, 1994) which, in his opinion, was an event that promoted “fragmentation and disciplinarity” in art, and [...]

In this essay, curator and researcher Eliseo Sierra argues that the seventh Bienal de Dibujo de Caracas is totally irrelevant because it no longer captures the reality of Venezuelan contemporary art. Sierra questions the reason for privileging one [...]

The critic and curator Ariel Jiménez begins this article deliberating on the role of jurors when they assess the work received in order to choose which artists should be awarded prizes. He goes on to set out his criticism of the Venezuelan system of [...]

This text, written by the anthropologist Juan Ignacio Castillo at the time of the 3rd Bienal Salvador Valero de Arte Popular (Trujillo, 1991), is a commentary on popular religious imagery and its use in different social contexts and strata. The [...]

In this text for the sixth Bienal Salvador Valero de Arte Popular (Trujillo, 1999), Aníbal Ortizpozo reflects on the status of folk art in Venezuela, where, in his judgment, it has been relegated to the second tier in comparison to the so-called “ [...]

Supported by theories of folk art that are backed by authors such as Néstor García Canclini and Francisco Da Antonio, the author, Francisco Prada, defends this genre through the formulation of a definition that affords it dignity and examines it in [...]

In this critical article, published in the exhibition catalogue, Roberto Guevara discusses some of the works shown at the Primera Bienal de Artes Visuales Christian Dior (Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas, 1989), and sheds light on the [...]

In this text, critic Juan Calzadilla provides a concise analysis of art salons in Venezuela and how they evolved until 1991, the year when the I Bienal Nacional de Artes Plásticas de Mérida (state of Mérida) was held. Calzadilla describes the [...]

Based in Venezuela due to the 1973 Pinochet coup d’etat, Chilean artist Aníbal Ortizpozo presented this text at the III Bienal Nacional Salvador Valero de Arte Popular (Trujillo, 1991), reflecting on the arts beginning with the question: “What [...]

Here, Roberto Guevara presents the objectives of the First Camille Pissarro Biennial (Centro Cultural Consolidado, Caracas, 1992). The event was organized to strengthen the ties between Venezuela and France as well as stimulate the development of [...]

The critic Juan Calzadilla reviews the work of the participants in the Gran Premio Christian Dior de Artes Visuales (Caracas, 1987), after ranting about Venezuelan art critics and art salons. He describes that milieu—of what he calls partisan and [...]

In 1998, the Cuban art researcher and curator established in Venezuela, Félix Suazo, presented his review of the ninth round of the Bienal de Churuguara (State of Falcón). It was held in the Ateneo Casta J. Riera, and its purpose was to reconsider [...]

The critic Juan Calzadilla discusses the status of the system governing Venezuelan art biennials and salons in 1984, on the occasion of the II Bienal Nacional de Dibujo y Grabado at the Museo de Artes Visuales Alejandro Otero in Caracas. Calzadilla [...]

The art critic Perán Erminy sets forth the standards for organizing the Third Bárbaro Rivas Biennial of Popular Art (Museo de Arte Popular de Petare, Caracas, 1992), explaining the changes in the conditions of the competition stated in the related [...]

The critic and curator Tahía Rivero outlines the objectives of the II Bienal Camille Pissarro, which was held at the Centro Cultural Consolidado in Caracas in 1994. As Rivero says, the biennial was unquestionably “a far-reaching, innovative event [...]

The Venezuelan writer José Napoleón Oropeza reviews the works exhibited at the 51º Salón Michelena in Valencia (in the Venezuelan state of Carabobo) in 1993, and groups them in the categories mentioned in the invitation: painting, photography, [...]

In 1988, on the occasion of the Primer Salón Nacional Cervecería de Oriente: Arte ingenuo, pintura y talla populares (Barcelona, state of Anzoáteguí), critic Francisco Da Antonio ponders concepts like “naive art,” “popular art,” and “ [...]

Historian Juan Carlos Palenzuela provides a detailed account of the first five editions of the Bienal Nacional de Escultura Francisco Narváez held at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Francisco Narváez de Porlamar (state of Nueva Esparta) from 1982 [...]

Perán Erminy discusses sculpture in relation to what he sees as its origins in Judeo-Christian mythology: the Bible states that man was molded out of earth, which Erminy understands as the first sculptural form. Erminy upholds the historical [...]

In this text, Ariel Jiménez builds a framework of evidence and circumstances that describe the universal sentiments of the 1990s. In his opinion, that decade can basically be characterized by the prevailing fear and uncertainty that were not just [...]

Curator Cecilia Fajardo-Hill addresses the work of the artists featured in the ninth Premio Eugenio Mendoza in terms of a number of visual and conceptual issues. In her view, the event attempted to expand and question any possible definition of [...]

Idelisa Rincón, director of the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Mario Abreu in Maracay from 1991-2000, orients the reader to the organization of the XVIII Salón Aragua. She explains the changes that have occurred in the [salon] by eliminating [...]

Critic María Luz Cárdenas explains the various categories used to classify the works produced in the seventies by the artists participating in the twenty-fifth Salón Nacional de Arte Aragua (Maracay, 2000). Her curatorial thesis for the event [...]

In this essay on the fourth Bienal Nacional de Escultura Francisco Narváez (Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Francisco Narváez, 1988), the critic Freddy Carreño introduces the reader to the history of sculpture from its beginnings. The writer points [...]

In this essay, Venezuelan art critic and curator Jesús Fuenmayor analyzes three different aspects of the Salón CANTV de Jóvenes Con-FIA held in Caracas in 1998: (I) the importance of institutional and alternative spaces as a platform for emerging [...]

In this critical essay, Ruth Auerbach considers the challenges represented by the 5th Bienal Nacional de Arte de Guayana (Ciudad Bolívar, 1997). Here, the writer defines the theoretical foundation of the museological and curatorial vision of the [...]

The critic and curator Freddy Carreño seeks to present the structural underpinnings of the V Bienal de Guayana (Ciudad Bolívar, 1997), whose central theme focused on the Venezuelan region of Guayana, a vast region endowed with significant [...]

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

In this text, Ruth Auerbach explains the curatorial guidelines behind the 3rd Bienal Nacional de Arte de Guayana (Ciudad Bolívar, 1993). She believes the salons were established in order to propose that they be a space open to experimentation. In [...]

In this essay, Ruth Auerbach—the art critic and curator of the IV Bienal de Arte de Guayana (Ciudad Bolívar, 1994)—reflects on the challenge of positioning the biennial as a space devoted to the promotion of emerging Venezuelan art. Auerbach [...]

In this text on the sixth Pirelli Salon by critic Luis Ángel Duque, he references the appearance of television as a mass market industry with the capacity to bring together large audiences on the basis of a global society. In his judgment, it is [...]

In this text, María Luz Cárdenas explains the curatorial vision underlying the third Salón Pirelli and she attempts to address how at that event, new forms of representing and grasping reality on the basis of visual perception [were evident]. More [...]

Critic Luis Ángel Duque presents a brief history of “vision,” defining it as the happy convergence of the retina and the brain. In his words, it is through vision that a man sees himself, but also everything else that surrounds him; it is one of [...]

Critic and curator Luis Ángel Duque offers an abbreviated history of the Venezuelan art salons that featured young artists and recent work; he refers to those that occurred between 1981 and 1995. The second Salón Pirelli was organized in 1995 at [...]

In this 1993 text, Ruth Auerbach places the work of the artists participating in the 1st Salón Pirelli de Jóvenes Artistas within two contexts: a universal context and that of Latin America. At the same time, she justifies the existence of the [...]

María Luz Cárdenas, the curator of the I Salón Pirelli de Jóvenes Artistas, explains why a new Salon was created for young Venezuelan artists. She identifies the Salon’s immediate history, justifies its creation, and describes the guidelines or [...]

This curatorial text by William Niño Araque reviews the landscape genre in Venezuela starting with an early twentieth-century trend called “national landscape” and the approaches favored by the Círculo de Bellas Artes. The writer concludes his [...]

In this introductory essay for the II Salón de Arte ExxonMobil de Venezuela (2003), the critic Carlos Maldonado Bourgoin discusses the history of landscape art in Venezuela, recalling the aboriginal inhabitants whom, according to the author, saw the [...]

In this text, María Luz Cárdenas explains the key to her curatorial approach and how it sheds light on the context in which the artists participating in the II Salón Pirelli de Jóvenes Artistas developed their ideas. Cárdenas provides an [...]

In this text, the curator Luis Ángel Duque exposes the reasons why the sixth Bienal de Artes Visuales Christian Dior (1999) is dedicated to hypermedia. In his view, each of the twenty-four participants in the exhibition used imagery and expressed [...]

In this text, curator Adolfo Wilson explains why the fifth edition of the Bienal de Artes Visuales Christian Dior featured solely painting and not other artistic media. He describes the obstacles he had to overcome to hold a painting salon in 1997, [...]

This anonymous text provides a detailed review of the rooms and halls of the Museo de Bellas Artes (Caracas) containing the works of the XVIII Salón Oficial de Arte Venezolano (1957). The works, according to the author, were grouped in the space by [...]

Curator Cecilia Fajardo-Hill reviews the tenth Premio Eugenio Mendoza exhibition, establishing relationships among the works that were exhibited. In this text she disclosed that the exhibition was not organized thematically, but the works were [...]