Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

This is the text of the speech Gabriela Mistral gave at the special session of the board of directors of the Pan American Union in Washington, DC, in 1946, the year after she received the Nobel Prize in Literature in Stockholm. The Chilean poet [...]

The author offers a critical, manifesto-style review of the situation in the field of Latin American art and, especially, culture. Alberto Pérez describes himself as an “American,” “Hispanic American,” “Indian [...]

In this article, which appeared in the sixth catalogue for the Festival Franco-Chileno de Video Arte (1986), Nelly Richard discusses how video was used for artistic purposes in Chile. From a theoretical standpoint, she explores the experimental use [...]

Pablo Oyarzún wrote this short essay, Lectura de escena (Reading the Scene), about a book by Nelly Richard in which he identifies four main themes: (1) support for the artistic, poetic, and discursive practices that the Escena de Avanzada [...]

In this essay Pablo Oyarzún explains that Chile lacks the critical space needed to accommodate a public and autonomous line of argument. He condemns the absence of an institution devoted to the production, circulation, and reception of [...]

Pablo Oyarzún’s short essay “Virginia Errázuriz. Pequeña poética de sus instalaciones” (Virginia Errázuriz. A Brief Poetics of her Installations) was inspired by the installation of Errá [...]

This is the essayist Pablo Oyarzún’s review of Francisco Brugnoli’s installation Cadáver exquisito (Exquisite Corpse), a reference to the game played by early Surrealists in the 1920s, Le cadavre exquis boira le vin nouveau [...]

This is Pablo Oyarzún’s critical review of Nelly Richard’s book Márgenes e Instituciones (Margins and Institutions). He acknowledges her role in the field of Chilean art and her contributions to a new approach to art [...]

In this philosophical text Pablo Oyarzún asks: What is art criticism? What is its function? And what are its characteristics? He begins to answer these questions by seeking to define “criticism” as a subjective opinion about a work [...]

In her essay “Trama urbana y fugas utópicas” (Urban Fabric and Utopian Flights), Nelly Richard discusses CADA (Colectivo Acciones de Arte) two decades after the group launched its program of urban actions in Santiago. She describes the [...]

The essay “Parpadeo y piedad,” which appeared in the catalogue for the exhibition Cirugía plástica (Plastic Surgery), held in Berlin, discusses art in Chile, specifically, the art produced in the wake of the 1973 fascist [...]

   In her essay “Sobre arte y política(s): contraoficialidad, poder y lenguajes,” written for the exhibition catalogue Cirugía plástica (Plastic Surgery), Nelly Richard reflects on the socio-political and [...]

Pablo Oyarzún, the Chilean essayist, discusses Quadrivium, the installation by Gonzalo Díaz. He begins by describing previous installations whose formal designs were also based on the Stations of the Cross and identifies components of [...]

The essayist Pablo Oyarzún discusses the work of Eugenio Dittborn, stitching together a patchwork quilt of quotes and references. He talks about what is “legible” and “illegible” in the Chilean experimental artist&rsquo [...]

In her essay Chile en la XII Bienal de París (Chile at the Twelfth Paris Biennial), Nelly Richard compares the history of Latin American art to the history of art (in its most visible European and North American versions) on the occasion of [...]

In this essay Pablo Oyarzún, an authority on philosophical matters, discusses Lonquén 10 años (Lonquén 10 Years), the installation by the Chilean artist Gonzalo Díaz, keeping in mind the procedures, relationships, [...]

Unable to refer specifically to the works that would be shown at the exhibition about which he was attempting to write, Pablo Oyarzún, the Chilean essayist and an authority on philosophy, discusses the idea involved in the term “context& [...]

In this essay, Nelly Richard discusses some of the “art actions” that Lotty Rosenfeld—a member of the art action group known as CADA—created on public roads and highways in Chile. Rosenfeld altered traffic signage and lines on [...]

In the document El arte en Chile: una historia que se recita, otra que se construye (Art in Chile: One Historical Account That Is Recited, Another That Is Constructed), Nelly Richard discusses the historical skullduggery involved in that particular [...]