Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

In this April 1964 magazine article, Marta Traba attests to Beatriz González’s artistic talents, reaffirming the decision by MAM (Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá) to exhibit the young artist’s work in a debut solo exhibition [...]

In these two chapters of text from the book ¿Existe América Latina?, Luis Alberto Sánchez discusses the idea of “Latin America” as both a political bloc and a cultural value, ultimately arguing for a dynamic concept of Latin America that is [...]

In this chapter from América Latina en sus artes Jorge Alberto Manrique begins by describing the artistic movements of the 1920s and comparing this period to a giant hinge that moved backward to the nineteenth century and forward to the twentieth [...]

The writer Adriano González León discusses the naming of the avant-garde group El Techo de la Ballena. His defense of the group’s use of the whale, a large animal that is not native to Venezuela, is really a pretext for a call for action in the [...]

Brazilian literary critic and essayist Afrânio Coutinho wrote this article in the late- 1960s. His article states since inception that to him the term “Latin American,” is at odds with the historical, social, cultural, literary, and artistic [...]

In this text, Marta Traba argues that there is not really a unified [Latin] American aesthetic in the visual arts and calls for an honest investigation of the question of such an aesthetic approach, even at the risk of affirming that no common spirit [...]

This short essay by the French-Mexican critic, curator, and writer Olivier Debroise grapples with the phenomenon of neoexpressionist figurative painting in Mexico in the mid- and late-1980s. The author interprets appropriations of the official [...]

This short article is a commentary on 1927: Exposición de Arte Nuevo, which opened on May 7 at the “Asociación de Pintores y Escultores.” In announcing and promoting the exhibition, the editors of Revista de avance stated [...]

This is an introduction written by Venezuelan artist Juan Calzadilla for J. M. Cruxent, an individual exhibition of the Spanish-born Venezuelan artist Josep Maria Cruxent’s works organized by the Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas, in September, [...]

In this September 15, 1927 issue of Revista de avance, the “Guidelines” section includes three brief articles. The first reports the decision of the judicial authorities regarding the accusations of political conspiracy lodged against two of the [...]

In this September 30, 1927 issue of Revista de avance, the “Guidelines” section includes three brief articles. The first is a short commentary about a lecture given in Geneva by the Spanish academic Fernando de los Ríos. In his essay, de los Rí [...]

This essay is a copy of a lecture given in Geneva by the Spanish politician and thinker Fernando de los Ríos. Here he writes a keen analysis of the economic relationship between Central American countries and the United States. The writer offers a [...]

This brief editorial in Revista de avance explains that certain “vicissitudes that have befallen two of our editors” have delayed the publication of the most recent issues of the journal, also resulting in the appearance of a few printing errors [...]

The prologue to Forjando patria: pro nacionalismo, published in 1916 by leading Mexican anthropologist and archaeologist Manuel Gamio, compares the forging of metal out of an amalgam of bronze and steel to the ideal societal intermixing of Mexicans [...]

This is an introductory essay to accompany the exhibition Salón Experimental, held at the exhibition hall at the Eugenio Mendoza Foundation in Caracas in October of 1960. This was the second in a series of exhibitions meant to promote Informal art [...]

In this 1823 speech, President James Monroe announces a new agreement that forbids European nations from invading countries in the Western Hemisphere. He begins by recounting that the agreement has been negotiated through the Russian government, and [...]

In this letter dated June 20, 1988, the English critic and curator Guy Brett expresses his gratitude to the Brazilian collector Adolpho Leirner and his wife, Fulvia Leirner, for the time they spent together in São Paolo. Brett is especially [...]

In September 15, 1998, graphic artist Antônio Maluf writes to art historian Aracy Amaral regarding her book Arte Construtiva no Brasil Coleção Adolpho Leirner. Even before its release, in his view, the book was considered an [...]

This excerpt from the first chapter of José Vasconcelos’s 1925 book, La raza cósmica, outlines his vision for what he calls “the cosmic race”: a comprehensive, final stage of humanity that would envelope all races in order to build a new [...]

This text was written by Peruvian artist Fernando de Szyszlo to accompany his series of paintings inspired by “Apu Inka Atawallpaman,” an elegiac Quechua poem by an anonymous author. The poem describes the death of the Inca Atahualpa, and the [...]

In this brochure essay produced for Artistas de Campinas, the exhibition presented at the Galeria de Arte das Folhas in 1959, Waldemar Cordeiro discusses the non-figurative “trends” and “contents” he detects in the works shown [...]

In this article, art historian Robert Goldwater analyzes the life and work of Mexican painter Rufino Tamayo. Goldwater explains that although Tamayo is thought to have an individual style, when his works are assembled, it is apparent that his work is [...]

This flier announces the first Salão Paulista de Arte Moderna, held at the Galeria Prestes Maia. The event was organized by the Secretaria do Governo do Estado de São Paulo during the same year it launched the Bienal de São Paulo [...]

The country was awash in optimism that year, when Brasília was officially declared the new capital city. The tenth edition of the salão paulista de arte moderna was held at the Galería Prestes Maia, organized on this occasion by [...]

The flier’s cover is illustrated with a work of geometric abstraction (with no mention of the painter’s name), but includes no title for the event. The eleventh edition of the salão paulista de arte moderna, organized by the state [...]

This article appeared on the Venezuelan magazine Imagen, focusing on the opening of 1x9, a silkscreen exhibition by the modernist abstract artist Mercedes Pardo, held at the Museo de Bellas Artes in Caracas. After a brief introduction with [...]

This flier announces the second Salão Paulista de Arte Moderna, presented by the Secretaria do Governo do Estado de São Paulo at the Galeria Prestes Maia in 1952. Francisco Matarazzo (the creator of the Bienal de São Paulo) and [...]

This is the official flier for the third edition of the Salão Paulista de Arte Moderna, held in 1954 at the Galeria Prestes Maia under the auspices of the Secretaria do Governo do Estado de São Paulo. Mário Zanini was responsible [...]

This is the official flier for the fourth edition of the Salão Paulista de Arte Moderna, organized by the Secretaria do Governo do Estado de São Paulo at the Galeria Prestes Maia in 1955. The organizing committee was headed by two well- [...]

In 1956, what proved to be a critical year in Brazilian art circles, the first Concrete art exhibitions were organized at a national level. But this development had no impact at all in terms of the participants or the type of works presented at the [...]

After President Getúlio Vargas committed suicide in August 1954, Brazil embarked on a program of renewal focused on two basic areas: industrialization and development. The democratically elected government of Juscelino Kubitschek (1956-1960) [...]

This flier, which announces the seventh edition of the Salão Paulista de Arte Moderna, has an excellent minimalist design on the cover. The (ordinal) “ o ” becomes one of the squares in the black and yellow composition, which uses [...]

In this text, Jacinto Quirarte interviews artists who led Chicano art movements in San Antonio and the California Bay area during the late 1960s and early 1970s, asking them questions about what motivated their efforts and about, more generally, what [...]

The flier for the eighth edition of the salão paulista de arte moderna has been redesigned and relies mainly on lowercase letters, double-page spreads, and a simple cover design. Willys de Castro is a member of the jury responsible for the [...]

The ninth edition of the salão paulista de arte moderna (still written in lowercase letters) was held in June 1960 at the usual venue, the Galeria Prestes Maia de São Paulo. The flier carries over many elements from the previous year& [...]

In this text, Manoel Bomfim criticizes the European attitude toward Latin America. According to the author, this attitude is due to sheer European ignorance about Latin American countries. He acknowledges that this posture had been changing, with [...]

This text includes a few excerpts from the six lectures that Jorge Romero Brest gave in São Paulo in 1948. At that time, Romero Brest held an academic position at the Universidad de Montevideo and was the director of the magazine Ver y estimar [...]

This landmark manifesto by architect and intellectual Ricardo Severo da Fonseca e Costa (1869–1940) was delivered in São Paolo, Brazil, at the 1914 conference, A Arte Tradicional no Brasil: a Casa e o Templo [Traditional Art in Brazil—The House [...]

This article, published in the magazine of the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (MAM), highlights the artist Judith Lauand, the subject of the “anthological exhibition” Judith Lauand: Experiências. It begins with a [...]

This essay by Julia Herzberg overviews Carlos Alfonzo’s artistic trajectory from 1982 to 1991, outlining the biographical details of his life and analyzing multiple artworks included in the exhibition. Working mainly in a Neo-Expressionist [...]

This is the program for Amilcar de Castro, the exhibition of the artist’s metal sculptures that ran from October 14 to November 14, 1982, at the Galeria Raquel Arnaud (Babenco). The essay written by Ferreira Gullar is illustrated with Sin t& [...]

In this introductory essay, “La huelga del color” (The Color Strike), Glória Ferreira includes an article that had appeared in the newspaper Correio da Manhã on May 16, 1954. The article described the third Salão [...]

In this excerpt of his master’s dissertation at the USP (São Paulo), Oswald de Andrade reassesses the history since the Renaissance of how the concept of utopia has been constructed by Europeans as a means to justify a set of values that support [...]

This suite of documents includes Charles (Carlos) Calvo’s (1824–1906) letter to Napoleon III, the response from M. Thouvenel, Minister of the French Foreign Office, and the introduction to Calvo’s book, Recueil complet des traités, conventions [...]

This exhibition brochure by guest curator Julia P. Herzberg describes several works included in A Town Portrait, with an eponymous installation and two photographic series, When I Am Not Here/Estoy allá (1996) and Abridor de caminos (1997). [...]

In this essay from 2004, the Mexico-based Argentinean art theoretician and anthropologist Néstor García Canclini traces the decline of Latin America through [recent times] and examines three styles of Latin Americanism beginning in the mid- [...]

This document is the inaugural text issued by the editors and founders of Revista de avance and published in its first issue on March 15, 1927. Taking the form of a manifesto in a poetic, metaphorical style, the text links the emergence of the [...]

The 1859 article by Peruvian painter Francisco Laso on the history of Peruvian architecture, sculpture, and painting is primarily a critique of the lack of support for artists in Peru. Laso contends that the inferiority of Peruvian artistic [...]

The author’s nationalist approach takes into account the imbalances created by slavery in a developing nation with no homogenous social structure of its own. In his essay, the painter Porto-Alegre challenges colonial impositions on fashion, [...]

This prologue to the published Viracocha notebooks was written in 1923 by the president of the Argentinean Comisión Nacional de Bellas Artes, Martín Noel. The Viracocha sketchbooks were a collection of drawings inspired by themes and motifs in the [...]