Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

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, [...]

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 review for the journal Imagen (Number 34, Caracas, October 1-15, 1968) the Venezuelan poet, painter and art critic Juan Calzadilla discusses the work of Chilean mail artist Dámaso Ogaz. Calzadilla reviews Ogaz’s volume of poetry Imaginary [...]

Malas modales (Bad Manners) is a 1965 book of poetry by Juan Calzadilla (1965) divided into four parts: “Criminal,” “Counting down to zero,” “Changing of the guard,” and “Hunting,” each composed of [...]

This is an introduction written by Juan Calzadilla for the first iteration of Espacios Vivientes (Living Spaces), a salón held at the Palacio Municipal in Maracaibo, Venezuela from February 14 to 28, 1960, that explored new currents in the [...]

Juan Calzadilla refers to the latest installment in Alejandro Otero’s Papeles coloreados series; he calls the artist’s current period his most important one since Coloritmos, and identifies an underlying synthesis of the artist’s creative [...]

The critic Juan Calzadilla introduces the architect Domingo Álvarez in the catalogue for the exhibition Salón Confrontación 68, based on the architect’s participation in that event, held in the spaces of the Ateneo de Caracas. After recounting [...]

The critic Juan Calzadilla analyzes the matter of drawing in [the context of the] Venezuelan art scene during the end of the seventies and the early eighties. The author introduces the text reflecting on the rise of this technique as a skill [...]

In this essay, Juan Calzadilla discusses Alejandro Otero’s contribution to the field of visual art instruction. Calzadilla acknowledges Otero’s leading role in the promotion of Abstract painting and sculpture, and education, by noting the support [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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. [...]

Juan Calzadilla reviews the work of the Venezuelan visual artist Pedro Ángel González. In his essay, Calzadilla mentions the artist’s creativity and critical skills, referring to his constant reflection on his own work and the work of other [...]

In this essay, Juan Calzadilla describes some of the characteristics of classic works of sculpture. Both ancient artists like Polykleitos and more recent figures like Alberto Giacometti make use of a vertical form in sculpture akin to living bodies. [...]

In his essay on Milos Jonic’s work, critic Juan Calzadilla argues that the concepts of “sign,” “matter,” and “space” are more than just terms in a proposal that uses words as means of expression graphically as well as pictorially. [...]

In this essay, Juan Calzadilla provides a chronological overview of the life and work of Venezuelan artist Maruja Rolando. He begins with her artistic training in the fifties, mentioning her most important teachers and influences, as well as the [...]

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 [...]

Curator Juan Calzadilla begins his essay on the Venezuelan painter known as “Pájaro” [Juan Vicente Hernández] by pointing out the similarity between some, though not all, aspects of his work and orthodox Surrealism. Calzadilla comments on the [...]

This is critic Juan Calzadilla’s biographical essay for the catalogue produced by the Museo Emilio Boggio (Caracas: Concejo Municipal del Distrito Federal, n.d.). Calzadilla provides a detailed report about Emilio Boggio, discussing where he was [...]

In this article, Juan Calzadilla protests against the indifference shown by national critics to the caricatures of Pedro León Zapata. The author explains why he thinks Zapata’s drawings should be considered works of art in the drawing and graphic [...]

In this text, Juan Calzadilla describes the development of Marietta Berman’s production, her relationship with the Venezuelan art scene, her independence from trends that could have led her visual research astray, and her ability to work at the [...]

Juan Calzadilla describes a visit to the Venezuelan artist Mary Brandt’s studio in 1972, during her one-woman show at the Sala Mendoza in Caracas. The critic discusses her technique, her use of color and form, and her canvases, slashed to reveal [...]

Critic Juan Calzadilla wrote this text on Venezuelan artist Braulio Salazar on the fiftieth anniversary of his first solo show. That exhibition, Calzadilla explains, took place at a moment when Salazar’s efforts as an artist and as an educator were [...]

Juan Calzadilla provides an overview of the career of Venezuelan artist Emilio Boggio, from his early academic phase through his return to Venezuela in 1919, one year before his death. Calzadilla discusses the influences on Boggio, his travels in [...]

In this text, critic Juan Calzadilla reflects on the relationship between sculpture and ceramics and on the possibilities of the latter to take on a monumental scale. He considers the work of ceramicist Noemí Márquez an example of that move into [...]

In this essay, the artist and critic Juan Calzadilla reviews his own creative process and his work. He explains the connection between drawing and writing in his work, referring to drawing as a form of “visual writing” consisting of “ [...]

In this text, Juan Calzadilla analyzes Luisa Richter’s work in drawing while also providing an overview of the drawing genre in the post-World War II era—a time when there was widespread interest in the graphic arts in general. Calzadilla [...]

Juan Calzadilla provides an overview of abstract sculpture in Venezuela in the mid-20th century, placing emphasis on a group of promising young artists, chief among them Pedro Briceño. He discusses in particular Briceño’s most recent sculptural [...]

Juan Calzadilla divides his critical essay on the work of Pedro Briceño into two parts. The first examines the field of Venezuelan abstract sculpture in the mid-twentieth century, including an overview of the most important characteristics of Brice [...]

In this essay on Luisa Richter [written in 1969], the critic Juan Calzadilla provides an overview of Venezuelan art during the 1950s and 1960s. He refers to some of the artists whose work has evolved whether through different styles (Action painting [...]

Juan Calzadilla discusses the work of the painter José Campos Biscardi, explaining how hard it was for him to be acknowledged in the Venezuelan art world because he was originally from Colombia. The author attributes it to the fact that Campos [...]

Juan Calzadilla begins his critical essay by relating a crisis in geometric abstraction to the exploration of Informalism by Omar Carreño. Calzadilla reflects on Carreño’s embrace of the gestural and material aspects of the trend in his paintings [...]

This text by Juan Calzadilla quotes ideas stated by the Venezuelan painter José Antonio Quintero about his own work. In his comments, the artist highlights the fact that his landscapes (whether realistic or imaginary scenes) are personal stories of [...]

In this text, the critic Juan Calzadilla develops his thoughts on the collages created by the Venezuelan painter Mateo Manaure. His analysis considers the start of the integration of photography into the visual arts in the early twentieth century. [...]

In this text, Juan Calzadilla analyzes Ángel Luque’s Informalist work starting with its early stage in Spain. He discusses the artist’s relationship to avant-garde artists and movements on the Iberian Peninsula and to the origins of the Spanish [...]

In this volume, Juan Calzadilla provides an overview of Venezuelan painter Mateo Manaure’s artistic development. After an initial reflection on the poetic as a constant in Manaure’s art, he analyzes the different stages of his work: his early [...]

In this text, Juan Calzadilla critically reflects on Mateo Manaure’s “pinturas sobremontaje” conceived as a combination of painting and photography. In Calzadilla’s view, these works represent continuity, rather than rupture, within Manaure [...]

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 critical essay, Juan Calzadilla discusses the independent, caustic attitude of the visual artist Manuel Quintana Castillo vis-à-vis the controversy that raged between abstract and figurative artists in the 1950s. According to Calzadilla, the [...]

The art historian and critic Juan Calzadilla includes his impressions of the material shown in an exhibition space in the plaza Bolívar de Caracas, along with a set of reviews and critical texts collected under the title: La figura y el lugar, an [...]

Here, the critic Juan Calzadilla analyzes the work of the Venezuelan visual artist Régulo Pérez, starting with the artist’s adherence to figurative art. The text even clarifies that this is a contemporary artist who has developed his work within [...]

In this essay, the critic Juan Calzadilla discusses the exploration of Informalist abstract movements by Venezuelan artist Elsa Gramcko, who was in search of new “textures” with which to express her ideas in physical form. Calzadilla describes [...]

In this article, Juan Calzadilla introduces the exhibition of work by the second graduating class from CEGRA (Centro de Enseñanza Gráfica, in Caracas). He discusses the fundamental goals of this Venezuelan school workshop, suggesting that the [...]

This article is written in the form of an interview; it consists of a series of questions that the critic Juan Calzadilla asked the Venezuelan visual artist Elsa Gramcko. The questions focus on Gramcko’s artistic development and especially on her [...]

Juan Calzadilla starts this critical text with a general commentary on the concept of “painting” when it is limited to the artist’s self-expression based on discovering a personal language, with the resulting isolation from the environment. He [...]

This essay by Juan Calzadilla reviews the stages of Armando Reverón’s art (blue, white, and sepia periods) proposed by Alfredo Boulton in 1955 in order to broaden and deepen understanding of Reverón’s life and work. Calzadilla posits as well an [...]

The critic Juan Calzadilla introduces the exhibition of prints by Luis Chacón at the Museo de Bellas Artes in Caracas, discussing the lack of a printmaking tradition and wondering what the artist might do to remedy the void in training opportunities [...]

Juan Calzadilla wrote this critical text as a preface to the catalogue for Miguel von Dangel’s exhibition Sacrifixiones (1969). The essay starts with comments on the artist’s beginnings in taxidermy. Calzadilla explains how, during his time at [...]

This introduction to Carlos Contramaestre’s exhibition Los Tumorales is divided into two parts: the first was written by the artist himself and the second by Juan Calzadilla (both were members of the El Techo de la Ballena group). In his section, [...]