Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

“Los comienzos de la experimentación” is the third chapter of the research paper La experimentación en el arte colombiano del siglo XX, written in 1991 by the art historians María Teresa Guerrero and Ivonne Pini. This fragment presents the [...]

This document is excerpted from the catalogue for Los que son [Those Who Are], the exhibition organized by Marta Traba at the Galería Marta Traba in Bogotá (May 3–16, 1968). The catalogue includes ten brief critical and biographical reviews of [...]

In this text, historian and critic Germán Rubiano Caballero provides an overview of Colombian art from the twenties through the eighties. He analyzes each decade on the basis of two key criteria: how the modern is constructed and the tension between [...]

The “Acta de constitución del Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá” [Articles of Association of the Museum of Modern Art in Bogota] begins with the following two lines: “On November 20, 1962, at the Teatro Colón, at 7 p.m., the Museo de Arte [...]

This is the introduction to the catalogue for the Salón de Artistas Jóvenes Latinoamericanos [Young Latin American Artists Salon]—held at the Pan-American Union in Washington, DC in 1965. It was written by José Gómez Sicre, director of the [...]

In this letter to the editor of the Bogota-based newspaper El Tiempo, a group of artists, journalists, and individuals connected to the Colombian art world voice their displeasure at the Academia Colombiana de Historia’s position on the planned [...]

This document makes some relevant points in the debate over abstract art in Colombia that was sparked by the monument to Bolívar, originally commissioned from the sculptor Édgar Negret by the Ministry of Public Works. In the article, the Colombian [...]

In his article “La Densa Nube del Ser” [The Dense Cloud of the Self], published in El Espectador in Bogotá on October 12, 1958, the Colombian poet, writer, and publisher of the cultural magazine Mito [Myth] Jorge Gaitán Durán waxes poetic in [...]

The Austrian critic and art historian Walter Engel wrote the article “La Poesía de la Chatarra” [The Poetry of Scrap Metal] that appeared in El Espectador on October 4, 1964, on the occasion of the second solo exhibition of sculpture by Feliza [...]

The article “¿Feliza Krugman or Irene Bursztyn?” is the transcription of two texts read by Álvaro Medina on the program Orientación Plástica aired on Radio Nacional de Colombia on April 27 and May 3 (both Fridays), 1974. Medina accuses [...]

“El Monumento a López es un Horror” [The Monument to López is a Horror] is the title of the article by Héctor Muñoz published in El Espectador on Friday, June 16, 1967. It compiles different opinions on the aesthetic and political [...]

In this text, critic Marta Traba reviews the exhibition entitled Pintura y Grabado Hoy en Venezuela [Painting and Printmaking in Venezuela Today] held at the Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango in Bogotá in 1968. She questions the representativeness of [...]

“Burztyn [sic] above any suspicion” is the title of Marta Traba’s response to an accusation of plagiarism concerning the installation Las Camas [The Beds] by the sculptor Feliza Bursztyn in 1974 at the Museo de Arte Moderno [Museum of Modern [...]

This article, entitled “Análisis de la obra de Feliza Burstyn” [Analysis of Feliza Burstyn’s Work], was published on September 25, 1974 in the Cali-based newspaper El País. It is one of the responses to art critic and historian Álvaro Medina [...]

This document is the postcard invitation to the inauguration of the Corporación Ciudad Solar [Solar City Association], an independent cultural space in Cali, Colombia, established by Hernando Guerrero, Francisco “Pakiko” Ordóñez, and Miguel [...]

In this interview, Feliza Bursztyn speaks about her work, and, in particular, about Homenaje a López [Homage to López] created to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in 1967. Homenaje a López was the subject of [...]

“Feliza Bursztyn y el Arte en Latas de Nescafé” [Feliza Bursztyn and Art in Coffee Cans] is part article and part interview conducted by Enrique Santos Calderón. Serving as the editor of university news at El Tiempo in Bogotá in 1964, Santos [...]

This interview was conducted by Maritza Uribe de Urdinola, the founder of the Museo de Arte Moderno La Tertulia (Cali, Colombia). Published in the magazine Carrusel in the daily newspaper, El Tiempo, the interview was practically a monologue [by [...]

“Feliza ‘Baila’ en Cali” [Feliza ‘Dances’ in Cali], is an interview of Feliza Bursztyn by Maritza Uribe de Urdinola conducted in 1979. With precise questions, Urdinola reviews the artist’s work and career from her early, remarkable [...]

“Felisa [sic] Bursztyn: La mujer de las camas” [Felisa [sic] Bursztyn: The woman of the beds] is an article (part story and part interview) written by Beatriz Zuluaga after a visit to Feliza Bursztyn’s workshop around 1975. The interview [...]