Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

In this text, Mario Barata ostensibly rejects the function of industrial art and crafts in the modern city. He sees benefits and drawbacks to the standardization of furniture and, naturally, of taste. On the other hand, he believes wholeheartedly in [...]

This article by Vera Pacheco Jordão questions the procedures followed at the Congresso Internacional de Críticos de Arte in 1959, a publicly funded event that brought foreign guests working in the cultural sphere to Brazil. The author condemns the [...]

In this text, critic Mário Pedrosa takes stock of the activities that occurred in the framework of the “Congresso dos Críticos” in 1959. He defends that event’s organizational structure and states that praising the government’s “Nova Cap [...]

Mário Pedrosa cites Brasilia (the new capital of Brazil) as the supreme example of man’s ability to control his environment and build new cities anywhere, regardless of physical and climatic conditions. He considers this project, which was a huge [...]

André Bloc seeks to explain—during his participation in the celebrated conference that was organized in Brasilia for the inauguration of the new Brazilian capital—why the visual arts are absent from modern architecture. He states that modern [...]

In this text, Mário Pedrosa remarks on the crisis different art forms are experiencing, a topic that surfaced in the debates at the “Congresso dos Críticos” in 1959. In Pedrosa’s view, the only disciplines deeply affected by that crisis are [...]

In the paper he delivered at the Congresso Internacional Extraordinário de Críticos de Arte (CIECA), Polish critic Werner Haftmann addresses Brasilia, the new capital of Brazil, as a way to discuss the broader question of the content and form of [...]

Theorist Gillo Dorfles underscores his belief that cities could emerge from industrial production that included everything from domestic gadgets to buildings. In his judgment, the industrial aesthetic plays an important role in the formation of [...]

In this article, Meyer Schapiro asks a number of questions about the arts, as follows: Why is it rare to find painting and sculpture incorporated into modern architecture? Is it because of the autonomy of the arts? Is it possible to get architects [...]

In this critical text, Theon Spanudis proposes the creative participation of the public in the formation of art that he calls “transrational,” which he explains, entails certain modifications to the notions of “time,” “subject,” and “ [...]

The artist and Professor Tomás Maldonado detects positive qualities in popular design and mass communications, which he considers useful because they are the only means available that can satisfy the aesthetic needs of the people. In his opinion, an [...]

In this article Bruno Zevi discusses the crisis facing modern architecture as a result of its inability to strike a balance between the dynamics of urban structures on the one hand, and human and social structures on the other. In his opinion, [...]

This account of the celebrated Congresso Extraordinário Internacional de Críticos de Arte (1959) by Mário Pedrosa considers what he deems the most fruitful and brilliant works produced in the fifties. He describes the ideas of the critics who [...]