Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

In this essay, Italian critic Umbro Apollonio analyzes Jesús Rafael Soto’s vibrational work, particularly his production from the fifties. Apollonio starts out with a brief description of common, albeit distorted, perceptions of contemporary art. [...]

The theoretician Frank Popper analyzes the Kinetic aspects of the artwork of Jesús Soto, whom he identifies by his repetition of both visual and plastic elements in one object to obtain vibration. Popper also notes that this reading of what is known [...]

The Colombian artist Pedro Alcántara writes to Lorenzo Homar asking him to participate in the production of the portfolio “Grandes Maestros de la Plástica Latinoamericana” [Great Masters of Latin American Visual Art]. Ten artists are to be [...]

In this essay on the fourth Bienal Nacional de Escultura Francisco Narváez (Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Francisco Narváez, 1988), the critic Freddy Carreño introduces the reader to the history of sculpture from its beginnings. The writer points [...]

In Bernardo Chataing’s preface, he explains that the Taller Libre de Arte (TLA) invited young painters to participate in its exhibition, which would hold them responsible for creating new art forms. In turn, this would generate multiple trends. The [...]

This text was written for the series Art of Latin America Today: Venezuela by the critic and art historian Clara Diament Sujo. The text historically summarized the development of contemporary art in Venezuela from the Pre-Columbian, colonial, and [...]

In an attempt at historical reconstruction, and due to the intense political situation in Venezuela (between 1974 and 1978), art critic Roberto Montero Castro attempts to detect the presence of “the Venezuelan identity” in certain artistic [...]

This is the script for a documentary about Jesús Rafael Soto, written by Clara Diament de Sujo—the noted essayist and gallery owner, who lived in Caracas at that time—and produced by Ángel Hurtado for National Television – Canal 5 (Venezuela [...]

In response to J. R. Guillent Pérez, art critic Marta Traba defines the term “apocalypse”—used by her in an article that unleashed a great controversy in Caracas—as the chaos and dissolution of existing social structures, as well as the [...]

Open letter to Philosophy Graduate J. R. Guillent Pérez. In this letter the artist Alejandro Otero highlights his differences on the ideas of Marta Traba, which had already been questioned by the addressee. Otero, openly in opposition to Traba, felt [...]

This short article announces the awarding of the Grand Prize at the III Bienal Americana de Arte in Córdoba, Argentina. The text is divided into two sections: the first one reports the name of the prizewinning artist, Carlos Cruz-Diez, and the [...]

This essay posits the concept of “geometría sensível” [Sensitive Geometry] as one of the unitary characteristics of contemporary Latin American art, and notes the growing interest (within the region and further afield) in the art produced in [...]

In this text, Saúl Yurkievich examines how Latin American art has been affected by its context, arguing that even as art becomes increasingly autonomous it is still a means of communication and as such must be considered in relationship to the [...]

In this interview with Paul Keeler, director of Signals gallery in London, the journalist Ratto-Ciarlo asks him about the differences he sees among European, Latin American, and North American art in the mid-1960s. Keeler says he is determined to [...]

The synopsis and annotations in English are coming soon [...]

In this essay, the historian and art critic Alfredo Boulton discusses the thinking and artistic philosophy of Jesús Rafael Soto (1923–2005), to whom he assigns a place of honor within the pantheon of the artistic avant-garde—calling him the [...]

This anonymous article provides a brief review of the exhibition schedule that the Venezuelan artist, curator, and museologist, Miguel Arroyo, who at the time was the director of the Museo de Bellas Artes de Caracas, is organizing. The curator’ [...]

The Argentine critic Damián Bayón, who lived in Puerto Rico in the 1950s, claims that the exodus of Latin American artists was good for their aesthetic education. He adds that some artists left their countries when they were very young and were [...]

This article reports that Earle Brown, the composer from the United States, and Jesús Rafael Soto, the Venezuelan kinetic artist, attended the 3rd Latin American Art Biennial that was organized by Industrias Kaiser Argentina (IKA) in October 1966, [...]

This article, put out by the EFE agency and published in the Venezuelan newspaper El Mundo, informs its readers about the prizes awarded to Jesús Soto and Carlos Cruz-Diez at a painting festival in the south of France (Cagnes-sur-Mer, near [...]

The Argentine critic Silvia de Ambrosini claims that there have always been “opponents” in the art field. In her opinion, these “opponents” are what revitalizes the creative atmosphere. She says that in Latin American art & [...]

The French curator DanielAbadie’s interviews with Jesús Rafael Soto. Structured as a biography, it begins with the art world of Venezuela, in Ciudad Bolívar, where Soto was born, and tells us of his work at the Escuelas de Bellas Artes in Caracas [...]

In this interview, Claude-Louis Renard seeks insights into the Venezuelan visual artist Jesús Rafael Soto’s thinking and character. Chronologically structured along biographical lines, the conversation begins with Soto’s early days as an artist [...]

British critic Guy Brett begins his essay on Jesús Rafael Soto’s work by discussing the interrelationship between the real and the imaginary and how it can be used to produce optical perception. He goes on to point out some of the facets of Soto [...]

This newspaper article by Carlos Díaz Sosa is about Jesús Soto—and Alejandro Otero and Víctor Valera—at the XXXIII Biennale di Venezia (1966). It talks about his career, from his early days in Ciudad Bolívar to [...]

In this essay, researcher Ariel Jiménez asserts that although “beauty” is an attribute of art, it is not its primary aim. He explains that Jesús Rafael Soto’s work must be understood in terms of the new precepts of “pure” abstract art, [...]

In this essay, the historian and critic Alfredo Boulton discusses the work of Jesús Soto, whom he places at the heart of Venezuelan Kinetic art and, in historical terms, within the realm of the world’s contemporary art. Boulton bases his comments [...]

In this essay, Luis Enrique Pérez Oramas analyzes a fragment of modern Latin American art history, presented through the form of “penetrable” works. The critic describes the development of the form with respect to its representation as [...]

Divided into eight chapters, this text by scholar Susana Benko is a study of contemporary Venezuelan art. The first part serves as an introduction, and consists of a brief overview of the Clara Diament Sujo collection. Afterward, she turns her focus [...]

In this article, the well-known critic Roberto Guevara explains the connection between Jesús Rafael Soto’s visual art and a number of scientific theories. Guevara goes on to discuss certain fundamental concepts in Soto’s vast body of work, such [...]

In this text, Romanian political scientist Vladimir Tismaneanu analyzes the art of Jesús Rafael Soto. He begins by examining the concepts of movement, time, and space in Soto’s creations, as well as the influences by artists such as Piet Mondrian [...]

In this interview, Roberto Guevara addresses the entire art life of Jesús Rafael Soto, from his first artistic experience until the time he became an established visual artist. The dialogue explains the concepts, movements, and artists that guided [...]

This article appeared in El Nacional, and refers to the 1960 XXI Salón Oficial de Arte held in the Venezuelan capital city. It focuses on the Premio Puebla de Bolívar awarded to Mercedes Pardo. The abstract modernist artist is [...]

In this article, Alejandro Otero begins by describing some of the movements and artists that are representative of the global abstract avant-garde, principally Alexander Calder, in order to contextualize Venezuelan artist Jesús Rafael Soto. He [...]

The French curator Hélène Lassalle reviews Penetrables by the Venezuelan artist Jesús Rafael Soto (1923–2005), and discusses her perceptions on a tactile level, after observing how viewers react when faced with such works. Lassalle outlines a [...]

Francisco Díaz Roncero—who wrote this review of the second exhibition, Mouvement 2, organized by the Galerie Denise René in Paris that included the works of Kinetic artists—stresses the current influence and presence of [...]

This article argues that, despite multiple pronouncements to the effect that it is dead, Kinetic art is still very much alive and strengthening as a result of its achievements at an international level. The article points to the example set by the [...]

This is an anonymous review of the retrospective exhibition of Cruz-Diez’s work at the Signals gallery in London in 1965. The reviewer notes a constant quality in Venezuelan painting—“clarity, order, and a distinct gentleness&rdquo [...]

“Luis Navarro” (possibly a pseudonym of the author) meticulously describes the participation of each one of the artists involved in the arts integration project led by architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva at the Ciudad Universitaria of Caracas. [...]

This text by curator Zuleiva Vivas provides a visual overview of and a reflection on the works by Ricardo Alcaide, Nelsón Garrido, María Eugenia Arria, Alberto Asprino, Mauricio Lupini, Alfredo Ramírez, Luisa Richter, Fabiola Sequera, Jesús [...]

In his prologue to the catalogue for the exhibition of work by Sigfredo Chacón held at the Centro Culural Corp Group in Caracas in 2000, curator Miguel Miguel identifies Chacón as part of a “breed” of creators born in the mid-20th century who [...]

In this essay Jacques Leenhardt philosophically discusses the new idea of “knowledge” as applied to art, as in Paul Cézanne’s work. The French intellectual discusses how Jesús Rafael Soto uses “knowledge” in his work and relies on pure [...]

In this essay, Venezuelan writer Guillermo Meneses provides an overview of the life of Jesús Rafael Soto. He begins with a lyrical description of the artist’s place of birth (Ciudad Bolívar, on the banks of the Orinoco River) and how it would [...]

In this critical essay, the historian Alfredo Boulton analyzes several of the elements he sees in the work of Jesús Rafael Soto, the great Venezuelan Kinetic artist, focusing here on space and time. Boulton mentions a number of Soto’s works in [...]

In this essay, French intellectual Gilles Plazy places emphasis on the essential role played by the concepts of “time” and “space” in Jesús Rafael Soto’s art. Plazy examines how artists from different art movements such as Impressionism [...]

This text by writer Guillermo Meneses is divided into three parts. The first discusses the characteristics of Jesús Rafael Soto’s work, his exceptional skill and talent as an artist, and his perseverance, which allowed him to overcome a number of [...]

In her review the researcher Gladys Yunes compares Jesús Rafael Soto’s work with the theories of quantum physics; her main objective is to show that the relationship between art and science has been explored throughout the twentieth century. From [...]

Jesús Rafael Soto composes his autobiography from his childhood through 1967, the time of this editorial essay. It is divided into three parts: the first part covers his childhood and his youth in the city of Bolivar, the place where he first [...]

In this article, published in the newspaper El Nacional, Carlos Cruz-Diez reviews the Exposición Internacional de Arte Cinético at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, which was jointly curated by Daniel Spoerri and Pontus Hulten. Cruz- [...]

This newspaper article reports on the prizes awarded to Carlos Cruz-Diez and Jesús Soto at the First International Festival of Painting held in Cagnes-sur-Mer, in the south of France. Wearing his nationalist hat, the writer states that these [...]