Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

This newsletter’s main goal is to present instructions and suggestions for the shipment of works scheduled to be shown at the Art Systems exhibition in São Paulo, Brazil, from September to November, 1971, which ultimately did not happen [...]

This newsletter’s main goal is to present instructions and suggestions for the shipment of works scheduled to be shown at the Art Systems exhibition in São Paulo, Brazil, from September to November, 1971, which ultimately did not happen [...]

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 [...]

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 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& [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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) [...]

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 [...]

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- [...]

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 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 [...]

At an exhibition of works being considered for the Prêmio Leirner de Arte Contemporânea in 1959, this essay is about one of the artists whose work is part of the Adolpho Leirner Collection. Written by Theon Spanudis—one of the [...]

At an exhibition of works being considered for the Prêmio Leirner de Arte Contemporânea at the Galeria de Arte das Folhas in 1959, the art critic and businessman Wolfgang Pfeiffer discusses the parameters of Tomie Ohtake’s work. [...]

At an exhibition of works being considered for the Prêmio Leirner de Arte Contemporânea at the Galeria de Arte das Folhas in 1959, the Neo-Concrete art critic and theorist Ferreira Gullar discusses the dominant features of Maria Leontina& [...]

This group exhibition, held at the Galería de Arte das Folhas in November 1959, included works by Giselda Leirner, Maria Leontina, Tomie Ohtake, Hércules Barsotti, and Willys de Castro. The latter introduces Barsotti’s drawings [...]

At an exhibition of works being considered for the Prêmio Leirner de Arte Contemporânea, 1959, at the Galeria de Arte das Folhas, Pietro Maria Bardi, the art critic and director of the Museu de Arte (later the MASP), discusses Giselda [...]

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 [...]

In his introductory essay, Frederico Morais identifies the basic criteria underpinning the three retrospective exhibitions that were presented as part of the Ciclo de exposições sobre arte no Rio de Janeiro (1984). He briefly discusses [...]

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 [...]

This flier—produced by the Galeria de Arte das Folhas for the Prêmio Leirner de Arte Contemporânea, 1960—names most of the members of the Concrete art Grupo Ruptura (with the exception of Judith Lauand). They are introduced by [...]

In this newspaper article dated June 20, 1954, professor Walter Zanini reviews the exhibition of works by artists representing the Atelier Abstração at the MAM-SP (Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo). Despite the fact that, as a [...]

In this essay, which appeared in the brochure for an exhibition of the 1948–58 work of Samson Flexor, Luis Martins claims that the painter experienced a transitional phase in his career when he stopped producing figurative art. In fact, as the [...]

This brochure was designed in 1996 for the exhibition Desexp(l)os(ign)ição (a compound word meaning something like ignited-signs-that-do-not-explode-in-the-non-exhibition). This event was a historical celebration of the Exposiç& [...]

This essay, by the Brazilian curator and art historian Aracy Amaral, appeared in the catalogue for the exhibition Modernidade: arte brasileira do século XX (Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, 1988). Amaral discusses the origins of the [...]

This essay by the Brazilian art critic Wilson Coutinho appeared in the catalogue for the exhibition Ciclo de exposições sobre arte no Rio de Janeiro: 1. Neoconcretismo (Rio de Janeiro: Galeria de Arte BANERJ, 1984). The essay outlines [...]

This essay by the Brazilian art critic Ronaldo Brito appears in the catalogue for the exhibition Milton Dacosta Anos 50 (1988). Brito describes Milton Dacosta’s Constructivist work, produced in the late 1950s, as a paradoxical hybrid after the [...]

In her introductory essay for As Bienais e a Abstração. A Década de ’50 (1978), the exhibition organized by the Museu Lasar Segall in 1978, Lisbeth Gonçalves explains that the goal of the event was to review [...]

This essay, written by Gilberto Mendes, the Brazilian composer of experimental music, appeared in the catalogue for the exhibition Projeto Construtivo Brasileiro na Arte (1977). Mendes provides a brief description of how creators of Concrete poetry [...]

This essay, written by Wilson Coutinho, the Brazilian curator and art critic, appeared in the catalogue for the exhibition Projeto Construtivo Brasileiro na Arte (1977). Coutinho discusses the context in which Concrete poetry developed in Brazil in [...]

In this essay Luiz Antônio de Figueiredo discusses some of the parallel developments in the fields of Concrete poetry and Concrete art. In the 1950s “they both started to map out the routes of non-figurative art, which was exploring [...]

In this essay, written for the paradigmatic exhibition Projeto Construtivo Brasileiro na Arte, Júlio Katinsky discusses the relationship between the Concrete art movement in São Paulo and industrial design. He points out that, in both [...]

In this essay, written for the paradigmatic exhibition Projeto Construtivo Brasileiro na Arte, Roberto Pontual discusses the survival of the Neo-Concrete art movement that existed “officially” for “a little less than two years, from [...]

In this introductory essay, which appeared in the catalogue for the paradigmatic exhibition Projeto Construtivo Brasileiro na Arte, Aracy Amaral describes the “revelation” she experienced as she researched the period in question: “ [...]

In this essay Ronaldo Brito discusses Brazilian Constructivism as an integral part of an “organized cultural strategy” that was in effect from the 1940s to the 1960s and was closely aligned with “the country’s social and [...]

Frederico Morais uses an extremely long title to provide a précis of his essay. But it only complicates the simplified narratives of a movement—whose embrace of doctrinaire Constructivism was followed by a critical rift between Concrete [...]

In this essay, Ferreira Gullar critiques the exhibition of works by São Paulo Concrete artists at the MAM-RJ (Museu de Arte Moderna de Rio de Janeiro, 1957). He also critiques Waldemar Cordeiro’s introductory essay and its assertion that [...]

In this essay, Ferreira Gullar challenges the position taken by Rio de Janeiro’s so-called neo-Concrete artists in his account of the two movements’ shared history and disagreements. In his opinion, the genesis of Brazilian Concrete art [...]

In this rare essay about “realist” artist Thomaz Perina, the Brazilian Concrete art theorist Waldemar Cordeiro discusses the importance of this kind of work, describing it as “an art medium that still [in the early 1960s] harbors [...]

Luiza Interlenghi, in her role as curator, interviews the artist Ubi Bava, asking him about his involvement in what came to be known as the Salão Preto e Branco (Black-and-White Salon) in Rio de Janeiro in 1954. He explains that, with so few [...]

The curator Luiza Intermenghi interviews the Brazilian artist Sérgio Camargo, asking him about his involvement in what came to be known as the Salão Preto e Branco (Black-and-White Salon) (1954) in Rio de Janeiro. Camargo explains that [...]

In this statement, Iberê Camargo recalls how the third Salão Nacional de Arte Moderna, also known as the Salão Preto e Branco (Black-and-White Salon), was planned as a protest against the Brazilian Finance Minister Osvaldo Aranha& [...]

In his testimony the critic Ferreira Gullar describes his involvement in the third Salão Nacional de Arte Moderna, also called the Salón Blanco y Negro (Black-and-White Salon), in 1954. At that point in time he was not a professional [...]

This testimony records Décio Vieira’s recollections of taking part in the third Salão Nacional de Arte Moderna, also called the Salón Blanco y Negro (Black-and-White Salon) as a member of the Grupo Frente. Challenging & [...]

In this text, Aluísio Carvão recalls taking part in the third Salão Nacional de Arte Moderna, which was also known as the Salón Blanco y Negro (Black-and-White Salon) “mainly because of the political statement it [...]

This is the transcript of an interview—broadcast during a radio program, Clube da Crítica—in which the host, Pascoal Longo, discusses the third Salão Nacional de Arte Moderna with the Brazilian painter Djanira. Speaking as [...]

This memorandum, addressed to Antônio Balbino, the Brazilian Minister of Education and Culture, was signed by hundreds of artists who demanded radical changes in the political decisions that restricted the import of ink, pigments, paper, and [...]

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 his introductory essay, Paulo Herkenhoff describes the 1954 Salão Nacional de Arte Moderna —also known as the Black-and-White Salon—as a political statement that was expressed in an official exhibition space. In protest against [...]

The leaflet produced for the Prêmio Leirner de Arte Contemporânea (Leirner Prize for Contemporary Art) in 1960 includes a brief biography of each of the artists who won a prize that year. There are also short critiques that focus on [...]