Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

Art critic Wilson Coutinho weaves an analysis of the photographic work of Miguel Rio Branco, stating that the artist works with the idea of the “unproductive economy,” since his photographs focus on the economically marginalized sector of the [...]

Critic Paulo Venâncio Filho discusses the continuities and divergences in the photography of Brazilian artist Iole de Freitas from the seventies to the eighties. The critic argues that whereas in de Freitas’s early work the camera acts as a [...]

This text is a debate involving photographers Pedro Vásquez, Sebastião Barbosa, João Bosco, Januário Garcia, Milton Montenegro, Miguel Rio Branco, and Guy Gonçalves, organized by the magazine Módulo. In his presentation of the debate, critic [...]

In this text, researcher Lucia Santaella formulates a study that identifies and examines the changes in paradigm for the production, storage, exhibition, and reception of the image in different registers of the human psyche. She associates the [...]

This article by Mônica Junqueira de Camargo analyzes the creation, circulation and consumption of photography in Brazil, especially in the centers (Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo). Her analysis shows the disenchantment that emerges in the photography [...]

In his essay “O instrumento do fotógrafo ou o fotógrafo do instrumento?,” Vilém Flusser sets out to show that it is no longer possible to conceive of the photographic machine as just another instrument of production and to refuse to recognize [...]

In fairly didactic fashion, Vilém Flusser explains that the materiality of photography is provisional. It differs from traditional images because it is produced by a device and readily reproducible. Photography’s rejection of the support means an [...]

In the opinion of Stefania Bril, Vilém Flusser’s attempt to categorize photography according to a number of concepts—as both Roland Barthes and Susan Sontag had done before him, articulating “post-historical” thinking in the process— [...]

The journalist Boris Kossoy emphasizes the professionalization of the field of photography and the growth of the photography art market in Brazil; in his opinion, this creates advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, it would be an advantage [...]

This essay is on the production of contemporary Brazilian photography that marked the first half of the twentieth century in Brazil as a continuation of artistic modernism and its ties to issues of identity as the register of the human landscape [...]

This essay is an analysis of current photography in Brazil that finds its production vigorous and diverse with a historical basis that brings to light its maturity. The author, Tadeu Chiarelli, begins the study with the most successful trio of [...]

This essay states that Brazilian photography was usually seen through an anthropological lens and analyzed as a form of purely autonomous expression; it is now being examined in this text as a process for seeking identity and for an establishment of [...]

Luis Humberto discusses the changes brought about by photography on the printed image. He does so by comparing the complications involved in the speed of the transfer of information via electronic images. In his opinion, photography is not dead, it [...]

In João Koranyi’s view, the term “abstract photograph” contains a contradiction: the optical process that the camera itself entails is based on the objective reproduction of the object. Abstraction can be obtained without recourse to the [...]

Thomas Farkas is interested in the dynamics as well as the progression of photography. He states that professionals as well as amateurs learn through investigation of classic and modern techniques and what can further be done with photography; that [...]

This text by Harumi Yamagishi provides information about artistic research in photography, a study undertaken by Roberto Okumura, who thinks that photography is, first and foremost, a support of ideas. In addition, photography is mentioned as a means [...]

João [or Hans] Koranyi suggests that photography should be thought of in terms of its cultural mission rather than whether it is or is not “art.” In a world where nations are at odds with each other, photography reveals the absence of [...]

This is the exhibition leaflet for work by the graphic artist Aloisio Magalhães, who uses photography to construct visual values. His experimental works, called Cartemas, are the result of an idea he had in 1970 “when, in Holland for the printing [...]

In this text, Jean-Pierre Chabloz reports on certain natural and self-taught talent he found in the state of Ceará (in northeast Brazil). Most of these artists live in the complete anonymity typical of people with humble origins. By way of example, [...]

This text consists of excerpts from the catalogue for the exhibition Para nunca esquecer. Negras memórias/ Memórias de Negros, held at the Museu Histórico Nacional (in Rio de Janeiro in 2001). It includes scores of texts and poems by writers who [...]

Antonio Gonçalves Filho comments on the exhibition of photographs by Anna Mariani, included in the XVIII São Paulo Biennial. Although it portrays simple images of houses common in the northeastern region of Brazil, the shots awaken a curiosity [...]

This is an interview granted by the North American photographer Man Ray, conducted by the Brazilian artist Flávio de Carvalho, in which Man Ray discusses photography and painting. He describes how he got his start in photography, and talks about his [...]

Entitled “Artistas y obras en la exposición,” this chapter features the works selected for the Historia, Escenas e Intervalos: Fotografía y Video component of Proyecto Pentágono2000, a research project on contemporary art from Colombia [...]

Historias, escenas e intervalos: fotografía y video is the title of a theoretical research project undertaken by Juan Fernando Herrán in the framework of his curatorship of the area of photography and video for Proyecto Pentágono, an investigation [...]

The synopsis and the annotations in English are coming soon.                                However, our bilingual readers can click on “Español” to access this information in Spanish [...]

The synopsis and the annotations in English are coming soon.                                However, our bilingual readers can click on “Español” to access this information in Spanish [...]

The synopsis and the annotations in English are coming soon.                                However, our bilingual readers can click on “Español” to access this information in Spanish [...]

In this essay, the critic Jaime Cerón reviews and discusses the Colombian photographer Adriana Duque’s work, Collectibles. Cerón begins by mentioning the idea of sinister (Sigmund Freud) and the unconscious (Jacques Lacan), two concepts that, [...]

The chapter in the book Ciudad espejo [Mirror City] by the Arts Faculty of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia [National University of Colombia] (2009), written by Natalia Gutiérrez,  explains in detail the importance of the discussion concerning [...]

In this essay, which is the introduction to the book Ciudad–Espejo [City–Mirror] (2009), the Colombian critic Natalia Gutiérrez bases her review of Colombian contemporary art on the works presented at the 39 Salón Nacional de Artistas [39th [...]

The Colombian critic Natalia Gutiérrez interviews Miguel Ángel Rojas, asking questions about Corte en el ojo [Cut in the Eye] (2000), the work Rojas presented at the 39th Salón Nacional de Artistas [National Artists Salon] (2004). The interview [...]

This text is a criticism written by Natalia Gutiérrez of the work, Corte en el ojo [Cut in the Eye](2000), by Miguel Ángel Rojas. She develops it based on ideas of “place” and “no place,” as well as the paradox between them established by [...]

This review by the art critic Miguel González, published in the Revista Arte en Colombia [Art in Colombia Magazine], considers the work of Miguel Ángel Rojas, and discusses his constant questioning of the procedures involved in Realism and indeed [...]

“Social Taxonomy and Political Botany” are alternative names associated with the text “Flora Necrológica” [Necrological Flora], in which the art critic José Ignacio Roca discusses the meaning of the term “violence” from a Colombian [...]

The curator and art critic Miguel González (Cali, b. 1950) introduces the work of the photographer Fernell Franco (1942, Versalles, Valle del Cauca–2006, Cali) in the catalogue for the exhibition Ever Astudillo dibujos, Fernell Franco fotografías [...]

This text on the Fotoformas series created by Geraldo de Barros describes the inherent process of the “de-naturalization” of images proposed by the artist based on his photographic experiments. The author, Waldemar Cordeiro, states the proposal [...]

In this essay, Pietro Maria Bardi discusses the Fotoformas series by Geraldo de Barros, drawing the reader’s attention to the abstract nature of the photographs, and going as far as to associate them with works by Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, [...]

In this essay, art historian Jennifer A. González examines the works of six Chicano/a photographers: Miguel Gandert, Delilah Montoya, Harry Gamboa, Jr., Kathy Vargas, Christina Fernandez, and Robert C. Buitrón. She compares the formal and [...]

In this text, Colombian art critic José Hernán Aguilar provides a critique of photography in Colombia in the 1980s, discussing specifically the proposals of avant-garde photographers such as Becky Mayer, Beatriz Jaramillo, Jorge Ortiz, and Adolfo [...]

In the book Volverse aire [Become Air], published in 2003, María Iovino describes and analyzes Óscar Muñoz’s work from his early stages as a draftsman to the works produced the year the book was published in Bogotá. Special attention is paid to [...]

In the first section of Sí y No, her column in the Caracas newspaper El Nacional, the journalist Margarita D’Amico publishes some of the thoughts on “today’s art” expressed by Claudio Perna, the photographer and conceptual artist. Perna [...]

In this text, Gary Hesse considers the direction Martina Lopez’s work took after she was introduced in 1986 to computer imaging that became the main means with which she created her photographs. With this new tool, Hesse explains, Lopez has [...]

This document is a proposal for The Puerto Rican Equation, an exhibition to commemorate the 1898 invasion of Puerto Rico by the United States, and which would feature Puerto Rican artists who were born and lived in either Puerto Rico or the United [...]

Colombian artist Pedro Alcántara thanks Lorenzo Homar for the photographs, letters, and silkscreen he sent him. Alcántara asks him to buy some printing materials he will need to create a portfolio of four works for the Communist Party. The party [...]

In the article “Los años setentas y el arte en Colombia,” written for the Medellín-based magazine, Re-Vista del Arte y la Arquitectura en América Latina, art critic and curator Eduardo Serrano Rueda takes stock of the Colombian art scene in [...]

Alfonso La Torre interviews the photographer Eva Lewitus, who shares her opinions on the Peruvian folk art exhibition that was presented at the XIV Bienal de São Paulo in 1977. She thinks the exhibit did not reflect the full scope of this kind [...]

Literary critic Doris Sommer and Adal Maldonado discuss his transition from documentary projects in the 1970s to the employment of photography in conceptual installations in the 1990s. He relates the importance of prior works, such as Portraits of [...]

This is the cover for the magazine Frente a Frente [Front to Front] (Mexico City January 1938) published by the LEAR (Liga de Escritores y Artistas Revolucionarios) [League of Revolutionary Writers and Artists]; it included a photomontage by Lola Á [...]

In this editorial column, Carlos Cortez comments on the exhibition of Agustín V. Casasola’s photographs, Mexposición II: Images of the Revolución, noting that all of the heroes of the Mexican Revolution, as well as many average participants and [...]

In the introduction to volume three (issue number one) of El Fotografo Mexicano [The Mexican Photographer], the editors and editorial staff assert their wish to perform the noble task of disseminating photography, as well as thanking the readers for [...]