Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

This is a speech on private art collections given by Orestes Baroffio, the president of the Municipal Commission of Culture of Montevideo in 1944, on the occasion of the opening of the Salón de Arte Extranjero, held at the exhibition center, Subterr [...]

In March 1988, journalist and editor Guillermo González Uribe, then editor-in-chief of the journal ¡Viva el arte! interviewed nine Colombian artists of different generations to ask their opinions about the following: What function should be [...]

This text analyzes the reorganization of cultural production, principally of an audiovisual and visual nature, in the context of globalization. Its authors examine the role of governmental policies in culture and the growing importance of culture in [...]

This text is an analysis of the two years that had passed since the opening of the Divisão de Artes Plásticas do CCSP (Centro Cultural São Paulo), reorganized in 1989. Stella Teixeira de Barros emphasizes that in spite of remaining fairly distant [...]

This essay introduces I FotoNorte, the exhibition held in equatorial Belém, in the state of Pará. The show consisted of a selection of photographs of the Brazilian Amazon taken as part of a larger project sponsored by the Instituto Nacional de [...]

This debate organized by the journal Módulo, brought together visual artists Luiz Áquila, Ana Letícia, and Jorge Guinle Filho, actor Buza Ferraz, choreographer Regina Miranda, and literary critic Heloisa Buarque de Hollanda. The theme under [...]

Waldemar Cordeiro, one of the major figures in Brazilian visual arts, provides a broad overview of events in that field in the early 1950s, a key decade in the history of the arts in Brazil. Cordeiro lists the exhibitions, courses, and conferences [...]

In this letter, the writer Mário de Andrade critiques the researcher Luiz da Câmara Cascudo’s articles about folklore. He notes, however, the latter’s rigorous, scientific approach to the subject. The letter mentions (though not explicitly) [...]

The author discusses the conclusions of the CIF (Congrès International de Folklore), held in Paris in 1937, and reviews Brazilian participation in the event. He mentions the congratulatory words expressed by André Varagnac, the assistant curator of [...]

These are the statutes of the Sociedade de Etnografia e Folclore (SEF, established in the state of São Paulo). The statutes define the mission of the Society: “to guide, encourage, and communicate ethnographic, anthropological, and folkloric [...]

From the perspective of a practicing artist, Antonio Dias demands greater organization of the Brazilian cultural sector. He asserts that following the military coup of 1964, Brazilian culture became irrelevant on the global scene due not to a lack of [...]

This text is the monthly bulletin of the Sociedade Pro Arte which includes the list for the catalogue of works presented at the III Salão da Pro Arte, a few of which it reproduces within. The following artists participated in the exhibition: Alberto [...]

The catalogue for I Salão, the exhibition sponsored by the Feira de Indústrias, includes essays written by the organizers of the event: Elias Chaves Neto, Vittorio Gobbis, and Quirino da Silva. Gobbis talks about the meaning of art and [...]

This article is about the Salão Nacional de Belas Artes that was organized by the architect Lúcio Costa; it explains that the organizing committee decided that no submission would be rejected. This prompted the “old guard” artists to boycott [...]

In this article, Oswald de Andrade claims there is an urgent need to create a modern art museum in the city of São Paulo, underscoring the fragile nature of and almost nonexistent institutional support for the Brazilian art system. De Andrade [...]

Mário de Andrade authored the draft for the internal structuring of SPAN [National Artistic Heritage Service], the entity that oversees eight categories of artistic activities: archeological art, Amerindian art, popular art, historical art, national [...]

In this letter to the intellectual Paulo Duarte, Mário de Andrade discusses the need for a policy governing the protection of the cultural heritage of Brazil in order to prevent the scourge of contraband and the sale of artwork of historical or [...]

This is the program for the carnival party sponsored by the Sociedade Pró-Arte Moderna(SPAM) in February 1934, an event that was also referred to as the Grande Expedição às Matas Virgens da Spamolândia [Great Expedition to the Virgin Jungles of [...]