Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

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) [...]

This document is the letter sent by eminent Peruvian intellectuals, writers, and artists to Benjamín Roca Muelle—president of the Corporación Nacional de Turismo—upon learning that the property that houses “Pacho Fierro,” a folk music venue [...]

This essay by the architect Lina Bo Bardi is about A Mão do Povo Brasileiro, the exhibition she organized and presented at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo. The exhibition reflects her interest in preserving the traditional arts and culture of [...]

According to Clarival Valladares, folk art and fine art both took parallel approaches in terms of the socio-economic divisions in Brazilian society. He describes the internal migration of people from the northeast to the southern part of the country [...]

Cobra Norato, a book combining poetry and narrative, offers a version of the Portuguese language that is more in line with its sound than its grammar. It is a symbolic construction of the Brazilian forests whose characters (Curupira, Cobra Grande, [...]

This critical review suggests that “art” is not an expression of the human spirit—as philosophical idealism would have us believe—but something created by culture and class; it is therefore a historically determined phenomenon that is [...]

In this article the Venezuelan researcher Alfredo Chacón discusses the Venezuelan concept of popular art. He asks: When do we talk about popular art? He goes on to explore different social factors that define what Venezuelans consider “popular [...]

Marta Traba argues in her paper that in the last five years, Latin American art “has suffered from a visible process of depersonalization” and “mimesis.” She points out the principal causes of the phenomenon, among them: artists who move [...]

This article reviews an exhibition of children’s drawings held in Brussels, to which Mexico sent a group of works by children from official schools. The author emphasizes the great reception that the Mexican works received and he transcribes part [...]

In 1988, on the occasion of the Primer Salón Nacional Cervecería de Oriente: Arte ingenuo, pintura y talla populares (Barcelona, state of Anzoáteguí), critic Francisco Da Antonio ponders concepts like “naive art,” “popular art,” and “ [...]

Bruno Zevi discusses the event that prompted the cancellation of Civilização do Nordeste, the exhibition that was to have been presented at the Galleria d’Arte Moderna di Roma, as expressly instructed by the Brazilian embassy on orders from the [...]

Mário de Andrade was a staunch supporter of “Brazilianizing literature and music with injections of the art of the people,” a strategy he thought would narrow the gap between high and popular art by incorporating oral literature into the written [...]

Juan Calzadilla wrote this critical text as a preface to the catalogue for Miguel von Dangel’s exhibition Sacrifixiones (1969). The essay starts with comments on the artist’s beginnings in taxidermy. Calzadilla explains how, during his time at [...]

In this text, Carlos Solari (alias “Don Quijote”) discusses articles on Peruvian painter Sabogal that appeared in the most important Buenos Aires-based newspapers (three of them in particular). The article in La Prensa speaks of the “modern [...]

In this essay, Rogério Duarte defines “industrial design” as the concept of  form in its serial reproduction. As he references the origins of Renaissance-style typography, he weighs in and deliberates about various theories on the subject, as [...]

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 [...]

Germán Quiroga Galdo believes that modern Latin American painting could well be considered “the finest and most complete” example of art that was influenced by the works of Pablo Picasso. Galdo thinks that Picasso showed the Indian-American [...]

In this article Marta Traba takes the thoughts expressed by her opponents in their ongoing debate—in particular those by J. R. Guillent Pérez—and distills them down to what she considers to be the focal point of the controversy, which is her [...]

In this document, we find a synopsis of the prologue and the four episodes in the film Raíces [Roots], shot by the filmmaker Benito Alazraki in 1954 with Fernando Gamboa as art director. Based on four indigenous stories adapted from El diosero, by [...]

Sixteen years after having worked in northeastern Brazil, specifically in the state of Bahia, architect and cultural administrator Lina Bo Bardi evaluates the state of drawing in a dependent and capitalist country that underwent intense [...]

This text is an introduction to the catalogue of the individual exhibition by the Brazilian sculptor Maria Martins at the Valentine Gallery (New York, 1943). Using poetic language, Jorge Zarur outlines certain characteristics (both physical and [...]

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

This document is the second issue of the journal El Mate, published by the Grupo Toledo Chico of the Department of Canelones, Uruguay, in December 1966. It attests to the polemic, in the sphere of visual art, on the country’s broader cultural and [...]