Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

In this article, Roger Plá refers to Contrapunto magazine’s strategy of inviting artists to discuss the future of painting. The survey asked the following questions: 1. In your opinion, what is the material future of painting (as regards its [...]

Response given by Manuel Espinosa in the survey presented by the Contrapunto [Counterpoint] journal. In it he confronts the defenders of figuration by explaining that realist work is not that which copies, but that which asserts the material reality [...]

This is Tomás Maldonado’s response to the survey conducted by Contrapunto magazine. He is sanguine, not only about the future of the visual arts — “one of the most effective lubricants for revolutionary tension” — but about the future of [...]

In 1981, Eduardo Serrano, the director of the Museo de Arte Moderno of Bogotá at the time, wrote a profile introducing to the Colombian public the life and work of young artist Miguel Ángel Rojas, which in Serrano’s view are intrinsically bound [...]

Manifesto included in the catalogue of the Primera Exposición de Pintura Perceptista [First Exhibition of Perceptivist Painting] carried out in Galería Van Riel in Buenos Aires, in October of 1949. Raúl Lozza states that Perceptivism inaugurates a [...]

Jorge Romero Brest, the art critic and director of the Centro de Artes Visuales [Center for the Visual Arts], writes about the style and attitude he sees in Antonio Berni’s work, discussing the changes that can be observed in the artist’s [...]

Gérald Gassiot-Talabot writes about discovering Antonio Berni’s work at the Venice Biennial, and describes the Ramona Montiel series. He speaks poetically about the artist’s Monsters, discussing the allegorical aspect of Berni’s production, [...]

Antonio Berni writes about Nuevo Realismo [New Realism], which he defines as an aesthetic identity that, in Latin America, vacillates between form and content [...]

An analytical piece in which Carmelo Arden Quin uses dialectical materialism to explain the transition from representation to the phase of “invention” and pure creation in art [...]

This essay is a continuation of the exiled artist, José Renau’s, reflections on the preeminence of realism over abstraction. He believes that in the years following World War I, the art trends were characterized by an unbridled exaltation of [...]

The author reflects on a comparison between abstraction and realism, presenting it as a grave problem of the era. For José Renau, the main trend of the “bourgeois” culture is based on the abstract and trivial aspect of intellectual creation. He [...]

In this article, Raúl Lozza responds to the ideas expressed by Héctor Agosti Pablo in his essay on “The Defense of Realism”. Lozza contends that Agosti’s thesis is nothing by confused theorizing, which encourages a new combination of [...]

Antonio Berni writes about the continuing relevance of Leonardo’s method, and the deep affinities that exist between the work of Leonardo and contemporary art [...]

This text analyzes the opposition between social realism and abstraction in light of the Parisian debates occurring at the time; it analyzes the application of social realism to art, not in opposition to, but instead in relation to Abstract art. De [...]

In this essay, the Venezuelan painter and art critic, Alejandro Otero, questions the chronicler of the city of Caracas, Mario Briceño Iragorry, about his article “Abstraccionismo y carillones” [Abstract Art and Carillons]. The painter finds [...]

Rubén Vela writes about the relationship of Argentine artists to international art. He believes that Argentine artists are working on a purely aesthetic plane of creation. He studies the Juanito Laguna series in Antonio Berni’s work, previously [...]

Miguel Angel Rozzisi writes about Antonio Berni’s art as though it has overcome the decadence of the system. He maintains the existence of class warfare between the official culture and that of the people, with Berni as the representative for the [...]

Antonio Berni states his position on hyperrealism; he mentions the work of his surrealist stage in order relate the mechanisms of creation for photomontage and the collages from his Juanito Laguna series [...]

These paintings by Antonio Henrique Amaral are introduced in this text by Olívio Tavares de Araújo, who calls into question the terms “realism” and/or “hyperrealism” used to describe the artist’s work. In the writer’s opinion, these [...]

Antonio Berni writes about the development of modern art since impressionism, focusing in particular on both Paul Cézanne and cubism. In particular, his analysis of surrealism stands out. The artist likewise analyzes the dehumanization of art, pure [...]

This document is an interview with Antonio Berni in which he describes the relationship between the landscapes he painted in the 1950s and the collages of his Juanito Laguna and Ramona Montiel series. He also comments on some aspects of his engraving [...]

In this interview, artist Antonio Berni explains his vision of North American culture, and contemporary art and techniques. He also speaks about his work in the print medium and his notion of realism [...]

Eduardo Zaldívar writes about the Antonio Berni exhibition at the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires, where the artist presented his series of prints on Ramona Montiel [...]

Braulio Solsona writes about the success Antonio Berni achieved with his exhibition in Paris (Galerie R. Creuze, 1955), while also affirming the importance of representing local problems; he also comments on the introduction by Louis Aragon [...]

Antonio Berni writes about the history of art from the nineteenth century on, and Nuevo Realismo [New Realism], which breaks with Argentine art that looks to Europe [...]

This article was written by Gaspar Galaz on the occasion of a retrospective exhibition of works by Claudio Bravo at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Santiago, Chile. Galaz refers to a debate about art and how it should be defined that was [...]

In this essay, Hernández Rosselot claims that reality competes with art in Antonio Berni’s work. He writes about the materials Berni uses and reviews the collages in the Juanito Laguna and Ramona Montiel series. Rosselot goes on to compare Berni [...]

In this article Miguel Arroyo disagrees with using the terms “Realism” and “Abstractionism” when referring to art, because several members of the latter movement also call themselves Realists, inspired by a definition proposed by Aristotle, [...]

Antonio Berni muses on the originality of Latin American colonial art, and suggests a way to distinguish between each of the three periods involved by naming them: pre-Columbian, colonial, and “contemporary” (post-independence). He goes on to [...]

This is Antonio Berni’s essay on four Peruvian painters,José Sabogal, Julia Codesido, Camilo Blas, and Teresa Carvallo, in which he describes both their technical abilities and the subject matter of their works. Berni stresses the importance of [...]

This letter by José Luis Cuevas, sent from Philadelphia, was published in the newspaper Novedades on February 15, 1958. The missive is a response to an article by Andrés Henestrosa published three weeks earlier. Here, Cuevas defends German [...]

This article by the painter Pedro León Castro was written in response to the article by Alejandro Otero entitled “Cómo trabajamos los pintores venezolanos en París,” in which the latter mentions the negative comments about the Venezuelan [...]

Antonio Berni writes about developments in modern art and of formalism in art. He analyzes the artists who adhere to Nuevo Realismo [New Realism] and discusses the meaning of that movement [...]

This essay by Héctor Pablo Agosti discusses the philosophical grounds of the new realism as viewed from the perspective of a dialectical knowledge of outer reality. Agosti preferred to call it “dynamic realism,” which he conceived as being a [...]

In this article César Rengifo explains why the art world is disappointed in abstract formalism, and notes a resurgence of the realist movement. He refers to statements made or positions taken by artists such as Salvador Dalí, Giorgio de Chirico, [...]

This text appears in the bilingual catalogue (Portuguese/ German) for the “Exposição Alemã de Livros e Artes Gráficas na América do Sul” exhibition, held in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro and organized by gallerist Theodor Heuberger. The show [...]

The text continues the analysis of the article “Aire polémico de París” [Polemical Air of Paris] written by Guillermo de Torre on the opposition between socialist realism and abstraction, in light of the debates underway in those days in Paris [...]

Antonio Berni writes about his early experiences in art, both in Spain and France, and the formation of his personal approach to Nuevo Realismo [New Realism [...]

Antonio Berni writes about painting in Quito during the colonial period, describing the quality of its works and the themes in [seen in] cloisters and churches. He places particular emphasis on the Prophets series that Gorívar painted at the Iglesia [...]

This review considers Julia Codesido’s work within the context of art and literature produced by women, noting that this genre “is uniquely attuned to feeling and expression.” Though historically recognized solely in terms of family or social [...]

In this article, Brazilian critic Marc Bercowitz reflects on the role of art criticism in Latin America, considering that a new group of young international-quality artists has emerged in Peru. Bercowitz perceives their understandable discontent at [...]

In this speech delivered at the Universidad Obrera [Workers’ College] and transcribed in this article, the artist Jesús Guerrero Galván discusses the perspective and mission of the artist: “ . . . when confronted with social problems . . . it [...]

The Argentinean painter Antonio Berni surmises that the perceived decadence of art is a result of a disconnection between the artist and the public. In his judgment, art has always been firmly rooted in a search for realism. Then, Berni proposes that [...]

Antonio Berni describes Melchor Pérez de Holguín as the finest artist of the Potosí and Chuquisaca schools. He defines Pérez de Holguín’s work as being in the Spanish tradition, and analyzes the painter’s technique while commenting on [...]

In this article, Antonio Berni reviews the exhibition of drawings by Ramón Gómez Cornet at the Viau Gallery (Buenos Aires, 1940) which, in his opinion, represent something new in Argentine art—something with a strong connection to the earth. [...]

This article discusses the various ways in which the question of space has been addressed in sculpture, architecture, and painting over the course of time, and reflects simultaneously on how space is portrayed in abstract and concrete painting [...]

This article was originally published in the “Lanterna mágica” [Magic Lantern] section of O Pirralho [The Brat], a magazine founded by Oswald de Andrade (in São Paulo, 1912). The article by the young writer lobbies for a “greater expression [...]

This article discusses different concepts associated with the representation of objective reality. In the discussion, Mele focuses on those tenets expressed in the manifesto of the school-workshop directed by Professor Cecilia Marcovich [...]

In this essay, Peruvian art critic and diplomat Raúl María Pereira provides an overview of Peruvian painting from the first half of the twentieth century. While the author praises the first generation of academic painters, he believes that their [...]

Carmen Saco, who studied at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes (ENBA) in the 1920s, was one of the first professional women sculptors in Peru. The time she spent at the ENBA proved decisive to the nationalist bent of a body of work characterized by [...]