Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

The magazine Mensaje, dedicated to the dissemination of Brazilian culture in Uruguay, devoted its twenty-fourth issue, published December 1948, to an analysis of work by Candido Portinari, just at the conclusion of the Brazilian artist’s one-year [...]

In response to the hypotheses of an “integral art” proposed by Alejandro Romualdo, the writer states his belief that Modern art trends entail a progressive “destruction of reality.” This is why art’s síntesis cannot entail a return to [...]

This text is Alejandro Romualdo Valle’s final round in the debate he carried on with Luis Miró Quesada Garland about the first prize at the Second Salón Moncloa, awarded to the painting Pan by Alfredo Ruiz Rosas. The writer considers the [...]

In this article, the writer responds to the comments of Luis Miró Quesada Garland, defending the use of the category “integral art.” He defines this term as a fusion of different trends into “a new creative orientation” structured under a [...]

In this interview with Fernando de Szyszlo, the painter states that he is misunderstood within the Lima arts scene. He refutes the notion that an artist must be socially engaged because, in his judgment, “a painter’s only duty is to be a good [...]

Cipriano Vitureira was one of the main intellectuals who feted Candido Portinari during his visit to Uruguay in 1947. On the whole, the Brazilian painter was well liked by members of the PCU (Partido Comunista Uruguayo) and artists working in the [...]

This article reports on the destruction of a theater set made by Antonio Berni at the Teatro del Pueblo in Buenos Aires. The report mentions the situation that artists were facing under the repressive measures of the G.O.U. (a group of Argentinian [...]

The article by Ibáñez, “La ética social del artista,” was part of a discussion between the author and Rodney Arismendi, another contributor to AIAPE magazine. They refer to literature to speak about such matters as the “quality,” “ [...]

This essay notes the bonds of friendship and ideological affinity that existed between the multifaceted Antonio Berni, whose paintings are steeped in realism and social awareness, and his fellow travelers in Uruguay. This friendship between the AIAPE [...]

In this essay that originated from within the C.T.I.U. (Confederación de Trabajadores Intelectuales del Uruguay), the case was taken of a “sample of aspirants to artistic wages in 1933” with the intent to demonstrate the crisis in the quality of [...]

“En la sociedad burguesa ganan los banqueros y pierden los artistas” (In Bourgeois Society, Bankers Win and Artists Lose) is the name of an article by Norberto Berdía on painter Joaquín Torres García. More specifically, the text discusses how [...]

This essay describes the merits of Chilean-Uruguayan artist Felipe Seade, an advocate of social realism, and harshly criticizes all of those who hindered his career. The frictions between practitioners of social realism and those who disdained it on [...]

In this critical essay, historian Francisco Da Antonio discusses the indebtedness of artist Héctor Poleo to Mexican muralism in terms of form and pictorial technique. He also explores the way in which Poleo’s work differs from the aesthetic- [...]

The writer Luis Miró Quesada Garland considers it wrong to brand any painting as either “Neo-Realist” or “Social Realist” based on a subjective interpretation of reality, with idealized figures and/or deformation as (a) technique(s). The [...]

The author identifies the principal characteristic of the works shown at the Primer Salón Annual de Pintura Peruana “as a strong and cohesive predilection for objectivity.” Among others, he highlights Alfredo Ruiz Rosas for his “successful [...]

The author rejects the idea—proposed by Francisco Miró Quesada Cantuarias—of renaming figurative art as “significant art,” thus emphasizing the differences between formalism and abstraction. In the author’s opinion, the ambiguity of the [...]

Luis Miró Quesada rejects claims concerning the social responsibility of art by denying any connection “between the aesthetic event and the ethical event;” in his opinion, rather than influencing society, art is its expression, or rather the [...]

In response to the survey published by the Lima newspaper El Comercio as to the difference between “classical” and “modern” art, respondents provided different and, in some cases, contradictory answers. Responding to the question regarding [...]

In response to the question in the survey published by the Lima newspaper El Comercio as to whether “modern” painting is an improvement on “classical” painting or a step back, the various respondents agreed that different styles from [...]

The exhibition Iconografia de Massa, held at the Escola Superior de Desenho Industrial (ESDI) in Rio de Janeiro (1968), was introduced by art critic Mário Barata. Using the theories of Edgar Morin as his starting point, Barata defends the idea that [...]

Continuing his debate with Sebastián Salazar Bondy (a defender of art with social implications), Luis Miró Quesada Garland used this specific weekly column to argue in favor of Abstract art. His starting point is an article recently published by [...]

The writer considers the term “integral art,” coined by Alejandro Romualdo Valle, a rhetorical excess, certainly inapplicable to any particular work, as a general rule. It is also specifically inapplicable to the artwork by Alfredo Ruiz Rosas [...]

Siqueiros calls for the organization of a movement of monumental visual arts in order to bring to the fore social reality. By means of it, he promotes the unionization of artists [...]

Amaro Martínez presents an aesthetic and political critique of David Alfaro Siqueiros’s work and political agenda. The author defends art as an expression of man; he considers proletariat art absurd. At the same time that he defends the concept of [...]

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. [...]

In this interview, David Alfaro Siqueiros expressed his views on the Biennial. He began by critiquing the paintings exhibited by the United States, and warned Latin American painters against imitating hybrid ideas that made no sense, such as Tachisme [...]

Carlos Moog writes a theoretical essay on the relationship between aesthetics and politics in Latin America. The author believes that art is a political weapon. He studies the relation between Marxism and art, including the differences in social [...]

Bandera de Provincias [Flag of Provinces] decided that they too would “discover” José Clemente Orozco’s work, and commissioned [Enrique Martínez Ulloa], natural from the state of Jalisco, to provide essays on his painting. The author wrote an [...]

David Alfaro Siqueiros critiques the paintings of the 23rd Fine Arts Salon (Buenos Aires) as works imitative of past European painting. The artist defines the event as a colonial art show, with gullible themes and devoid of technique, as well as with [...]

This text—included in the offprint “Elementos para una biografía” [Elements for a Biography] taken from the exhibition catalogue for Berni - Óleos y Collages [Berni: Oils and Collages]— points out the trajectory of Berni’s work through [...]

This document is a formal commentary in Plástica [Visual Arts] regarding the Joaquín Ezequiel Linares exhibition. Upon analyzing the suburban landscapes of Antonio Berni, Noé states that expressionist realism is the best outlet to social realism. [...]

Pombo places David Alfaro Siqueiros’s work in the movement known as the Mexican Renaissance. He reviews the basic premises of that ideology, its expression and the revolutionary techniques used by Siqueiros. Stating that this work represents a [...]

This document reports on the prohibition of David Alfaro Siqueiros’s third lecture at Amigos del Arte [Friends of Art Association] in Buenos Aires. The article mentions the part played by writer Victoria Ocampo. It also discusses the content of the [...]

The editorial section of Mundo nuevo [New World], an anarcho-syndicalist magazine, presents a defense of socially committed art, in accordance with the ideology of the workers’ movement. The editor maintains that art should serve the class struggle [...]

Federico L. Büsch Buero writes in defense of art’s social scope as an aesthetic program for Latin America. He presents the left’s widespread opinions against modern art, which is uncommitted politically. Büsch Buero asserts that modern art [...]

Julio E. Payró critiques the work of David Alfaro Siqueiros, particularly the subject matter of his murals, proposing that there is a larger universality to these works, and the consideration that “beauty” is the true function of the artist. [...]

The Argentine poet and journalist, Raúl González Tuñón, mounts a defense of the work of the Mexican artist, David Alfaro Siqueiros, supporting his position of taking artwork to the street. The writer comments on Siqueiros’s lectures at the [...]