Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

The National War Propaganda Department, on behalf of Cuba’s Ministry of National Defense, published the script of the lecture to be delivered by David Alfaro Siqueiros on May 8, 1943, in Havana. The script provides a summary of his life from 1909 [...]

In this essay, the critic Roberto Guevara discusses the Cuban-born Venezuelan painter Rolando Dorrego’s career and latest work. Guevara begins with a review of the art movement of the early 1970s (in which Dorrego was an active participant), which [...]

This exhibition catalog, Chicago Latino, was part of an intercultural dialogue initiated by two “socially-minded arts groups,” the 369 Gallery of Edinburgh, Scotland, and the Near Northwest Arts Council of Chicago, Illinois. The exhibition [...]

Cuban Manuel López Olivo thanks Lorenzo Homar for the print Homar sent him. He reports that the Cuban exhibition that just opened in Cali, Colombia, was favorably received by the students and the working class, and per López Olivo, that is what is [...]

In this essay, Giulio V. Blanc discusses various reactions to the 1988 burning of a Manuel Mendive’s drawing in Florida, to explain the different attitudes held by Cuban- Americans towards Cuba. He then connects this to the larger issue of exile [...]

Cesar Trasobares’ essay is broken down into fifteen separate “notes” that describe the exhibited project or the Quinceañera planning process; they are written from the perspective of Rosata Quinceañera, the fictional heroine that is featured [...]

In this discussion with Geno Rodriguez, Eleanor Heartney, and Victor Zamudio-Taylor, the three scholars consider the work of Cuban-born artist Luis Cruz Azaceta. They analyze the subject matter of his work, and all agree that it is melancholic and [...]

In this feature on the Cuban-American artist Paul Sierra, Jeff Huebner writes the artist’s biography, his recent ascent in the mainstream art world, and the attendant conflicts that arose in relationship to his status as a Latino artist. Huebner [...]

Iván de la Nuez’s entry for the exhibition catalog Cuba siglo XX: Modernidad y sincretismo [Twentieth-Century Cuba: Modernity and Syncretism] focuses on Cuban art made on the island as well as art made in exile from the onset of the 1959 Cuban [...]

In this short, early artist statement, Cuban-born artist Ana Mendieta explains that the first part of her life was spent in Cuba from where she believes her interest in primitive art and culture probably originated. As a child growing up in Cuba, she [...]

This article by Ricardo Pau-Llosa focuses on the motif of the human body as the one theme that constantly recurs throughout the work of Cuban-American artists. He notes that this is unique given the distance that they live from one another. So that, [...]

This press article announces the exhibition of work by five abstract artists from Cuba (Hugo Consuegra, Tomás Oliva, Raúl Martínez, Antonio Vidal, and Guido Llinás), former members of the Los Once group (Cuba 1953). The exhibition was organized [...]

These artists’ statements appeared in a catalogue documenting the first exhibition held in Chicago that conjoined Chicano, Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Venezuelan art and artists in words and images, Arte Hispano-Americano en Chicago=Hispanic- [...]

In this short essay, Alejandro Anreus describes Arturo Rodriguez’s series “Ghost Archipelago.” Anreus first names Rodriguez’s influences: Giorgione, El Greco, and Goya, and notes that Rodriguez was self-taught. According to Anreus, Rodriguez [...]

Mario Bencomo’s artist statement describes how he was born in 1953 on the date of the Moncada Barracks offensive and grew up within the revolution. Growing up Bencomo knew he did not want to stay in Cuba and declares that exile has made him more [...]

In this brief, bilingual artist statement Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons expresses her belief that art is “The transformation of ordinary things into a vision, a new dimension that wasn’t their original purpose.” Therefore, she explains that [...]

In her artist statement, Maria Martinez-Cañas states that her photographs enable her to confront herself with personal issues like “belonging, alienation and [her] position in the outside world.”  She describes her utilization of maps to “ [...]

This essay by Carol Damian begins in the 1950s with the artist group Los Once [The Eleven Ones] followed by a discussion of the 1959 revolution, and the "Miami Generation" of the 1960s. It continues with coverage of the artistic repression in Cuba [...]

Ileana Fuentes-Pérez’s essay published in Outside Cuba: Contemporary Cuban Visual Artists, the catalogue for the exhibition of the same title held from 1987 to 1989 in six cities of the U.S., focuses on the reasons why so many Cuban artists went [...]

In this short essay on the work of Cuban artist José Bedia, art historian Judith Bettelheim describes the artist as a “transcultural citizen” who “speaks at the intersection of diverse commentaries.” Bettelheim calls Bedia a postmodern [...]

In this essay, George Vargas attests that Carlos Lopez “serves as a vital historical link connecting American modern art in Michigan with a new Latino history of the state.” During the 1920s–1940s, Carlos Lopez was a Latino artist who did not [...]

In this brief, bilingual essay by novelist Zoé Valdés, the author explores the function of Carmen Herrera’s paintings from a visual as well as a poetic point of view. She analyzes the lyricism and yet mathematical approach to Herrera’s style, [...]

Cesar Trasobares opens his artist statement by noting that while he was a student at different universities in Florida, he painted Cuban subjects and called the works examples of “Cubanistic Pop Art.” He then discusses the reasons involved for [...]

Julia P. Herzberg opens her interview with Carlos Alfonzo by asking him about the period of transition following his immigration to the U.S. from Cuba in 1980. Alfonzo touches on the two- to three-year period in which he did not paint, referring to [...]

American art critic Donald Kuspit opens this essay on the work of María Martínez-Cañas by asking what meaning Cuba holds for the artist, since she immigrated to the United States at such a young age (three months old). He explains the extensive [...]

Ricardo Pau-Llosa’s chapter focuses on fine art production by Miami’s Cuban-American population. Before discussing the work thematically, he notes that in Miami there has been a “resistance to seeing Cuban and Latin American Art as an equal [...]

In the exhibition catalog for Cuban Artists of the Twentieth Century, which was on view at the Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale, Florida—from October 1993 to January 1994,—art historian Giulio V. Blanc opens his essay by noting the 50th anniversary [...]

In this short essay on the work of Cuban artist José Bedia, art historian Judith Bettelheim describes the artist as a “transcultural citizen” who “speaks at the intersection of diverse commentaries.” Bettelheim calls Bedia a postmodern [...]

In early 1929, García Moroto left Spain for New York, and later embarked for Cuba. Once in Cuba, he gave a lecture at the Spanish Embassy in Havana on November 6, 1929, on the occasion of the fifth exhibition of Cuba’s Escuelas de Acción Artí [...]

In this article, Samuel B. Cherson, a Cuban critic living in Puerto Rico, writes about Cuban artists in exile. He mentions the artists who organized an exhibition in Puerto Rico, and who have made a name for themselves on the island, as well as [...]

In these 32 interviews, Gustavo Valdés, Jr. brings together five generations of Cuban artists living and working in both exile and the Diaspora, ranging from those born in the late 1910s, to those raised and educated in the United States who define [...]

In "El momento," Juan Marinello announces the existence of a new avant-garde movement in Cuban literature and the arts. Marinello prophesizes a coming “battle” between the new Cuban intellectual scene and the outmoded literary establishment who, [...]

The critic refers to the defining features of Leon Ferrari’s work, mentioning both its extensive use of signs and its references to the alienation of modern life. The article, which has a distinctly political edge, mentions certain formal aspects [...]

In Agustin Fernandez’s artist statement, he begins with his formal training at the San Alejandro Academy. He also discusses how he “was to be nourished by a thousand things when [he] went abroad” and was greatly influenced by both Enrique Senal [...]

Iván de la Nuez’s entry for the exhibition catalog Cuba siglo XX: Modernidad y sincretismo [Twentieth-Century Cuba: Modernity and Syncretism] focuses on Cuban art made on the island as well as art made in exile from the onset of the 1959 Cuban [...]

Appropriating headlines from South Florida newspapers, artist Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle makes a statement on immigration and the United States’ policies towards western hemisphere nations during the crucial period of 1979–1981, when increased [...]

In this article, Cuban Antonio Núñez Jiménez provides interesting information on the life of Cuban artist Wifredo Lam after he returned to Havana from Europe in 1941 as a refugee of World War II. The article contains direct quotes from Lam on his [...]

In Juan Gonzalez’s artist statement, he describes himself as very religious and traces the source of his work to the drama in Catholic imagery. He states that he works outside of the American mainstream and feels a greater connection to the “ [...]

In this artist statement, Cuban-born painter Carmen Herrera begins by recounting her training at the Montessori School in Havana, the San Alejandro Academy in Havana, and her studies of architecture at the Universidad de la Habana. Though the artist [...]

The essay by Ricardo Pau-Llosa on the work of Cuban-born artist, Humberto Calzada, is divided into three sections. In the first one, “The Symbolism of Order,” Pau-Llosa addresses Calzada’s move from painting elements of colonial Cuban [...]

The essay by Ricardo Pau-Llosa on the work of Cuban-born artist, Humberto Calzada, is divided into three sections. In the first one, “The Symbolism of Order,” Pau-Llosa addresses Calzada’s move from painting elements of colonial Cuban [...]

Ricardo Pau-Llosa’s essay discusses six generations of modern and contemporary Cuban artists, most in exile, and their art as it deals with alienation and uprooting. According to Pau-Llosa, the first generation (1920s) includes the founding fathers [...]

Ricardo Pau-Llosa’s essay discusses six generations of modern and contemporary Cuban artists, most in exile, and their art as it deals with alienation and uprooting. According to Pau-Llosa, the first generation (1920s) includes the founding fathers [...]

Guilio V. Blanc’s introductory essay opens with a brief overview of Cuban painters from the 1920s through the revolutionary period and it continues by transitioning to Cuban art created in exile. Blanc argues that the art of early revolutionary [...]

Graciella Cruz-Taura’s bilingual essay introduces the exhibition, Outside Cuba: Contemporary Cuban Visual Artists (1987-89), and the contributing essayists for the catalogue. She notes that, in Cuba’s artistic production, external influences— [...]

The essay by exhibition curator, Lynette M.F. Bosch, discusses the paintings of Luis Alonso, Mario Bencomo, Demi, and Arturo Rodriguez; the photography of Ramón Guerrero and María Martínez Cañas; and the mixed media work of María Brito. Bosch [...]

In this essay, Randall Morris contextualizes the production of Juan Boza in relationship to the U.S. urban environment in which he was working. He notes that in contemporary western society religious art is often relegated to the margins but, as an [...]

Artist Juan Boza opens this statement by discussing his hometown of Camagüey, Cuba. He mentions that the city has many “magico-religious” legends inherited from its ancestors. Boza also notes the African roots of his religious beliefs stating [...]

In this interview, Ricardo Viera and Juan Boza discuss the latter’s artistic training in Cuba, including the schools that he attended; the awards that he won; his job as a designer at the Coliseo Nacional de Cultura [National Coliseum of Culture] [...]

In this short text, Ricardo Viera looks at the work of Cuban artist Juan Boza, following his immigration to the United States, and transition from “science fiction” based work to art based on Santería. Viera opens this essay with a discussion of [...]