Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

This exhibition essay explores the works of four contemporary women artists of Cuban descent: Teresita Fernández, María Elena González, Quisqueya Henríquez, and María Martínez-Cañas, each discussed [...]

This exhibition essay charts Ana Mendieta’s artistic trajectory between 1970 and 1980, including her tenure at the University of Iowa (where she completed two master’s degrees: one in painting and one in intermedia), her time in Mexico, [...]

This magazine article addresses Ana Mendieta’s early work during her graduate studies at the University of Iowa in the early 1970s. The article argues that though Mendieta’s work has been extensively analyzed, this period in her [...]

This exhibition brochure by guest curator Julia P. Herzberg describes several works included in A Town Portrait, with an eponymous installation and two photographic series, When I Am Not Here/Estoy allá (1996) and Abridor de caminos (1997). [...]

This essay by Julia Herzberg overviews Carlos Alfonzo’s artistic trajectory from 1982 to 1991, outlining the biographical details of his life and analyzing multiple artworks included in the exhibition. Working mainly in a Neo-Expressionist [...]

In this essay, Raúl Roa García analyzes José Martí’s poetry, especially his “Versos sencillos,” to highlight their innovative and modernist nature. To begin with, he comments that Martí cannot be placed in any “lyrical school” or “ [...]

This brief article published in Revista de avance announces that a set of “studies” by the Cuban artist and caricaturist Rafael Blanco will be included in the exhibition 1927, featuring new art. First praising Blanco as a drawing instructor, the [...]

In “La Nueva Estética,” the lecture by Cuban writer and philosopher Jorge Mañach, he states that the new aesthetic trends followed by members of the art avant-garde resulted from a more widespread need for renewal during this period, which [...]

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 [...]

In “Nueva Pintura de Cuba,” Cuban cultural scholar Graziella Pogolotti illustrates the importance of a specific generation of Cuban artists who began to paint during the country’s most tumultuous period. In the 1953 exhibition, Homage to Mart [...]

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 speech by the Cuban poet and essayist Juan Marinello records his position on Cuban vernacular art at a breakthrough moment in the consolidation of the island’s avant-garde. Marinello raises concerns over the country’s environment, which he [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

This document contains the introduction to the exhibition catalog of Past Cuba: Identity and Identification in Cuban-American Art (1997) by curator and art historian Lynette M.F. Bosch in which she explains that the premise of the exhibition was to [...]

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, Ricardo Pau-Llosa discusses the work of Cuban-born artist Rafael Soriano as a prime example of what he has termed “oneiric luminism,” which is Latin American art’s most original contribution to modernism, according to the author [...]

In this essay, Ricardo Pau-Llosa discusses the work of Cuban-born artist Rafael Soriano as a prime example of what he has termed “oneiric luminism,” which is Latin American art’s most original contribution to modernism, according to the author [...]

In this essay, American art critic Donald Kuspit discusses the sensuality of the paintings of Cuban-born artist Mario Bencomo. Kuspit notes that the works are both pleasurable and melancholic (revealing the dialectics of desire). He examines specific [...]

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 [...]

The prominent scholar Robert Farris Thompson examines in this essay the presence of Afro-Cuban culture in the artworks featured in the 1991–1992 exhibition Cuba-USA: The First Generation. Thompson discusses the photographs of Ramón Guerrero, which [...]

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 [...]

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 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 [...]

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, [...]

In this bilingual essay, Cuban-American artist César Trasobares reflects on the work of his late friend and fellow artist Carlos Alfonzo .Trasobares notes that Alfonzo developed different public and private personas, and throughout his life Alfonzo [...]

In this bilingual overview of the life and art of Carlos Alfonzo, curator Olga Viso provides biographical information about the artist, with an emphasis on the impact his immigration to the United States had on his life and work. Viso first discusses [...]

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 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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Giulio V. Blanc includes a brief bilingual overview of the different generations of Cuban American artists, and this includes the Miami Generation (those who immigrated to Miami in the 1960s), the Post-Miami Generation (artists born in exile), those [...]

Art historian Jacinto Quirarte lays a framework for discussing an artwork or body of work by examining the tradition to which it belongs and the reasons for which (and for whom) it was created. Summarizing the conclusions of the 1979 Symposium on the [...]

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 “ [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

This Spanish version of 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 [...]

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 [...]

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— [...]

In this text, the Mexican writer Julio Solórzano contextualizes a lecture that the Chicago mural painter and activist John Weber gave while in Mexico and includes a brief history of Latino murals in Chicago. Solarzano explains that the mural [...]