Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

These documents are the invitation to and the program of the Third Exhibition of the Atelier-Abstração, held in São Paulo in June 1956. The Atelier-Abstração was a studio set up by the Brazilian artist Samson Flexor [...]

Fernando de Szyszlo sent this open letter to the editor of Cultura Peruana magazine in response to the article by journalist Jesús Manual Orbegozo that was published in this same magazine (Lima, December 1955). Szyszlo denied the declarations [...]

Journalist Rubén Wisotzki interviewed Magdalena Fernández in 1996, when she was awarded the Premio Eugenio Mendoza. Fernández acknowledges that her work, particularly her studies in design to which abstraction and geometricism are fundamental, is [...]

The author, Juan Ríos, responds to the statement released by the IAC regarding the controversy generated by the opinions offered by critic Juan Acha in the catalogue for the Exposición Homenaje for Sérvulo Gutiérrez. Ríos believes it is “too [...]

Writer Juan Ríos offers a brief biography of Sérvulo Gutiérrez based on the memories of their first encounter in Paris (1938): “he gave the impression of a force of nature encased in a slight and high-strung body of a man;” he highlights the [...]

This is the text of the entire talk delivered by Fernando de Szyszlo and part of the tribute organized by the IAC (Instituto de Arte Contemporáneo) in 1955 in honor of the painter Mario Urteaga. Szyszlo describes him as a highly idiosyncratic [...]

In this text, Luis Miró Quesada Garland offers a categorical response to “Punto final,” an article published by essayist Sebastián Salazar Bondy in La Prensa newspaper (Lima, July 26, 1954) in which he declares his exchange with Miró Quesada [...]

Focusing on the issue of the “significance” of art, the author indicates that he agrees with his polemicist in making a distinction between two types of significance: “artistic or apparent” and “logical or associative.” Garland rather [...]

On the matter of the existential “obligations” mentioned by Francisco Miró Quesada Cantuarias, the author challenges the idea that “in order to ‘be’ one has to act.” Believing in an “essential nature of ‘being,’” his relative, [...]

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 [...]

In addition to organizing and introducing a retrospective exhibition of the work of Alfredo Volpi, Olívio Tavares de Araújo discusses the focus of that show. The exhibition included works with a range of color variations on the same formal design, [...]

In this review of Ademar Manarini’s photography exhibition, at the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, Wolfgang Pfeiffer notes the quality of the photographs. The critic is acutely aware of the debate in progress about the visual arts, which he [...]

The artist Cícero Dias was the subject of this article that includes a combination of first-hand accounts on his artistic career. The text was originally published due to an exhibition on abstract art by the artist in Recife (Faculdade de Direito) [...]

The second part of a two-part essay published in the Bellas Artes newspaper, this text consists of a lecture given by artist Flávio de Carvalho at the Congrès International d’Esthétique in Paris, and later (in 1937), at the Salão de Maio in Sã [...]

The first part of a two-part essay published in the Bellas Artes newspaper, this text consists of a lecture given by artist Flávio de Carvalho at the Congrès International d’Esthétique in Paris, and later (in 1937), at the Salão de Maio in São [...]

This text is a historical balance sheet of Concrete art in Brazil. The art critic, Ferreira Gullar, introduces Concrete art as a movement of “rupture” whose radical nature contrasts with the painting that predominated in Brazil in the late 1940s [...]

Mário Pedrosa analyzes the relationship that the works of Alexander Calder and other modern artists (especially Fernand Léger) have with industrial production. In his judgment, for Léger, machines are like an incomprehensible and frightening god; [...]

This text on the Fotoformas series created by Geraldo de Barros describes the inherent process of the “de-naturalization” of images proposed by the artist based on his photographic experiments. The author, Waldemar Cordeiro, states the proposal [...]

This text is the “Manifesto do Atelier Abstração,” written by painter Samson Flexor; it was published in the catalogue for the group’s third exhibition in São Paulo at the MAM (Museu de Arte Moderna, June 1956). The manifesto defends [...]

The author of this article, Sebastián Salazar Bondy, underscores his supposed agreement with Luis Miró Quesada as regards the “poor quality” of the exhibition of works by contemporary Italian painters at the Galería Lima, an event that [...]

In the second article in his series “Conceptos concretos sobre el arte abstracto,” the writer Miguel Otero Silva rejects the idea of dividing art into two camps: abstract and figurative art. In his opinion, this makes as little sense as talking [...]

The Venezuelan artist Mateo Manaure outlines an assessment on the artistic career of his compatriot, artist Carlos González Bogen, commenting on his activities from when he was academically training at the Escuela de Artes Plásticas de Caracas when [...]

Kenneth Kemble writes about the architect and painter Clorindo Testa, focusing on his ability to work with the essential. Kemble discusses Testa’s exhibition of abstract paintings at Galería Bonino (Buenos Aires) and is taken aback with the use of [...]

In this article Damián Bayón interviews art historian Pierre Francastel (1900–1970) regarding the problem of abstract art, based upon what Bayón read in [Francastel’s] books. Before beginning [the interview], he states that the questions he [...]

In this article Damián Bayón conducts interviews with two Italian artists: the first with Massimo Campigli and the second with Léon Gischia. Bayón formulates his questions to both interviewees around the problem of explaining the “success” of [...]

Enrique F. Gual reviews an exhibition at the Galería Prisse at which the artist José Bartolí mainly shows his oil paintings, in spite of being better known for his drawings. To Bartolí, the oil paintings represent a phase in which he is [...]

Art critic Ceferino Palencia identified the advantages of contests such as the one held within the context of the Inter-American Biennial of Painting and Printmaking. In the first place, he said, such contests gave painters the possibility of [...]

In his presentation, Samuel Oliver discusses the new order involved in building form with its own defining formal attributes. He supports his proposal with simple volumes and takes advantage of pure, highly visible colors. The forms are built into [...]

Cover and listing of artists who participated in the exhibition 7 pintores abstractos [Seven Abstract Painters], held at Galería Pizzarro in Buenos Aires from October 1 to 19, 1957. Essentially, it brings to the fore a singular grouping in the 1950s [...]

Aldo Pellegrini writes about the current situation of the debate between Abstraction and Figuration (1968) and presents it as something that has been overcome, while he also points out its avant-garde quality as a demonstration of the vitality of the [...]

Damián Bayón writes about the work of Argentinean-Japanese artist Kasuya Sakai by analyzing his different stages; that is, concerning the harmony of contrasting colors; the influence of Hartung and calligraphy; black forms in a more complex [...]

The critic writes about Marcelo Bonevardi’s artworks, comparing them to the fragments or the friezes on the walls of an immemorial temple, stating that they propose a profound contemplative attitude. Aldo Pellegrini mentions the importance of the [...]

Jorge Romero Brest describes Leopoldo Torres Agüero’s work by saying that it is clearly by someone who understands that contemporary creative output does not represent individual expression as much as a manifestation of reality. The critic also [...]

The director of the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires [Buenos Aires Museum of Modern Art], Hugo Parpagnoli writes about the selection criteria and the organization of the Argentinean painting exhibition in Caracas (1963), a proposal in eight [...]

The manifesto La visión elemental [The Elemental Vision] puts forth a Non-Illusionist theoretical position on the image: working with volumetric or flat forms, simple and concise, activating planes and volumes using pigmentation, the usage of flat [...]

Rafael Squirru presents the exhibition that conmemorates the first 15 years of Madí Art (Museo de Arte Moderno, Buenos Aires, 1961), highlighting the overt opposition that these dedicated artists must have faced in their research of experimental [...]

In his introduction to Jorge Marcio Gentilini’s exhibition at the Galería Lirolay (Buenos Aires, September 1961), Manuel Mujica Láinez notes that this young artist, who specializes in the art of fire, has already been admitted to the circuit of [...]

Ignacio Pirovano presents Enio Iommi’s exhibition (Galería Bonino, September-October, 1969) with a thorough analysis of the different periods involved: his background, the Concrete Art period, the phase begun in 1950 since the dissolution of the [...]

Nicolás Rubió wrote that the artists had been going through different “-isms” supported by the “explainers of art,” a reference to the critics. For this reason, those artists who had resisted both the “-isms” and passing fads had come [...]

Jorge López Anaya writes about the rapid emergence of Grupo Sí [Yes Group] in the city of La Plata. He analyzes the use of chromatic saturation as a trait typical of the group’s artists. The critic states that the chromatic geometry represents, [...]

Guillermo Whitelow writes about how prone the Argentinean artists are to group themselves into three distinct tendencies. In the first group (José A. Fernández Muro, Sarah Grilo, Miguel Ocampo, Kasuya Sakai, Clorindo Testa), he points out they have [...]

Statement by the artists Eduardo Mac Entyre and Miguel Angel Vidal, in which they recognize that their work stems from the proposal of the Argentinean Concrete artists, although they use the period and the straight line to produce movement. Given the [...]

Rafael Squirru presents the exhibition by artists Eduardo Mac Entyre and Miguel Angel Vidal, identifying it as a sample of “generative art,” as it has been called by Ignacio Pirovano, in tandem with the writings of Georges Vantongerloo. In this [...]

In this document, the art critic Jorge Romero Brest writes about the work of César Paternosto and Alejandro Puente, discussing the concepts of color and image. Romero Brest emphasizes the treatment of the irregular frames that simultaneously suggest [...]

The critic writes about Ary Brizzi’s work beginning with the concept of “structure.” He discusses the existence of geometric art and—considering the combinations of geometry are exhaustible—he opts to use the term “parageometry.” Uribe [...]

French artist and critic Germaine Derbecq wrote, in a literary text, about the work of Alfredo Hlito underscoring its differences from Concrete art, especially regarding the modulation of color. She conceives Hlito's painting as a block without [...]

This is of the checklist of the groups included in the Exposición de arte no figurativo [Exhibition of Non-Figurative Art] (1960): they were Asociación de Arte no figurativo [Association of Non-Figurative Art], Arte Nuevo [New Art], Grupo Buenos [...]

Jorge Romero Brest begins his text with theoretical definitions about art’s meaning, perceived as an entity that has its own being. In his opinion, the artist becomes a trigger for an expression that is always being, in addition to the experience [...]

In his essay “Realismo y crisis de la representación pictórica” (Realism and Crisis in Pictorial Representation), Guillermo Machuca addresses several critical points regarding the visual arts in Chile during the 1960s. They include, [...]

This document relates the response of critic Córdova Iturburu to the survey regarding abstract art or non-figurative art, in which he leans toward the expression “non-figurative art” because it permits the inclusion of not only the geometric [...]