Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

In the early twentieth century, Europe—which had, until that time, been Latin America’s cultural referent par excellence—was deeply immersed in a devastating socio-economic crisis brought about as a result of the First World War. Fascism and [...]

In this article, Luis Eduardo Pombo reveals himself as the first Uruguayan art critic to ideologically wrap himself in the aesthetics of David Alfaro Siqueiros. Generally, even the commentaries made by those intellectuals closest to the Mexican [...]

This document invites the Unión de Artistas Plásticos (UAP), a division of the Confederación de Trabajadores Intelectuales del Uruguay (C.T.I.U.), to the Exposición Internacional de Artes Plásticas Revolucionarias, an event organized by the [...]

Entitled “La función social del arte,” this article discusses one of the final lectures given by philosopher Carlos Vaz Ferreira. In the lecture, Vaz Ferreira describes the figure of an intellectual not committed to the social and political [...]

This article by Francisco R. Pintos is a response to the one by Juvenal Ortiz Saralegui published in the previous issue of Movimiento journal. Whereas Ortiz Saralegui was conciliatory in his approach to the problem of the relationship between “pure [...]

This article by Juvenal Ortiz Saralegui formed part of the early debates in the leftist press in Uruguay on the relationship between art and politics, debates that largely ensued in the publication of the Confederación de Trabajadores Intelectuales [...]

A manifesto of sorts, this article expands on the statement of principles voiced by the Confederación de Trabajadores Intelectuales del Uruguay (CTIU) in its first publication, the journal Aportación. The text is an extended exposition of the [...]

This article by Juvenal Ortiz Saralegui formed part of a series published in Movimiento journal—the publication of the Confederación de Trabajadores Intelectuales del Uruguay (CTIU)—that attempted to formulate a “revolutionary art” that did [...]

In this text, Manuel Araníbar voices his opinion about the controversies surrounding the image of the indigenous forefather of Peruvian independence, José Gabriel Condorcanqui, Túpac Amaru II. In Araníbar’s view, the movement to uphold the [...]

This brief but eloquent article reports on the ceremony in which General Juan Velasco Alvarado, the president of the military junta in power from 1968 to 1975, unveils the portrait of Túpac Amaru II, the indigenous forefather of Peruvian [...]

This article from El Comercio, a Cuzco newspaper, refers to the competition organized to choose a sculpture to honor Túpac Amaru II to be placed in Cuzco’s Plaza de Armas, and reports that the winning design had been rejected. The correspondent [...]

This anonymous cultural affairs newspaper column mentions Manuel Araníbar’s letter about the competition organized by the Gobierno Revolucionario de las Fuerzas Armadas [Revolutionary Government of the Armed Forces] (in its first phase, 1968– [...]

In the prologue to the book Anotaciones políticas sobre la pintura colombiana (1975), artist Clemencia Lucena questions the culture of a country like Colombia, a culture that, in her view, is imposed by the landowning and bourgeois classes. She [...]

This document is a short manifesto written in 1959 by the Argentinean collective, Grupo Espartaco. The writers denote the importance of art as revolutionary and state that their mission is to integrate the visual arts with political action and social [...]

In this text, journalist Héctor Mujica examines the artistic qualities of painter Gabriel Bracho in the exhibition of the artist’s work held at the Museo de Bellas Artes of Caracas in 1951. Mujica describes Bracho’s work as “combat painting [...]

This document by artist Carlos Almaraz looks at the relationship between art (namely muralism) and social inequality, with specific attention paid to the potential role of the political image in empowering marginalized groups and challenging accepted [...]

This thirteen-point program, written in English, presents the Young Lords Party platform calling for the liberation of all oppressed people. Some of the points that stand out from the list, include a call for the self-determination of Puerto Ricans, [...]

In this article, the Chicano artist and poet Koyokuikatl (Carlos Cortez) considers the revolutionary spirit of Diego Rivera’s art on the occasion of an exhibition at the Detroit Institute of Art celebrating the centennial of Rivera’s birth (1886- [...]

In this long letter to his Colombian colleague Pedro Alcántara, Puerto Rican artist Lorenzo Homar discusses a number of topics including the technical procedure by which to create a coat with a patina that looks like bronze on a sculpture made from [...]

Puerto Rican artist Elizam Escobar applies semiotic and Marxist theories to analyze social value in art occurring in an historical era that proclaims itself both postmodern and postcolonial. He observes that such discourse renders people oppressed by [...]

In his role as director of Horizonte, the Estridentista magazine, Germán List Arzubide expresses his opposition to the tribute paid by the mainstream press—specifically Excélsior newspaper—to Salvador Díaz Mirón. He also denounces the crimes [...]

The poster “Protesta: De los Artistas Revolucionarios de México” [Mexican Revolutionary Artists: A Protest] shows the obviousness of the dispute between the students at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes (ENBA) and the teachers [...]

In this long article, Diego Rivera summarizes his beliefs on what revolutionary art ought to be within the context of modern art, and offers a historic journey through the 19th century, underscoring the work of Daumier, Courbet, and Paul Cézanne. [...]

In 1936 the publishers of Frente a Frente [Face to Face], the journal of the Liga de Escritores y Artistas Revolucionarios (LEAR) [League of Revolutionary Writers and Artists] published a belated futuristic manifesto by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti on [...]

Juan B. Climent interviews Manuel Rodríguez Lozano, who leaves no doubt about his position regarding the figures of Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros in Mexican art. Lozano talks about the need to vindicate the native figure stemming from [...]

In this interview, Margarita Nelken, the Spanish critic, reacts to the opinions expressed by David Alfaro Siqueiros. Nelken defends her comments concerning the lack of innovation in Diego Rivera’s art, and says that it is regrettable to attempt to [...]

Poet and critic José Juan Tablada points out that for the first time contemporary art from Mexico had been fully recognized in the United States through the œuvre of José Clemente Orozco, an artist “whose psychological power and highly tragic [...]

To the critic Antonio Rodríguez, the decadence of Mexican painting was based on an abandoning of ideological stances and a distancing from the social problems of humanity. The blame could mainly be laid at the door of the abstract painters who had [...]

An invitation from Cuba to Latin American visual artists, asking them to commit to denouncing and repudiating the ideological intrusion of imperialism, the artistic dependence on international centers, and manipulation in a variety of cultural areas [...]

Cardoza y Aragón writes about a supposed commission for a mural painting dedicated to José Clemente Orozco, meant for the recently considered monument to the revolution “little known to the majority of the inhabitants.” He describes the work, [...]

Jesús Guerrero Galván makes some observations about the production by Leopoldo Méndez, within the context of several group exhibitions that were held in 1926. He qualifies the social function of the œuvre by his colleague and considers his [...]

The correspondent for The Daily Worker in Chicago creates a context for his readers concerning the formation of a Communist and a revolutionary art in Mexico, which describes on the walls of public buildings the useless life of the upper classes and [...]

In this brief article, Siqueiros, the secretary of the Sindicato de Pintores y Escultores [SOTPE, Painters and Sculptors Union], reports that the painters laid off from their work on public buildings due to the machinations of “reactionary” [...]

Operating from Argentina, the Movimiento Espartaco [Spartacus Movement] argued that there was a need for national and revolutionary Latin American art. According to this argument, it would be necessary to eliminate from the social order the economic [...]

For the writer Gastón Poulain, the “revolutionary” nature of José Clemente Orozco’s work had different nuances. He considers that in his œuvre there is neither “automatic register nor sensitive perception.” Poulain sees Orozco’s work [...]

Dr. Atl calls upon us to analyze the post-revolutionary movement from its beginnings in 1908, when the first effective revitalizing influences reached Mexico from Europe. To him, the administration of General Porfirio Díaz—with its socially [...]

In artistic circles in those days, according to Rufino Tamayo, anything that was not purely Mexican was roundly rejected, and works that reflected our own experience and personal expression were lavishly praised. This had its positive aspects, but it [...]

Política Obrera [Working Class Politics], a Trotskyite faction’s journal, published a lengthy article reporting on the incidents at the opening ceremony of the 1968 Braque Prize by the French Embassy in Argentina. The article suggests that the [...]

Using the post-revolutionary education project in Mexico as a starting point, this article describes its functionalist schools and the reaction of the students. Santiago Larín compares the current pedagogical system with the one that existed during [...]

This document contains a description of the inauguration of the 1935 poster exhibition in Morelia at the Centro Cultural Obrero [The Workers’ Cultural Center], which had previously been expropriated. It reproduces fragments of the speech by Roberto [...]

This document provides a bibliographic reference for the poster exhibition at the Casa del Pueblo [House of the People]—located in the historic center of Mexico City— where labor union assemblies and meetings took place. Rosendo Salazar, an [...]

This document is a bibliographic reference for the poster exhibition presented in Mexico City, which also traveled to other places in the republic. This document also refers to the opening of the exhibition in the city of Puebla in December 1934. In [...]

Samuel Ramos writes some of his critical reflections about the historic meaning of the Mexican movement of painting that began in 1921, in order to understand its spiritual evolution. The tone of the essay oscillates between the value of mural [...]

This article describes the lyrical spirit—pervaded by a proletarian ideology—that characterizes the work of the poet, painter and Mexican worker Rosendo Salazar. The author considers his work part of the school that sees art as a powerful medium [...]

In the spirit of the post-revolutionary mood, Manuel Amabilis [an influential Mexican architect] encourages Mexican artists to commit to a collective mission to transform their country. He believes that Mexico faces the dawn of a new day in which a [...]

In this programmatic article, Tomás Maldonado affirms that the Asociación Arte Concreto — Invención [Concrete Art and Invention Association] adheres to humanism by means of a revolutionary path and faith in man’s capacity for pragmatism. At [...]