Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

In this article, the critic Roberto Guevara harshly rebuts the theses of Marta Traba, who argued in the mid-1960s that Latin American art had been “depersonalized” and contaminated by the “mimicry” of international art. Guevara, who felt the [...]

In this article, critic Perán Erminy takes stock of Marta Traba’s controversial visit to Caracas in 1965, arriving at the conclusion that the resulting debate was “extremely positive.” As a Venezuelan, Erminy maintains a favorable view of her [...]

In response to J. R. Guillent Pérez, art critic Marta Traba defines the term “apocalypse”—used by her in an article that unleashed a great controversy in Caracas—as the chaos and dissolution of existing social structures, as well as the [...]

In this article, written after the final debate at the Ateneo in Caracas, Marta Traba reviews the controversy that was unleashed by her ideas in 1965. She comes to the conclusion that there was no controversy, just an ongoing rebelliousness, as shown [...]

Ludovico Silva, who had a philosophy background, refutes the thesis of Marta Traba of a “false apocalypse” when she rationalizes that Latin American artists were simulating hardships alien to their reality. According to Silva, the idea of [...]

Making use of his philosophical background, J. R. Guillent Pérez critically analyzes the article by Marta Traba published in Caracas under the title “El arte latinoamericano: un falso apocalipsis.” In his judgment, Traba has not understood the [...]