Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

In this essay, Gustavo Buntinx analyzes emerging Peruvian art, seeing it as part of a process that began twenty or twenty-five years earlier. He speculates on “what were or claimed to be alternatives in Peruvian high art during Fernando Belaúnde [...]

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 [...]

This article expresses the official point of view on the controversy that was sparked by the decision to award no prizes at the XXIII Salón de Artistas Nacionales [XXIII National Artists’ Salon] (1972). The article is written by Germán Rubiano, [...]

Juan Acha examines the rationale advanced by those who, in line with the “new pictorial awareness” of the middle of the century, see greater relevance in abstract painting than in the outdated values of the figurative ideal. The main idea [...]

In these two chapters of text from the book ¿Existe América Latina?, Luis Alberto Sánchez discusses the idea of “Latin America” as both a political bloc and a cultural value, ultimately arguing for a dynamic concept of Latin America that is [...]

In this lecture, Puerto Rican artist Lorenzo Homar asserts that the ideological content of art is determined by its stance on society since “art for art’s sake” is devoid of ideological content. For Homar, “socialist art” is a question of [...]

In this article signed “J. Nahuaca”—the anagram he used as an alias—Peruvian critic Juan Acha reflects on whether or not there is a painting tradition in Peru. He discusses the current state of painting on the occasion of the Premio [...]

In response to the absence of artists, such as Pablo Picasso and Juan Gris at the Contemporary Spanish Art Exhibition shown at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in December 1947, the Argentinian artists expressed their disagreement by signing a [...]

The article “¿Feliza Krugman or Irene Bursztyn?” is the transcription of two texts read by Álvaro Medina on the program Orientación Plástica aired on Radio Nacional de Colombia on April 27 and May 3 (both Fridays), 1974. Medina accuses [...]

The researcher Irma Arestizábal comments on the placement of Argentinean avant-garde art, (always at the margin) in relationship to the hegemonic art centers. She writes based on a selection of works of Argentinean artists that appear in [...]

The author identifies the principal characteristic of the works shown at the Primer Salón Annual de Pintura Peruana “as a strong and cohesive predilection for objectivity.” Among others, he highlights Alfredo Ruiz Rosas for his “successful [...]

In “¿Hay problema indígena en México?” Mexican writer and anthropologist Manuel Gamio examines the “indigenous problem,” or the question of how to integrate indigenous Mexicans into Mexican society. Gamio argues that the government of the [...]

In this chapter from América Latina en sus artes Jorge Alberto Manrique begins by describing the artistic movements of the 1920s and comparing this period to a giant hinge that moved backward to the nineteenth century and forward to the twentieth [...]

Antonio Rodríguez analyzed Rufino Tamayo’s work, basing his remarks on the retrospective of his paintings exhibited at the Palacio de Bellas Artes. According to the exhibition catalog, Tamayo’s greatest contribution was his handling of color. [...]

The writer Fietta Jarque discusses the possible reasons for the deterioration of the mural the Dutch artist Karel Appel painted on a wall in a shantytown in Lima that—despite the fact that it would have “cost many thousands of dollars had he been [...]

This text by journalist Mario Castro Arenas comments on the controversy surrounding the work Motociclista No. 3 by Luis Zevallos Hetzel, first prize winner at the painting competition organized by the Festivales de Ancón. The debate had widened [...]

Alfonso Castrillón weighs in on the controversy that erupted over Motociclista No. 3, the painting by Luis Zevallos Hetzel that won first prize at the Festivales de Ancón (a resort on the outskirts of Lima). The uproar began when the Lima magazine [...]

This document is the catalogue for the exhibition Tres pintores argentinos (1963), featuring the work of Antonio Berni, Carlos Alonso, and Carlos Uria. In addition to a text written by art critic Marta Traba that presents the artists and works—and [...]

The writer Adriano González León discusses the naming of the avant-garde group El Techo de la Ballena. His defense of the group’s use of the whale, a large animal that is not native to Venezuela, is really a pretext for a call for action in the [...]

This article is a review of the Premio Torcuato Di Tella 1966 [The Torcuato Di Tella Prize of 1966]; it describes the panorama and points out that on this occasion the Pop artists have rediscovered the attitude of creation; within it the personal is [...]

Tomás Maldonado reflects on the role of the artist in society, given that it is the career-like class that enjoys success and acclaim. Maldonado fully identifies with the concept of rebellion, and says that he is prone to subvert the taste of the [...]

Brazilian literary critic and essayist Afrânio Coutinho wrote this article in the late- 1960s. His article states since inception that to him the term “Latin American,” is at odds with the historical, social, cultural, literary, and artistic [...]

Federico Peralta-Ramos, in eight quite simple verses, defines what art is; primarily from the art-life nexus which is implicit [...]

Juan Carlos Paz defines New Music and that which contributes efficacious elements and solutions and points out the importance of the rise of dodecaphony for these new proposals. He stresses that dodecaphony is responsible for the experimentation [...]

In this article the journalist A. M. I. researches the field of special edition books. She interviews Luisa Palacios, the printmaker and director of TAGA (Taller de Artistas Gráficos Asociados) in Caracas, tracing the origins of this kind of [...]

In this editorial article, the Czech–Peruvian poet and critic Mirko Lauer reviews Peruvian culture on the seventh anniversary of the military coup led by General Juan Velasco Alvarado, who installed the self-styled Gobierno Revolucionario de las [...]

Based on the criticisms that the emergence of Estridentismo gave rise to, Oscar Leblanc, a journalist of El Universal Ilustrado carries out a survey about the movement, interviewing several personalities. The responses are really extreme. The writer [...]

Most of this short article consists of the words of the artist from Guatemala, Rina Lazo—a naturalized Mexican—from an interview with the critic Raquel Tibol. Lazo recalls her training and the reasons she came to Mexico in 1946. At that time, [...]

In this text, Marta Traba argues that there is not really a unified [Latin] American aesthetic in the visual arts and calls for an honest investigation of the question of such an aesthetic approach, even at the risk of affirming that no common spirit [...]

The article discusses the constant attacks that the newspaper Martín Fierro receives and all the conflicts and difficulties that result from these attacks. It also explains the attitude that will be assumed with regard to the situation created by [...]

Puerto Rican writer Felix Joaquín Rivera interviews the artists Teo Freytes and Yrsa Dávila, who are both members of M.S.A. (Manifestación Sintetista Actualizada) [Manifestation of Synthetism Today], a nonprofit organization that provides space [...]

In this essay, which appeared in the catalogue for Veinte disecciones (Caracas: Museo de Bellas Artes, 1982), the exhibition of works by Roberto Obregón, the researcher Susana Benko reflects on cultural symbols, conventions, and codes and the [...]

This article published in the “Lecturas Dominicales” or Sunday Readings section of the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo (April 1962) evidences the polemic surrounding abstract and figurative art in Colombia at the time. In the introduction to the [...]

In this article, poet and critic Luis Vidales expresses his position on the debate surrounding abstract and figurative art, a polemic central to Colombian art at the time. First, Vidales argues that certain concepts have been poorly defined in [...]

There are five chapters in La Pintura de Héctor Poleo, Simón Noriega’s book about the Venezuelan artist. The one chosen here is chapter III, “El surrealismo de Poleo.” Section 4—“¿Reinterpretación o Mímesis?”—presents Poleo’s [...]

Cultural activist Manuel Rodríguez Cárdenas calls the attention of the public authorities of Venezuela to the visible deterioration of the monument created by Alejandro Colina in homage to María Lionza, the protector goddess of the forest, water, [...]

The critic Antonio Rodríguez uses this article to defend the murals painted by Jorge González Camarena in the main hall of the Edificio Guardiola, in the center of Mexico City. The author believes that the short newspaper article calling for these [...]

With this text, Colombian poet and essayist Juan Gustavo Cobo Borda introduces the exhibition of works by painter Manolo Vellojín held at Galería Garcés Velásquez in Bogotá in 1978. In Cobo Borda’s view, Holy Week (a Spanish religious [...]

This introductory text for Guilio Carlo Argan’s exhibition analyzes the relationship between ideology and technique in order to inquire into the position and destiny of art within that context of ideas. Keeping in mind the self-directed nature and [...]

This short essay by the French-Mexican critic, curator, and writer Olivier Debroise grapples with the phenomenon of neoexpressionist figurative painting in Mexico in the mid- and late-1980s. The author interprets appropriations of the official [...]

In the design ¿Y por qué no?, the artist Antonieta Sosa describes the action planned in detail. As she states it, this work consists of placing wine glasses on different parts of her body so that they will drop and break. Added to the sound of [...]

This text, written by the anthropologist Juan Ignacio Castillo at the time of the 3rd Bienal Salvador Valero de Arte Popular (Trujillo, 1991), is a commentary on popular religious imagery and its use in different social contexts and strata. The [...]

This short article is a commentary on 1927: Exposición de Arte Nuevo, which opened on May 7 at the “Asociación de Pintores y Escultores.” In announcing and promoting the exhibition, the editors of Revista de avance stated [...]

This essay on the subject of 111 the work by Nuno Ramos is divided into three parts. The art critic Alberto Tassinari begins by describing the sociopolitical, cultural, and ideological conditions in Brazil on October 2, 1992, when military police put [...]

Julio Rinaldini criticizes the leaflet with the manifesto of the Seven Artists (Antonio Berni, Lino Enea Spilimbergo, Horacio Butler, Ramón Goméz Cornet, Héctor Basaldúa, Aquiles Badi, and Emilio Pettoruti) who participated in the exhibition at [...]

This article by C.A.D.A. (Colectivo Acciones de Arte) describes the group’s participation in the IN/OUT exhibition in Washington, DC. Due to the international nature of the exhibition, the text points out differences, provides some context for [...]

This document contains excerpts from a grant proposal submitted by Eduardo Carrillo to the National Endowment for the Humanities seeking traveling support for an exhibition of California Chicano art entitled Califas, Chicano Art and Culture in [...]

On the occasion of the exhibition La casa de todos nosotros: Antonio Martorell y sus amigos [A House for Us All: Antonio Martorell and Friends] held at El Museo del Barrio in 1992, Puerto Rican curator Susana Torruella Leval analyzes Antonio [...]

In this brief review Carlos González Bogen, a member of the Los Disidentes group, adopts a rather critical tone to discuss the negative aspects of an anonymous newspaper report—“De nuevo Los Disidentes,” published in the Márgenes column in [...]

In this article, published in November 1963, the Colombian journalist Gloria Valencia Diago interviews the Spanish artist Juan Antonio Roda, in connection with the exhibition of his oil painting series, Tumbas,at the Museo de Arte Moderno in Bogot [...]