Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

This essay posits the 1980s as a period of intense self-reflection among Latin American artists living in the United States. Susana Torruella Leval considers the complex relationships of these artists to the tumultuous North American art milieu, [...]

In this document, curator and art historian Susana Torruella Leval considers works by several artists whose practices reflect an interest in articulating a particular historical consciousness that is tied to their cultural identity as Latin Americans [...]

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 essay, curator and art historian Susana Torruella Leval provides an overview of the development of Puerto Rican art institutions and artist activism in New York, from the 1950s to the 1990s. She argues that Puerto Rican artists have played [...]

This essay, written by curator Susana Torruella Leval, provides a biographical overview of the careers of mural artist, Nitza Tufiño, and her father, Rafael Tufiño—a renowned Puerto Rican painter and printmaker. Leval describes the relationship [...]

Art historian and curator Susana Torruella Leval provides an overview of the development of Puerto Rican art institutions and artist activism in New York from the 1950s to the 1990s. She argues that Puerto Rican artists have played key roles in [...]

In the curatorial statement by Susana Torruella Leval in the 1991 exhibition, Con To’ Los Hierros: A Retrospective of the Work of Pepón Osorio [Armed to the Teeth: A Retrospective of the Work of Pepón Osorio],she breaks down the artist’s [...]

Susana Torruella Leval relates her experience as curator and director of El Museo del Barrio throughout the 1990s. She discusses the process of maintaining professional standards of care for the museum collections of Puerto Rican, Latino, and Latin [...]

The essay provides a biographical overview of the career of mural artist Nitza Tufiño, the daughter of Puerto Rican printmaker Rafael Tufiño. In it, curator Susana Torruella Leval describes Nitza Tufiño’s process of creating a ceramic tile mural [...]

Susana Torruella Leval’s essay examines works by artists David Avalos, Deborah Small, and Alfredo Jaar, and addresses contemporary neocolonial practices thus connecting them to the histories of colonialism in the Americas, which have been often [...]