Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

The year 1945 witnessed the founding of the journal Removedor, the published vehicle for the Taller Torres García (TTG) and its practices. From the beginning, it set out to be a journal “in combat,” willing to dive headlong into [...]

“No sean majaderos” [don’t be idiots] is an example of the hostile, scornful tone that Joaquín Torres-García adopted in the latter years of his life to address colleagues and art critics who rejected or objected to the [...]

After seeing the exhibition of works by Juan Manuel Blanes at the Teatro Solís in Montevideo (1941), Joaquín Torres-García noted that there were pictorial qualities in the artist’s sketches that were lost in the final [...]

“Reflexiones” is just that, a collection of thoughts related to the essence of the constructivist doctrine and the concrete strategies to be adopted in an environment that was not particularly receptive to the doctrine. The intent is to [...]

In this brief essay Joaquín Torres-García outlines the goals he developed at the AAC (Asociación de Arte Constructivo) and explained in the association’s magazine. He describes the difficulties he had in trying to make [...]

This article, “El arte naturalista y el arte geométrico,” includes a discussion of Joaquín Torres-García’s main theoretical ideas. Here he restates his metaphysically-inspired philosophical approach and his [...]

Joaquín Torres-García wrote this editorial for Círculo y Cuadrado, the journal published by the Asociación de Arte Constructivo de Montevideo that seeks to follow in the footsteps of Cercle et Carré, the magazine co [...]

In this letter, Joaquín Torres-García declares his intention to promote contemporary Uruguayan art to European audiences. The objective is to create a program designed to provide scholarships or grants from the Uruguayan government for [...]

This letter from Joaquín Torres García to his Uruguayan compatriot, the renowned writer José Enrique Rodó, suggests that both men agreed on the need to encourage the emerging art in their country by exposing young Uruguayan artists to what was [...]

In this letter to the writer José Enrique Rodó, Joaquín Torres García discusses the affinity they share for the Greco-Latin tradition, and expresses his wish to be in touch with contemporary Uruguayan art because, though living in Spain at the [...]

Upholding the need to theorize his practice—Joaquín Torres García once again explains the basis of his Constructivist art; in his view, all artists should engage in permanent reflection. This text is primarily aimed at pointing out the confusion [...]

In this text, Joaquín Torres García (JTG) briefly clarifies his statement that “the abstract” is the same as “the concrete.” On the basis of his Platonic notion that the material object and its “Idea” as transcendental essence [...]

“The liberation of the artist” is the title of one of Joaquín Torres García’s “lessons.” In it, he discusses the geometric foundations of Constructivist Art and calls for “setting oneself free” from what has been learned about the “ [...]

In this lecture, Joaquín Torres García (JTG) asserts that groups of artists that are not joined by theoretical ideas or stand behind a distinct ethical platform are pointless. He therefore repudiates the schools and groups in Uruguay, supporting [...]

This “lesson” given by Joaquín Torres García (JTG) is a manifesto of sorts. It is the first in which the artist formulates the idea of “inverting the map” of South America and asserts the existence of a local cultural identity that should [...]

This document is a transcription of one of the last lectures Joaquín Torres García gave at the Escuela Taller de Artes Plásticas (ETAP) in Montevideo. In it, he paves the way for cutting short the series of lectures he had been giving at that [...]

By means of an overview of modern art and its development, Joaquín Torres García lays out his Constructivist theory as the culmination (or convergence) of various strains of Western art. In his view, the moral value of the artist’s position lies [...]

This document is a transcription of a lesson that Joaquín Torres García (JTG) gave in January 1935, nine months after his return to Uruguay. It may have been given at Estudio 1035 or at the Escuela Taller de Artes Plásticas (ETAP). JTG attempts to [...]

His extensive preaching in favor of spiritual rectitude led Joaquin Torres García to reject the “superfluous” in art and keep the fundamental elements that make up the concept and structure of Constructivist art. The resulting logic of this [...]

In this essay, Joaquín Torres García speaks about “Lesson 50,” which was later published in his book Universalismo Constructivo (1944). In it there are some comments referencing selected paragraphs from another conference under the same title [...]

This essay is about a conference that was presented by Joaquín Torres García a few months after arriving in Montevideo in April 1934. In it, Torres García seeks to characterize the Uruguayan artistic environment while also proposing a path forward [...]

Joaquín Torres García expresses his support for geometric thinking (“which should dominate our art and our life”) based largely on the pre-Hispanic tradition in the Americas. He thus contradicts those who called for a [...]

This essay is on another new text about American art by Joaquín Torres García that addresses the distance from Europe after a harsh judgment about the “delay” in aesthetic concepts in Uruguay in which he tries to explain his concept of “ [...]

This [document] is on the thesis of art in America a developed by Joaquín Torres García during 1938 and 1939, when he wrote his Metafísica de la Prehistoria Indoamericana. The book aimed to associate pre-Hispanic tradition with what he called the [...]

Following harsh criticism of positivism (and eclecticism) of the intellectual environment of Montevideo, Joaquín Torres García presented his ideas about metaphysics, ethics, and religiosity in art. This text makes several important points about the [...]

In this essay, Joaquín Torres García attempts to link this sociopolitical doctrine with that of modern art after presenting a succinct historical review starting from “primitive communism” up through the Marxist doctrine. He does so by [...]

This article is called a “lesson” (as are all the chapters in the book Universalismo Constructivo, which is a collection of lectures), a reference to Joaquín Torres García’s didactic style throughout the lengthy volume. The project is the [...]

The introduction to Joaquín Torres García’s book, Universalismo Constructivo (published in Buenos Aires in 1944), was written two years earlier, and touches on many of the maestro’s fundamental ideas. It explains that his views are the result [...]

This article includes the text of a section that appeared before the introduction in Joaquín Torres García’s book, Universalismo Constructivo (published in Buenos Aires in 1944). Here the maestro refers to “the modernity” of current art, an [...]

This leaflet presents the work done in Madrid in 1933 by Joaquín Torres García and the Grupo de Arte Constructivo during JTG’s visit to Spain prior to returning to Uruguay for good. Three similar documents are known to exist, each one containing [...]

This leaflet presents the work done in Madrid in 1933 by Joaquín Torres García and the Grupo de Arte Constructivo during JTG’s visit to Spain prior to returning to Uruguay for good. Three similar documents are known to exist, each one containing [...]

This leaflet presents the work done in Madrid in 1933 by Joaquín Torres García and the Grupo de Arte Constructivo during JTG’s visit to Spain prior to returning to Uruguay for good. Three similar documents are known to exist, each one containing [...]

This lengthy article discusses the main doctrinaire questions that concerned Joaquín Torres García, stressing his personal view of the “American race” as a transplant with no roots, for which he proposes the development of a collective, “ [...]

Joaquín Torres García gave this lecture on David Alfaro Siqueiros and his mural painting at a time when several Argentinean artists who had worked closely with the Mexican painter in 1933—in particular Antonio Berni and Demetrio Urruchúa—were [...]

In response to the article published in the newspaper El Día by Carlos Herrera Mac-Lean (October 13, 1944), Joaquín Torres García published in the weekly magazine Marcha a particularly harsh response, especially, if one considered that the emitted [...]

In this text and newly arriving to his native country, Joaquín Torres García responds to the ostensive critique made by N.B. in the Issue No. 7, June−July 1934 publication of the magazine Movimiento.  Since number 7 of the magazine Movimiento ( [...]

The same year Joaquín Torres García meets Rafael Barradas in Barcelona, he sends to Montevideo an article praising the young Uruguayan who had just started living in Spain. He valued his work from the perspective of new visual artistic conceptions [...]

This article was written around the time Joaquín Torres García was giving his lecture on “Mística de la Pintura” and reviewing the main points supporting his conception of “art,” that is, immanentism [God or an abstract mind or spirit [...]

On the occasion of a tribute to Mexico, Joaquín Torres García gives a talk at the Ateneo de Montevideo about the major Mexican artists. He mentions the group of artists who are commonly referred to as “Los Tres Grandes:” David Alfaro Siqueiros [...]

Joaquín Torres García discusses the Uruguayan painter Carmelo de Arzadun’s change of course. Writing in a style that is rife with irony and veiled criticism of the local milieu, Torres García singles out Arzadun for having opted for [...]

An exhibition and sale of works by Uruguayan artists was held in January and February 1938 at the Ateneo de Montevideo as a fundraiser to help the children of Republican Spain, which at the time was battling fascist forces in the Spanish Civil War. A [...]

In this lecture delivered on September 5, 1941, in Montevideo, Joaquín Torres-García examines a recent exhibition of North American (United States) artists, asking what this work tells us about the “great problem” of the art of “our” [...]

In this text, Joaquín Torres-García theorizes about a vision for the future of American art. He begins by arguing that American art is deeply flawed because its forms are used only to depict regional themes. Torres-García explains that his theory [...]

This is the text of a lecture given by Joaquín Torres-García at the School of Science and Humanities in Montevideo, Uruguay, in which he reflected on modern art and even analyzed a number of theories. Among other controversial views, he announced [...]

Article in which Joaquín Torres-García analyzes literary creation, stemming from the guidelines of Constructivism. From this point of view, he proposes that poets should “build up” accordingly to the harmonic law, looking for invention within [...]