Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

In his introduction to the debate that pitted figuration against abstraction, Miguel Otero Silva discusses recent Venezuelan art. He identifies the main teachers at the Escuela de Artes Plásticas y Aplicadas de Caracas and the members of the jury at [...]

In the second article in his series “Conceptos concretos sobre el arte abstracto,” the writer Miguel Otero Silva rejects the idea of dividing art into two camps: abstract and figurative art. In his opinion, this makes as little sense as talking [...]

In this article, Miguel Otero Silva discusses the similar origins of abstraction in two painters who helped to inspire two major movements: the Russian (lyrical) artist Wassily Kandinsky and the Dutch (geometric) artist Piet Mondrian. Otero Silva [...]

This is the fourth article in the series by writer Miguel Otero Silva on “Conceptos concretos sobre la pintura abstracta,” in which he discusses abstract painting from an ideological instead of a visual perspective. He believes that art can be [...]

The introductory text in the catalogue of the Héctor Poleo exhibition was written by Miguel Otero Silva. In it he presents a chronology on the work of the Venezuelan artist that focuses on how the artist interprets the human drama through his [...]

[In 1981,] the writer Miguel Otero Silva wrote an introduction to the catalogue for an exhibition of the work of the Venezuelan artist Luis Alfredo López Méndez. This text discusses the artist’s training, the influences that affected him and his [...]

In this final article in his polemic against the opinions of painter Alejandro Otero, writer Miguel Otero Silva recapitulates the arguments put forth in the other eight articles in the series Conceptos concretos… He repeats, for instance, his [...]

The writer Miguel Otero Silva disputes the statements made by the artist Alejandro Otero protesting the verdict of the jurors of the XVIII Salón Oficial de Arte Venezolano of 1957. He considers three fundamental reasons for his rebuttal: 1) one [...]

In this article, Miguel Otero Silva expresses his reservations concerning abstract artists who presume to see their subjectivity or internal world in universal human terms. Given their provincial origins and limited schooling, Otero Silva maintains [...]

In this article, the writer Miguel Otero Silva criticizes the functional nature that abstract artists try to give their work by the subordination of them to the decorative whims of architecture. According to the author, this brings painting down to [...]

Adopting a different tone from the one he used in his previous article (“El regreso a lo funcional y a lo decorativo”), Miguel Otero Silva assures his readers he has nothing against new trends in art; but he objects to the assumption that [...]

In the final article in his series “Conceptos concretos sobre la pintura abstracta,” the Venezuelan journalist and writer Miguel Otero Silva refers to a poll conducted by the French magazine Preuves [Proofs], in which the forty-eight young [...]