Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

The text “¡Pare de sufrir!: Decálogo de autoayuda para espectadores intimidados por las exposiciones de arte,” written by artist and critic Lucas Ospina was initially published on the website http://esferapublica.org on July 15, 2007. It was [...]

In this essay Rodrigo Quijano describes the period as having “contributed to the consolidation of a specific direction in Peruvian contemporary art” that, in his opinion, was characterized by “a virtual fragmentation of subjectivities” and by [...]

In this essay, which is the introduction to the book Ciudad–Espejo [City–Mirror] (2009), the Colombian critic Natalia Gutiérrez bases her review of Colombian contemporary art on the works presented at the 39 Salón Nacional de Artistas [39th [...]

José Clemente Orozco did not publish any more political caricatures after the 1913 Decena Trágica [Tragic Ten Days]. This paragraph discusses at length the late-nineteenth-century transition from the end of the traditional press to the efficiency [...]

The synopsis and the annotations in English are coming soon.                                However, our bilingual readers can click on “Español” to access this information in Spanish [...]

Under the title “‘¡Ay, si yo fuera pintor!’: Crítica, texto y traducción”, the artist and critic Lucas Ospina wrote a timely essay. It was published in the second issue of the journal Cuadernos Grises, issued by the Arts Department at the [...]

This is the record of the interview granted by the artist and researcher Rosario López Parra to UN medios (Centro de Medios de la Universidad Nacional de Colombia–Bogotá) [UN Media (Media Center at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia–Bogot [...]

The text “He aquí, pues, mis citaciones a la audiencia” by Natalia Gutiérrez is the eleventh chapter of ciudad-espejo (2006), a theoretical research project that focuses on artists whose work—mostly in the medium of photography—attempts to [...]

In this text, artist Ricardo Basbaum reflects on specific aspects of his production in order to investigate the broader issues underlying his Novas Bases para a Personalidade (NBP) project. By means of the oral style of the text, the artist engages [...]

This is the text for Otras Miradas = Other Glances, written by the historian and art critic Carmen María Jaramillo Jiménez for the exhibition that was organized with the help of the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2004. The [...]

The curator Cecilia Fajardo-Hill introduces the exhibition Usted, el espacio by the Venezuelan visual artist Alí González, held at the Galería D’Museo in Caracas in 2001. In connection with that event, the curator discusses the artist’s recent [...]

This text consists of excerpts from the catalogue for the exhibition Para nunca esquecer. Negras memórias/ Memórias de Negros, held at the Museu Histórico Nacional (in Rio de Janeiro in 2001). It includes scores of texts and poems by writers who [...]

This text by Carmen María Jaramillo discusses the exhibition, Colombia, años 70: Revista al arte colombiano (2002), curated by artist John Castles. Jaramillo presents the idea that some of the pioneering works of contemporary art in Colombia must [...]

This manuscript was created by Óscar Muñoz, with photographs of his major works for his presentation at the Tate Gallery in London, as part of the Global Photography Now: Latin America conference held on November 10, 2006. Muñoz provides an [...]

Isadora de Norden—who was president of the Colombian-French Alliance’s Cultural Committee in Bogotá—wrote this introduction to the first publication of “Nuevas propuestas: arte colombiano 1999-2002” [New Works: Colombian Art 1999-2002]. [...]

This essay was written by the artist Rosemberg Sandoval as the introduction to the exhibition catalogue Dibujos sobre lona, video e instalación, Rosemberg Sandoval that was organized by the Galería Casas Riegner in 2009. In his essay, Sandoval [...]

In this short poem, Ralph de Romero, a Puerto Rican artist born in New York, explains why he has always been an artist, never paying any attention to other people’s opinion [of him]. In the poem, de Romero explains that his dedication is documented [...]

This text is a section of the catalogue to the exhibition of photography that accompanied the Simposio de Justicia Restaurativa y Paz en Colombia held in Cali in 2005. In it, art critic and curator María Iovino introduces the work of Colombian [...]

In this essay—that appeared in the leaflet for the exhibition En la Trama personal [In the Personal Web] that was presented at the Alonso Garcés Gallery in Bogotá in June-July 2004—the art critic Carmen María Jaramillo discusses the latest [...]

Eduardo Serrano introduces the retrospective exhibition of the work of Ever Astudillo. Serrano considers Astudillo to be among the first Colombian artists to “imbue the art of drawing with a meaning and a presence that positioned it as an [...]

This document was written by the Colombian critic and historian Álvaro Medina by way of an introduction to Gustavo Zalamea’s 1975 exhibition El gran Burundún-Burundá, presented in the gallery Viva México, in the city of Caracas, Venezuela. This [...]

In this short poem, Ralph de Romero, a Puerto Rican artist born in New York, criticizes a Christian prayer by repeating “blah, blah, blah, blah . . . ” to show his lack of interest in either prayers or the Ten Commandments. Romero concludes his [...]

This letter by Venezuelan artist Alejandro Otero to his friend, the art critic Alfredo Boulton, is quite revealing. Written in Paris in 1948, in the letter the artist makes reference to his day-to-day activities as a scholarship student, and as a [...]

In this letter, art critic Alfredo Boulton reveals to his friend, the artist Alejandro Otero, then in Paris, about his reservations with the new extra-pictorial [habitually not used] materials he had begun using after the Coloritmos series created by [...]

In this brief article, Ralph de Romero, a Puerto Rican artist born in New York, expresses his thoughts about the duality of life: both the physical and the spiritual. The introspective tone of the article concludes with comments about the side street [...]

In this letter addressed to professor Frithjof Trapp at the Universität von Hamburg, Gego, the German-born Venezuelan artist, looks back on her life and talks about her origins in the city of Hamburg, Germany: her family, her schooling, her [...]

In this essay, Ron Kovatch explores how issues of relocation, assimilation, and identity are manifest in the group of sculptures by Raoul Deal presented in the installation Reinventing Jimmy Green. Inspired by his grandfather Eugenio Greco’s [...]

In this brief chapter, the artist and researcher Nicolás Gómez Echeverri explains how the art critic Marta Traba became a cultural icon on television in Colombia. Gómez draws on his research to describe the physical and intellectual [...]

This document includes the introductory chapter to the book Cuerpo gramatical: cuerpo, arte y violencia [Grammatical Body: Body, Art, and Violence], in which the Colombian artist José Alejandro Restrepo considers the (human) “body” as an area [...]

This is the fourth chapter of En blanco y negro: Marta Traba en la televisión colombiana, 1954–1958 [In Black and White: Marta Traba on Colombian Television, 1954–1958], in which the author, the artist and researcher Nicolás Gómez Echeverri, [...]

In this document, independent curator, Laura Roulet provides a biographical sketch of Charles Juhasz and Arnaldo Morales—two artists that the author has identified as the third generation of Puerto Rican artists to dedicate their work to [...]

In the book 11 tipos. Arte en Venezuela en los años setenta, the researcher Juan Carlos Palenzuela makes an exhaustive study of Venezuelan art in the1970s, a time when conceptual art was unquestionably being produced in that country. The author [...]

The anthropologist and art critic Natalia Gutiérrez examines some representative works by Colombian artists in order to analyze Colombian art of the 1990s. She believes this method helps her to avoid using general theories that “pigeonhole” them [...]

Critic María Luz Cárdenas explains the various categories used to classify the works produced in the seventies by the artists participating in the twenty-fifth Salón Nacional de Arte Aragua (Maracay, 2000). Her curatorial thesis for the event [...]

This document is the postcard produced to publicize the call for submissions organized by the Helena Producciones collective for the seventh edition of the Festival de Performance of Cali. It was released to the public on May 23, 2008 at an event [...]

This text by anthropologist Rita Amaral covers the collection of ritual art—specifically of the Afro-Brazilian cult Candomblé—which forms part of the collection of the Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia at the Universidade de São Paulo. She [...]

Former curator of El Museo del Barrio, Gladys Peña-Acosta relates her experience as chief curator and interim director of that institution throughout the late 1970s and into the ‘80s. She discusses the process of introducing professional standards [...]

Rubens Mano analyzes the relation between artists and urban spaces during the 1960s and 1970s, both of which introduced into the visual arts a key discussion of the implications of their entry into the core of urban life. The making of art becomes an [...]

The synopsis and the annotations in English are coming soon.    However, our bilingual readers can click on “Español” to access this information in Spanish [...]

In this essay, Annateresa Fabris addresses the issue of identity and its connections to the visual arts in Latin America. She refers to the concept of a “sense of place” in the development of the symbolic system that posits the idea of a “ [...]

In this text, author William Friedman analyzes the impact of Mauricio Lasansky—as artist and professor at the University of Iowa—in printmaking during the years 1946 to 1949. During this period, Lasansky and his students were the recipients of [...]

This book is about the collections of featherwork at the MAA-USP (Museu de Arte e Arqueologia, da Universidade de São Paulo). The introduction is by the anthropologist Paula Monter; Fernando Mendonça d´Horta provides the [...]

Fernando Cocchiarale wrote a historical overview of the pioneering uses of technology in art created in Rio de Janeiro, emphasizing the return of the close links between art and life initiated in the 1960s. The writer also foresaw the revival of the [...]

In this text, curator Edna Prometheu explains that Sala Escura da Tortura is a new staging of the exhibition that took place at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 1973—at a time when a large number of Brazilian exiles from the [...]

Journalist Ildemaro Torres analyzes the life and work of painter Abilio Padrón (b. 1931). In his article he describes the artistic process of his career as a draftsman and graphic illustrator. The author likewise includes in his text a chronology [...]

The art critic and historian Frederico Morais discusses the Brazilian artist Abraham Palatnik’s career, describing him as a pioneer—even at an international level—in the creative blending of art and technology that he used to create his kinetic [...]

[This is an] historical account of Clã [Clan], which is a literary journal focused on modernism in the state of Ceará (Northeast Brazil) that emphasized the work produced by local painters. The first issue (zero) appeared in 1946, and the journal [...]

In this article, visual artist Humberto Junca provides a powerful critical analysis of Rosemberg Sandoval’s solo exhibition, entitled Acciones Políticas, held at Casas Riegner gallery in Bogotáin 2008. The author divides the text into three [...]

This is an interview by the art critic Rosa Queralt with Yamandú Canosa in regard to his 2003 exhibition held in Spain, named La línea h (iceberg), at the Art Center of Salamanca. It was published in the catalogue Premio Pedro Figari (2007–08 [...]

In this essay, art historian Robert Farris Thompson provides a narrative of Manuel Vega’s biography and art. Vega, a New Yorker of Puerto Rican descent, grew up in the tough streets of the Bronx. In his early years, Vega gravitated toward diverse [...]