Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

The writer Salvador Garmendia reviews the exhibition of photographs by Daniel González; he describes the methodology of the mobile photography that treats the street as its own laboratory, in constant communication with chance. In his images, [...]

Malas modales (Bad Manners) is a 1965 book of poetry by Juan Calzadilla (1965) divided into four parts: “Criminal,” “Counting down to zero,” “Changing of the guard,” and “Hunting,” each composed of [...]

In this article written for the newspaper Jueves/El Nacional around 1961, Esteban Muro describes a party and performance in Caracas held by the Venezuelan avant-garde group El Techo de la Ballena. He farcically begins the letter as an oficial RSVP to [...]

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 [...]

The university professor Christiane Dimitriades studies the assemblages (“boxes”) by Gabriel Morera, analyzing the main features—such as their varied contents and three-dimensional nature—which make them so much more than simply painting and [...]

This document is the first issue of the magazine Rayado sobre el Techo published by the visual artists and writers who formed part of El Techo de la Ballena, a group active in Caracas from 1961 to 1968. This issue contains texts crucial to the group [...]

This introduction to Carlos Contramaestre’s exhibition Los Tumorales is divided into two parts: the first was written by the artist himself and the second by Juan Calzadilla (both were members of the El Techo de la Ballena group). In his section, [...]

In this text, Ángel Rama analyzes and assesses the importance of El Techo de la Ballena, an avant-garde group that emerged in Venezuela in the early sixties. He reproduces a selection of what he considers the group’s most important writings, [...]

Written by the members of the group El Techo de la Ballena and published in the first issue of their magazine Rayado sobre el Techo, this essay expresses their desire to return to matter—that is, to “the magma”—in an original act that frees [...]

Francisco Pérez Perdomo wrote the prologue for Asfalto-Infierno, the book by Adriano González Léon (text) and Daniel González (photographs), published by El Techo de la Ballena (Caracas, 1961–68), the group to which these artists belonged. Pé [...]

This is the second issue of Rayado sobre el Techo, the magazine published by the visual artists and writers in the group El Techo de la Ballena (Caracas, 1961–68). Inspired by the slogan “Change life, transform society,” this issue included the [...]

In this text, the members of El Techo de la Ballena, a group that emerged in the sixties, in Caracas, delineated the differences between categories such as “tacky,” “unfortunate,” and “ridiculous” in the exhibition, Homenaje a la cursiler [...]

In this “Segundo Manifiesto”—jointly written by members of El Techo de la Ballena (Caracas, 1961–68)—the group identified the artistic movements they challenged as follows: traditional landscape painting, social realism, geometrical [...]

In this newspaper article, Eduardo Robles Piquer (alias RAS) describes the exhibition Homenaje a la necrofilia and interviews the painter and writer Carlos Contramaestre, whose work is shown at the exhibition, and who is a member of El Techo de la [...]

The author of this article assesses the main accomplishments of the Venezuelan group El Techo de la Ballena, two years after it was founded. It was considered one of the most spirited groups in the history of Venezuelan art because of the changes it [...]