Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

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 magazine Los Huevos del Plata founded in Montevideo by Clemente Padín, published the manifesto of the Brazilian group Maldoror that politically identified itself with revolutionary and antimilitaristic principles that were plainly active during [...]

In 1965, the original manifesto of the magazine Los Huevos del Plata was an avant-garde platform advocating against Uruguayan cultural dominance by the so-called Generación del ’45, a group of writers who exerted and promoted their strong [...]

This essay is on “Hachepiencia,” the manifesto produced by the Uruguayan group Los hachepientos, which was formed by Clemente Padín, Héctor Paz, and Juan José Linares. The principal objectives of the group were outlined in the manifesto [...]

In this essay, the artist and performer Clemente Padín explains the concept of “street art and urban art” following the alternative art exhibition, Tomarte, held in the city of Rosario, Argentina, in April 1990, with the pretense [...]

In this text, artist and essayist Francisco Tomsich interviews Clemente Padín about his artistic career and the performance he did at the Boxing Club de Barrio Sur in Montevideo in 1987 in which he condemned the forced disappearance of individuals [...]

This article was published in El País, a newspaper run by sectors of the Partido Nacional, one of Uruguay’s two traditional political parties. It reports on the occupation of the Subte exhibition space in Montevideo by a group of visual artists [...]

This document, the flier handed out by the visual artists who, in August 1963, occupied the city of Montevideo’s Subte exhibition space, contains ideological developments of a local and an international nature. It recognizes the importance of [...]

This document is a letter from a group of Uruguayan intellectuals—among them eminent visual artists like Guillermo Laborde, Bernabé Michelena, Domingo Bazzurro, and Carlos Prevosti— to President Franklin D. Roosevelt joining in the international [...]

Entitled “La función social del arte,” this article discusses one of the final lectures given by philosopher Carlos Vaz Ferreira. In the lecture, Vaz Ferreira describes the figure of an intellectual not committed to the social and political [...]

This article advocates “social art” in Uruguay in the framework of the ideological battle between capitalist society and the Soviet Communist regime. The author clearly supports the latter position when he asserts that not even the members of the [...]

This article by Francisco R. Pintos is a response to the one by Juvenal Ortiz Saralegui published in the previous issue of Movimiento journal. Whereas Ortiz Saralegui was conciliatory in his approach to the problem of the relationship between “pure [...]

This article by Juvenal Ortiz Saralegui formed part of the early debates in the leftist press in Uruguay on the relationship between art and politics, debates that largely ensued in the publication of the Confederación de Trabajadores Intelectuales [...]

This text by writer Darío Ruiz Gómez was written on the occasion of an exhibition of prints by artists Umberto Giangrandi, Carlos Granada, and Fabio Rodríguez. Ruiz Gómez contrasts Colombian art’s widespread lack of commitment with the vitality [...]

The text “Meta-estéticas de disrupción” proposes an approach to the development of new social and power structures based on the dynamics of the production and distribution of knowledge worldwide. Its starting point is the proposal and [...]

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 [...]

The person who wrote the text for this catalogue was the curator José María Salvador. He begins his approach to the Venezuelan public figure César Rengifo by praising the many facets that made up his life and work. In addition to being a visual [...]

In this text, Colombian art critic Eduardo Serrano—curator of the Museo de Arte Moderno of Bogotá—presents the exhibition Arte y Política held at that institution in 1974. Serrano asserts that politics is more than a recurring theme in the work [...]

In this brief statement, Gilbert Sanchez Lujan, artist and founding member of the Los Angeles Chicano art collective, Los Four, defines the term “pocho” as it relates to Chicano art and cultural identity. Pocho, previously employed by Mexicans as [...]

In this text, art historian and activist Victor Alejandro Sorell ponders on arguments for designating Chicano people a nation: the history of the twelfth-century Aztec homeland Aztlán, —located in the U.S. Southwest,— included; the seizure of [...]

Written by well-known muralist John Pitman Weber, this essay provides biographical information on Carlos Cortez, a Milwaukee-born and Chicago-based artist and poet of Mexican-Indian and German ancestry. Weber talks about the places and people Cortez [...]

Marta Traba, the Argentine critic who lived in Puerto Rico for some time, accepts that there is a political and cultural “art of resistance” in Latin America and in Puerto Rico. This “resistance” refuses to follow aesthetic models developed [...]

In this interview, Carlos Cortez talks about his artistic influences, including the Mexican muralists, Käthe Kollwitz, and Rembrandt, among others. He considers the social, political, and economic motivations that underpin his art. He also describes [...]

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 brief document outlines the history of the Mexican American Liberation Art Front (MALAF). Written collectively by the member artists, it details the mission and goals of the group, linking its development as a critical mouthpiece of the [...]

This document is a handwritten letter in Spanish by Leo Tanguma and addressed to Malaquias Montoya. Tanguma informs Montoya of an art project he is planning to do in conjunction with the public school system in Denver, Colorado, to address the high [...]

In this document, muralist Judith Baca discusses the development of the Chicano mural movement, brought to light in conditions of unrest and injustice in Los Angeles. Baca underlines the unique physical characteristics of Los Angeles that facilitated [...]

In this document Chicana art critic Yvonne Yarbro-Bejarano analyzes important works by two prominent Chicana visual artists, Ester Hernández and Yolanda López in order to show how both women subvert popular imagery and iconography to reclaim it [...]

In this issue of Caribe, dedicated to the New York-based activist group, the Young Lords Party, Dr. Marta Moreno Vega justifies their relevance to the mission of the Caribbean Cultural Center of improving the living conditions of Hispanics and people [...]

In this essay, Michael Crockford discusses how the artistic practices of Yolanda Lopez combine feminism, activism, and community building. He observes that Lopez challenges indeed lowly depictions of Mexican-Americans in the United States by [...]

In this essay, Michael Crockford discusses how the artistic practices of Yolanda Lopez combine feminism, activism, and community building. He observes that Lopez challenges indeed lowly depictions of Mexican-Americans in the United States by [...]

In 1995, Nuyorican poet Pedro Pietri wrote “El Manifesto: Notes on El Puerto Rican Embassy,” which describes the sociopolitical condition of Puerto Ricans as a colonial people whose sense of nationhood is expressed and maintained through the [...]

This text by Elizam Escobar, a noted Puerto Rican nationalist, artist, and writer, is a largely autobiographical account of his artistic and political evolution in the island and the United States. Written in prison, the essay reflects on his [...]

In this text, the Mexican writer Julio Solórzano contextualizes a lecture that the Chicago mural painter and activist John Weber gave while in Mexico and includes a brief history of Latino murals in Chicago. Solarzano explains that the mural [...]

In this text, Coral Gilbert and Ricardo Frazer interview Carlos Cortez, a Chicago artist, poet, and social activist. Cortez speaks about his parents’ radicalism and artistic involvements and the part they played in his personal development. He [...]

Given the circumstances of the time, David Alfaro Siqueiros advocated that art should be transparent and dedicated to the struggle; it should be a tool for propaganda that was also open to technical innovation. In his opinion, pure art should wait [...]

In this document, Elizabeth Martínez interviews Chicana visual artist and activist Yolanda López. The interview addresses López’s involvement in Chicano activism and community organizing, and underscores the relationship between art and [...]

This essay is a statement by artist José Montoya, from Sacramento, California, on the compromised state of Chicano art at that moment (1986). He argues that there is a divide between Chicano artists who wish to remain true to the intentions and [...]

In 1948, many years after their relationship ended, Graciela Amador relates events from her life with David Alfaro Siqueiros in four articles. This fourth and last article tells how the governor of Jalisco, José Guadalupe Zuno invited Siqueiros to [...]

This essay by Frances Flynn Paine covers the life and career of Diego Rivera, emphasizing its romantic aspects as well as his early vocation, his extraordinary imagination, his great intelligence, and his passionate temperament. The narrative is [...]

María Izquierdo describes the customs of the inhabitants of the small mining village of Chillán, Chile, which was damaged by a strong earthquake in January 1939. Mexico declared its support for Chile, presenting Chillán with the construction of [...]

“The Red International”—as Ramón Pi, Jr. referred to himself—describes his vehicle for distributing revolutionary words and images from his base in New York. His goal is to place his publication in the hands of professionals whose names he [...]

In this essay, Rafael Montañez Ortiz, an artist of Puerto Rican descent born in the United States, relates his early history as an artist and activist working in New York City during the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s. He provides a firsthand account of [...]

This article reports on events that took place in 1933 at Columbia University in New York, where students went on strike to protest the dismissal of “an economics professor who had expressed radical ideas.” A meeting was arranged at which the [...]

In this essay, artist Fernando Salicrup recalls his first years at Taller Boricua [Puerto Rican Workshop]. Salicrup notes that he was introduced to the collective by the artist Jorge Soto, and during the 1970s, he was also influenced by poets such as [...]

In this essay, Puerto Rican-born artist, Diogenes Ballester, gives a brief overview of Puerto Rican art and artists working in El Barrio (East Harlem, New York City) from the 1940s to 2000 and categorizes the art produced into three themes: 1) [...]

Marcos Dimas, an artist and cofounder of Taller Boricua [Puerto Rican Workshop], relates the early history and ideals of the Taller. The three main objectives of the artists who founded the collective were: 1) to create a forum for the artistic [...]

Marcos Dimas, artista y cofundador del Taller Boricua, ofrece en este prefacio una breve perspectiva general de la evolución del Taller desde la década de setenta al año 2000. En el texto, Dimas describe las dificultades que tuvo que superar el [...]

In this essay, poet and artist José Montoya elaborates on the crucial role of the media—especially for Chicanos who historically have been negatively portrayed in the United States. Switching seamlessly between Spanish and English, Montoya relates [...]

Diego Rivera denounces the “sordid sabotage” that the French poet André Breton has been subjected to at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México: as an action driven by a network of intellectuals controlled by the Soviet [...]