Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

This group exhibition, held at the Galería de Arte das Folhas in November 1959, included works by Giselda Leirner, Maria Leontina, Tomie Ohtake, Hércules Barsotti, and Willys de Castro. The latter introduces Barsotti’s drawings [...]

This brief article published in Revista de avance announces that a set of “studies” by the Cuban artist and caricaturist Rafael Blanco will be included in the exhibition 1927, featuring new art. First praising Blanco as a drawing instructor, the [...]

In this humorous parabolic text, León Ferrari compares art to a “very lovely woman” who deserves to enjoy the unabated pleasures of orgiastic sex rather than be courted by polite “gentlemen” or worshipped by [...]

In this article in the weekly Marcha, critic Daniel Heide discusses the growing interest in drawing as visual modality in Uruguay in the sixties. Heide explains that he will address the fantastic and realist connotations of this new strain of drawing [...]

On the occasion of a retrospective exhibition of works by Uruguayan draftsman who were active in the 1960s (a movement that was known as the Dibujazo), Gabriel Peluffo’s essay seeks to place the movement in the relevant socio-political context, [...]

This 1920 article by Sebastián Viviani was published in Trabajo, a periodical that was a vehicle for the Consejo Superior de la Enseñanza Industrial in Uruguay. The text is a summary of the lecture given by sculptor Antonio Pena—who taught [...]

In this 1920 article published in Trabajo, a conduit for the Escuela de Industrias, painter and printmaker Guillermo Rodríguez places emphasis on the practical nature of drawing instruction at industrial schools—an approach advocated by the Unión [...]

In this text, Jorge Páez Vilaró analyzes the pictorial work of Juan Carlos Figari Castro, son of painter Pedro Figari, pointing out his talent as a draftsman and the overall merit of his art. Páez Vilaró, himself a painter, understands that the [...]

This essay is on the article written by the psychiatrist Isidro Mas de Ayala in reference to one of his patients, Emilio Mas, the Spanish artist who had arrived in Montevideo towards the end of the nineteenth century. In the 1920s, the artist, who [...]

The author outlines his convictions on “artistic creation,” associating them to searches that are transcendent and tragic in character (as manifested in the title of the article). He conceives that the act of creating derives from spiritual [...]

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

This special edition of the magazine AIAPE (Agrupación de Intelectuales, Artistas, Periodistas y Escritores) was devoted entirely to the first Salón Municipal de Artes Plásticas (Montevideo, 1940). The sole article in the magazine was written by [...]

In this essay, which is arranged in five sections, María Elena Ramos discusses Cornelis Zitman’s sculptures and drawings. In the first section Ramos explains how the artist has chosen to portray the female form with exaggerated features that do [...]

In this article, the curator Bélgica Rodríguez reviews the career of the Venezuelan sculptor and draftsman Felipe Herrera, from his early training in the late 1960s to his most recent work, produced in 1996. After sketching a broad overview of the [...]

In this critique Susana Benko analyzes the work of Ivan Petrovsky. The author covers drawings by Petrovsky belonging to different periods of his artistic production, while describing the range of techniques and materials he used. Benko likewise [...]

The critic Juan Calzadilla analyzes the matter of drawing in [the context of the] Venezuelan art scene during the end of the seventies and the early eighties. The author introduces the text reflecting on the rise of this technique as a skill [...]

The critic Carlos Silva wrote a study of the work of the Venezuelan sculptor Edgar Guinand, pointing out two fundamental periods in his life in art. The first is defined by the writer in the visual arts context that follows the Latin American Post- [...]

The art critic Perán Erminy reviews and analyzes the exhibition Testimonios organized by El Techo de la Ballena in the context of an international meeting of this group. In this text, Erminy points out what he finds interesting in this exhibition: [...]

Here, the art historian Rafael Delgado develops a biographical and critical sketch of the Venezuelan painter and draftsman Pedro Centeno Valenilla. The article includes notes on his academic background as well as his early group and individual [...]

Roberto Guevara reviews what are described as the first and second stages in Corina Briceño’s career as an artist. Guevara begins by contextualizing her generation; he mentions that she is committed to reclaiming “a new humanism” expressed [...]

In this text, reporter Carlos Eduardo Misle, alias “Caremis,” remembers Venezuelan draftsman and humorist Leoncio Martínez, known as LEO, on the forty-second anniversary of his death. “Caremis” mainly discusses Leo’s work in advertising, [...]

The deterioration of the site occupied by the Taller Libre de Arte (TLA) [(in Caracas)] was evident in this [March 4, 1967] news item. The news piece reported on an order to repair the sanitary facilities and electrical system of the workshop and the [...]

In this essay, curator and researcher Eliseo Sierra argues that the seventh Bienal de Dibujo de Caracas is totally irrelevant because it no longer captures the reality of Venezuelan contemporary art. Sierra questions the reason for privileging one [...]

Mari Carmen Ramírez and the North American curator Edith A. Gibson curated Re-Aligning Vision. Alternative Currents in South American Drawing, the exhibition which was organized by the Archer Huntington Gallery in Austin, Texas. Gibson writes about [...]

The critic Juan Calzadilla reviews the work of the participants in the Gran Premio Christian Dior de Artes Visuales (Caracas, 1987), after ranting about Venezuelan art critics and art salons. He describes that milieu—of what he calls partisan and [...]

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 [...]

In this text, the critic Francisco Da Antonio reviews an exhibition of drawings by the Venezuelan painter Pascual Navarro held at Galería XX2 in Caracas. The review questions the intrinsic nature of a retrospective exhibition that does not include [...]

In Venezuela, curator Katherine Chacón reviews the work of Colombian artist Beatriz González, particularly in reference to her re-creation of artistic masterpieces, in painting, drawing, and objects, since 1962. To do so she establishes connections [...]

In his introduction to the catalogue Metamorfosis encontrada: Exposición individual de Mauro Mejías, critic Víctor Guédez considers the psychological, aesthetic, and formal aspects of the work by Mauro Mejías on exhibition. In Guédez’s view, [...]

This text, entitled “Lazo o la nueva ética,” by researcher Ruth Auerbach was featured in the catalogue for Antonio Lazo: Sentimiento, Convicción, Vivencias, an exhibition of work by Venezuelan painter Antonio Lazo (b. 1943). At the beginning of [...]

Elízabeth Schön describes the works of Gego from a poetic perspective. Regarding the artist’s drawings, Schön emphasizes the spareness of the forms generated by unrestricted freedom, art created for the sole purpose of [...]

Mari Carmen Ramírez investigates the theme of “transparency” as a basic element of Gego’s drawings. Ramírez asserts that both Gego’s drawings and her constructions are expressed in a perceptibly ambiguous plane. In fact, they result from [...]

Sandra Pinardi describes the qualities of line and drawing in Gego’s work. In the critic’s opinion, by virtue of the multiple directions in which it heads, Gego’s “immaterial line” reveals a dense and plural space. Thus [...]

In this essay, Luis Enrique Pérez Oramas describes Gego’s body of work. The curator identifies the artist’s early work in the category of geometric abstraction; however, as she developed, she moved toward an approach that was “organic and [...]

Luis Enrique Pérez Oramas believed that as a foreigner in Venezuela, Gego gave her work the function of an “analytical process” by constructing a “neutral space” in a time saturated by Kinetic art and geometric abstraction. Her work resists [...]

Hanni Ossott introduces Gego’s exhibition Gego: Dibujos para proyectos [Gego: Drawings for Projects], which includes the artist’s architectural, design, and art projects from 1937 to 1975. The critic suggests that during her training as an [...]

In this article, Yasmín Monsalve reports on Gego’s presence at the Twenty-third São Paulo Biennial in 1996, and on her exhibition Gego. Dibujos. Dibujos, grabados y tejeduras [Gego Drawings: Drawings, Prints, and Weavings] presented that same [...]

In this essay, Glenn D. Lowry discusses his reaction when in Venezuela in 2000, he discovered Gego’s work, having only ever seen a few of her sculptures and prints. He claims that he would have liked to meet her, and lists the questions he would [...]

Juan Ledezma compares the aesthetic strategies that Gego used to create shape in space.  Leaning on theories suggested by Jürgen Habermas, who classifies modern forms of reason, Ledezma analyzes the “formative logic” of Gego’s constructions [...]

Providing a study of the work and career of Venezuelan artist Teresa Gabaldón, art critic Roberto Guevara highlights her strong academic education and her knowledge of painting and drawing techniques. He emphasizes two great periods in her work; the [...]

In his essay in the catalogue for the exhibition Teresa Gabaldón. Dibujos at the Galería Minotauro in Caracas (November, 1985), the curator William Niño Araque reviews the Venezuelan artist and teacher’s work. He introduces the reader to the [...]

In the essay “Los nuevos procesos y la representación figurativa” [The New Processes and Figurative Representation], chapter III of the book La desaparición de los límites [The Disappearance of Limits], author Zuleiva Vivas explains the [...]

The essay “Visión panorámica de las nuevas cartografías. Los años setenta: se borran los límites” is the first chapter of the monographic book by Zuleiva Vivas on the life and work of Claudio Perna. In it, the author provides an overview of [...]

In her essay “Diego Barboza: El festín de la nostalgia,” published in the catalogue for the eponymous exhibition, curator Katherine Chacón, after providing information on the artist’s youth, studies, and his start in painting and drawing in [...]

In a text on the drawings and prints of José Luis Cuevas written in 1985, the art historian Catalina Banko compares his work to that of the Mexican muralists in order to show the major differences between them. To accomplish this, the Venezuelan [...]

In this review, Josefina Núñez refers to Gego’s training and development as a graphic artist, and discusses her technical and creative approach to printing and lithography. Núñez takes a long look at Gego’s art based on her unique use of line [...]

Journalist Teresa Alvarenga interviews painter Mateo Manaure on the occasion of his fiftieth birthday. The artist recounts his life story, starting with his first job in 1941. He describes how he got involved in the world of printing and graphic art [...]

In this text, historian José María Salvador discusses Pinturas topológicas/Superficies activas, asolo show of work by Manuel Quintana Castillo held at Galería Altamira in Caracas in 1993. Salvador focuses on the aesthetic, technical, and [...]

Luis Guevara Moreno describes drawing as “the quickest and most efficient way to capture form vividly.” He views drawing as the clearest way to convey a thought, calling it an especially pure form of expression in terms of both “the means and [...]

María Elena Ramos introduces the exhibition of works by the fifth generation of graduates from CEGRA (Centro de Enseñanza Gráfico, in Caracas). Ramos explains that in its ten-year existence, CEGRA has graduated five generations of artists, all [...]