Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

In this text, Sergio Benvenuto, director of Artes journal, describes and analyzes the visual arts in Uruguay and its connections to the rest of Latin America; he points out cultural differences from Anglo-Saxon America. Benvenuto asserts that [...]

In this article, Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros explains his vision of art history which, in his view, wavers between moments of socialization (or social integration) and moments of individualism (or decadence). It is on those grounds that [...]

In his famous “Manifiesto 1,” Joaquín Torres García repudiates the article published in the Confederación de Trabajadores Intelectuales del Uruguay’s journal Movimiento. Torres García’s text, in turn, occasioned “Contestando a Torres [...]

This essay analyzes the posture taken by the Uruguayan intellectuals when faced with the dictatorship of Gabriel Terra (1931−38). This 1933 coup d’état provoked a shift in the political stance of the intellectuals and particularly of the [...]

In this article, Juan F. Ballón discusses the recent revolutionary process that began in Arequipa and went on to overthrow the dictator Augusto B. Leguía. In Ballón’s opinion, it was a “total” revolution that involved “all the events, all [...]

This charter document lists the main cultural guidelines established by the self-styled Gobierno Revolucionario de las Fuerzas Armadas Peruanas (1968–80). The text, which is divided into several chapters, discusses a number of prior situations and [...]

This article acknowledges the accomplishments of the policy of producing public events—such as the Contacta 72 and Inkari festivals—instituted by the self-styled Gobierno Revolucionario de las Fuerzas Armadas en el Perú (1968–75). It explains [...]

This article briefly discusses the connections between “revolution” and “culture”—in this case in terms of the military government led by General Juan Velasco Alvarado (1968–75). The anonymous author notes that because the revolution “ [...]

This anonymous and comprehensive article was assumed to be the “official” response by the First Gobierno Revolucionario de las Fuerzas Armadas Peruanas (1968–75) on the controversy generated by a possible historical error relating to the [...]

This is the first article by the writer César Miró about efforts to create an official image of Túpac Amaru II, the indigenous hero of Peruvian independence, to be used as an icon during the first phase of the self-styled Gobierno Revolucionario [...]

“El arte y la violencia revolucionaria” is one of the chapters of Arte y violencia en Colombia desde 1948 by Álvaro Medina. A historian and curator, Medina provides a serious reflection on the relationships between artistic practices and the [...]

According to the Mexico-based Cuban curator Osvaldo Sánchez, kitsch is a constant trope in the visual culture and art of Cuba. His text traces the evolution and diverse historical reiterations of kitsch on the island, which leads him to parody the [...]

In “Nueva Pintura de Cuba,” Cuban cultural scholar Graziella Pogolotti illustrates the importance of a specific generation of Cuban artists who began to paint during the country’s most tumultuous period. In the 1953 exhibition, Homage to Mart [...]

In this essay, Mexican poet, writer, and diplomat Octavio Paz analyzes Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo’s relationship with Mexican popular art and Pre-Columbian art. According to Tamayo, popular art should not be seen as art but as a functional [...]

This essay examines the “proletarian” ambiguities to be found in questions of aesthetics and, more precisely, the risk involved in the production of arbitrary dogmatic statements concerning the connection between art and politics. The author [...]

Martí Casanovas, a Catalan journalist who resided in Cuba, relates the resurgence of Indianism in Mexico with a modification in economic and social structures. Despite the opposition it faced in the late twenties, the Mexican Revolution progressed; [...]

In his capacity as President-elect of Colombia, Alfonso López Pumarejo traveled to Mexico in July 1934—when Lázaro Cárdenas was making a run for the presidency—to learn more about recent Mexican social and political innovations. Enthused by [...]

This text recounts an exhibition that Movimiento Artístico Chicano (MARCH) which was organized around Agustín V. Casasola’s memorable photographs of the 1910 Mexican Revolution. In this article, Mary Kay Vaughan recounts the films, lectures, and [...]

This article by historian Carlos Daniel Valcárcel was published in the context of the debate surrounding the true image of Túpac Amaru II, indigenous forefather of independence during the Viceroyalty of Peru. After pointing out the nonexistence of [...]

This printed poster is divided into two parts. In the upper left-hand corner, a black-and-white photograph shows a close-up of a man behind bars looking straight ahead. In the background there is a two-story structure with white walls. To the right [...]

This forty-eight page catalogue consists of the following sections: “Manifiesto de los artistas independientes a los artistas de las Américas” [Manifesto Dedicated by Independent Artists to the Artists of the Americas] (two pages); “La [...]

Incarcerated in the Federal Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas, Ricardo Floren Magón was one of the principal intellectual precursors to the Mexican Revolution. He writes a letter (dated November 30, 1920) to his "comrade," Elena White of New York [...]

The Peruvian intellectual, José Carlos Mariátegui, contends that “no todo el arte nuevo es revolucionario, ni es tampoco verdaderamente nuevo” [not all modern art is revolutionary; in fact, neither is it truly modern]. Revolutionary and [...]

Iván de la Nuez’s entry for the exhibition catalog Cuba siglo XX: Modernidad y sincretismo [Twentieth-Century Cuba: Modernity and Syncretism] focuses on Cuban art made on the island as well as art made in exile from the onset of the 1959 Cuban [...]

Iván de la Nuez’s entry for the exhibition catalog Cuba siglo XX: Modernidad y sincretismo [Twentieth-Century Cuba: Modernity and Syncretism] focuses on Cuban art made on the island as well as art made in exile from the onset of the 1959 Cuban [...]

This selection of documents begins with Raymond Poincaré’s—the future president of France (1913-20)—preface to Francisco García-Calderón’s book, Les démocraties latines d’Amérique. Poincaré praises Calderón’s book and traces the [...]

According to Luis Cardoza y Aragón, poetry enjoyed greater development in Mexico than the visual arts because the former was situated on the margins of the national-pictorial movement. The proof of this can be found in the confluence of the Mexican [...]

The fourteen tenets upheld by Luis Cardoza y Aragón—those that were to be debated among the members of the Liga de Escritores y Artistas Revolucionarios (LEAR) [League of Revolutionary Writers and Artists]—proposed an art movement free of [...]

Leobardo Reynoso, the representative for the Partido Revolucionario Mexicano (PRM) [Mexican Revolutionary Party], questions the president concerning any Communist influence in the government. President Lázaro Cárdenas replies that there is not and [...]

The Cuban historian Adelaida de Juan discusses the changes and accomplishments in art and in the politics of art that were forged by the Cuban Revolution and that have been in place since 1959. She mentions famous artists whose work has changed; [...]

As President of the Artistic Solidarity Committee with Chile, Mário Pedrosa addresses then President Salvador Allende Gossens during the reception ceremony for the works that would make up the collection of the Museo de la Solidaridad in Santiago. [...]

In this letter, the painter [and writer] Roubaix de l’Abrie Richey, known by the pseudonym, “Robo,” the husband of the Italian artist and photographer, Tina Modotti, writes to Edward Weston from Mexico City. The writer is visiting Mexico in [...]

The well-known Puerto Rican writer José Emilio González (1918–1990) talks about the role of the artist in revolutionary Cuba. Quoting a number of Cuban intellectuals, González suggests that discussions on the role of the artist are very popular [...]

In this editorial column, Carlos Cortez comments on the exhibition of Agustín V. Casasola’s photographs, Mexposición II: Images of the Revolución, noting that all of the heroes of the Mexican Revolution, as well as many average participants and [...]

This group of texts describes an exhibition of Augustín V. Casasola’s photographs—and the public programs that accompanied it—organized by Movimiento Artístico Chicano (MARCH) and mounted at the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1976. In [...]

In this text, Jose G. Gonzalez describes an exhibition of photographs by Agustin V. Casasola of the Mexican Revolution that was organized by Movimiento Artístico Chicano (MARCH) and displayed in the Chicago Circle galleries of the University of [...]

In this text, Victor Alejandro Sorell writes that Chicago State University observed the 66th anniversary of the Mexican Revolution with a dedication of an eight-panel portable mural by Raymond Patlan entitled El Grito de la Raza Cósmica, [The Cry of [...]

Martí Casanovas relativizes the use of the term “avant-garde.” As applied in the Mexican context, it could be understood as the kind of “hermetic exclusivism” that defines art for art’s sake, which would deprive it of its impassioned [...]

This article reprints a report published in Yucatán Gráfico magazine that describes recent activities of the local visual arts milieu. Following the creation of the Escuela de Bellas Artes [School of Fine Arts] in the state of Yucatán by the [...]

In the words of Diego Rivera, certain artists made use of the concepts of jingoism and patriotism in a manner that led to the creation of a completely bourgeois art form. He sees, as an example, the ghost of Nazism and the persecution of the Jews in [...]

This article contains concise reports on Mexican history regarding the intellectual ideas that brought about the principle episodes of Mexico’s independent era. After a quick summary of the imposition of Catholicism on the indigenous peoples, it [...]

In this article the author reflects upon the humanistic character he attributes to Mexican culture: “Mexico has shown itself to be a country that is especially receptive to assimilating this kind of culture and making its own contributions to it [...]

The old Guatemalan Estridentista, Arqueles Vela, muses on how the revolution influenced Mexican art. He does not believe that cubism or the poetry of the proletariat were the first fields to be affected; instead, he points to the corridos, the [...]

With this poster, aimed at the public in general and artists in particular, the academics respond to the attack by the treinta-treintista group. The poster states the reasons why the academics formed the Trayectoria group and their plan for public [...]

In this speech delivered at the Universidad Obrera [Workers’ College] and transcribed in this article, the artist Jesús Guerrero Galván discusses the perspective and mission of the artist: “ . . . when confronted with social problems . . . it [...]

Act two, scene one of this farce is entitled “The mummies and the bats give their opinion on revolutionary paintings.” Some of the names of the figures from the prior scene are repeated, although this time, they are divided: fresh and dried [...]

In this document David Alfaro Siqueiros reflects upon the nexus between society and its aesthetic production, particularly with regard to the status of architecture under the bourgeois order. The article is directed toward the officials in charge of [...]

Response of Cayetano Córdova Iturburu to the survey sponsored by the magazine Contra [Against]: “Should art serve social problems?” He challenges the response given by Jorge Luis Borges en Contra, issue 3, stating that it is mere humor and [...]

Bandera de provincias [Flag of the Provinces] also took on the task of “discovering” José Clemente Orozco. The magazine commissioned Enrique Martínez Ulloa from Jalisco to write about Orozco’s painting. The author wrote three articles [...]

Bandera de Provincias [Flag of Provinces] decided that they too would “discover” José Clemente Orozco’s work, and commissioned [Enrique Martínez Ulloa], natural from the state of Jalisco, to provide essays on his painting. The author wrote an [...]