Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

The researcher Irma Arestizábal comments on the placement of Argentinean avant-garde art, (always at the margin) in relationship to the hegemonic art centers. She writes based on a selection of works of Argentinean artists that appear in [...]

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 [...]

This short article is a commentary on 1927: Exposición de Arte Nuevo, which opened on May 7 at the “Asociación de Pintores y Escultores.” In announcing and promoting the exhibition, the editors of Revista de avance stated [...]

This short news item was prepared as sketchy materials for press release  shortly after the inauguration of the Tucumán Arde [Tucumán Is Burning] exhibition at the CGT (Confederación General del Trabajo) in Rosario. The circumstances of the [...]

The author reveals a certain openness when he suggests that the experience created by the avant-garde of Rosario, Argentina, that led to Tucumán Arde [Tucumán is Burning] could be a potential bridge to what he considers the only valid “ [...]

León Ferrari writes a detailed evaluation of Tucumán Arde [Tucumán is Burning], framing it within the previous events (Itinerario del ’68) [Timetable for 1968]. In it he points out that “its purpose was to make art into a revolutionary tool, [...]

This article, published in the young newsmagazine Boom (Rosario, Argentina, November 1968), narrates what happened during the “lock-up” action carried out by Graciela Carnevale at the “Ciclo de Arte Experimental” [Experimental Practices of [...]

This chronology begins in January and February of 1968, the starting point of the vanguard artists’ radicalization of that year, with a series of informal discussions about “the possibility of creating a cultural phenomenon” that would be “ [...]

Luis Mario Schneider carried out the first documented study on Etridentismo; he interviewed the members of the group and thoroughly examined the archives of this 1920s avant-garde movement. Although the group left some accounts to history, this was [...]

[Literary critic and intellectual] Nicolás Rosa presented this text for discussion at the Primer Encuentro Nacional del Arte de Vanguardia [First National Encounter of Avant-garde Art] (Rosario, Argentina, 1968). It appeals to the communications [...]

This early declaration—most likely written when Tucumán Arde [Tucumán Is Burning] was taking shape (early October 1968)—presents some of the basic ideas behind the group’s collective work. First, it denounces General Juan Carlos Onganía’s [...]

This declaration presents a series of definitions upon which the Tucumán Arde [Tucumán Is Burning] exhibition was founded. It defines it as “a collective work that, as it employs new channels of communication and expression, empowers the creation [...]

The foreword to this catalogue was written by Hugo Parpagnoli—the director of the Museo de Arte Moderno in Buenos Aires, at that time—highlights the important role played by Dr. Isidoro Slullitel, the private art collector. He was a rare [...]

Guido Kasper analyzes Paparella’s work, describing him as an avant-garde artist who is entering a “great period” in his career, as defined by the materials he used, in this case referring to iron sculptures [...]

In the declaration they issued as a companion statement to the Tucumán Arde [Tucumán Is Burning] exhibition in Buenos Aires, the artists condemn the regime’s violent excesses that, though subtle when applied to the arts, are nonetheless intent on [...]

Pablo Suarez’s letter is defined as a work of art. It is, at the same time, a quit of his participation in the exhibition, which he handed out to the attending public at the Experiencias 1968 [The 1968 Visual Practices]. The author starts by [...]

This letter, signed by the regional secretary of the CGT (Confederación General del Trabajo) in Rosario and addressed to Tucumán’s CGT regional delegate, informs us about the existing tight bonds and mutual support between artists and labor-union [...]

The document is one of the small flyers that the FATRAC (Frente Antiimperialista de Trabajadores de la Cultura) [Anti-Imperialist Cultural Workers Front] threw into the air during the incidents that occurred during the 1968 Premio Braque award [...]

Puerto Rican artist Myrna Báez congratulates the organizers of a conference on literature for having included the visual arts. She states that because art is not given due importance in education, people are not taught to distinguish between “the [...]

Jorge Romero Brest ponders the term “experiencia” [full-blasted experience] in regard to the 1960s vanguards. He considers that those experiences are based on attitudes, usually addressed toward a special kind of realities in order to generate [...]

Glusberg’s article describes (with a few inaccuracies) Tucumán Arde [Tucumán Is Burning] (1968), the landmark artwork/event produced by the avant-garde of Rosario, Argentina, during the period spanning 1966–68. In terms of the work involved, [...]

In this article written in 1917, Anita Malfatti records her impressions of her travels in the United States and Europe. The Brazilian artist enthusiastically describes the protests prompted by the paintings she exhibited on her return to São Paulo. [...]

This article contains a survey carried out on the occasion of the exhibition Depoimento de uma geração [Statement of a Generation] curated by critic Frederico Morais. The show, which took place at the Galeria de Arte Banerj in 1986, intended to [...]

Frederico Morais reviews Opinião 66, the exhibition presented at the Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro in 1966. He compares the exhibited works and the state of art in Brazil to the art being produced in France at the time, arguing that the [...]

Brazenly, this manifesto categorically rejects the official forms of art and its practices in the city of Rosario, Argentina. It also stresses the marked unity and mutual understanding among the Grupo de Arte de Vanguardia when the group‘s [...]

While the first issue of Actual contained a directory of avant-garde artists, this third issue held an index of avant-garde books and magazines. Listings include: La vie des lettres, a French magazine begun in 1913 and headed by Nicolas Beauduin; an [...]

This is the poster-manifesto that gave rise to the Estridentista movement in Mexico. Manuel Maples Arce, a poet born in Xalapa (Veracruz), launched his avant-garde publication Actual as a provocation directed against the acclaimed literary figures of [...]

With this essay, Mathias Goeritz introduces the Art Section of the magazine Arquitectura México. In this first “Warning,” the author affirms that once visual education and abstract design are officially accepted, no “avant-garde” will exist [...]

This unsigned report, published in Sobre Nº 1 [Envelope no. 1], documents the experiences of a group of artists who joined the strike committee of Fabril Financiera in February 1969. It discusses the difference between producing a work of art or an [...]

This is a dense re-telling of Octavio Paz’s nexus to surrealism and particular link to André Breton. It tells of the role played by the poet Benjamín Péret in this long relationship, which the Mexican writer sums up as a [...]

In this essay, along with posthumous praise for the figure, André Breton, Octavio Paz establishes a new approach to surrealism, automatic writing and the concept of revelation: “The critics are saying that surrealism is no longer the [...]

This article includes the most significant sections of the report prepared by Miguel Murmis, Silvia Sigal, and Carlos Waisman, the sociologists and members of the CICSO (Centro de Investigación en Ciencias Sociales [Social Sciences Research Center [...]

This United States academic journal disseminates the translation of the Cronología [Chronology] prepared by the artists reporting on the events that occurred throughout 1968, as well as other documents of their timetable, although with modified [...]

In this article, the architect and visual artist Sérgio Ferro criticizes the state of Brazilian architecture, especially in São Paulo, during the period in the 1960s, known as post-Brasilia. He takes a radical and critical approach by exposing the [...]

Critic Frederico Morais discusses the transformations that took place in the Brazilian art world in the seventies, assessing the art market, art institutions, as well as important episodes that occurred during that period. Regarding artistic [...]

This brief note, which appeared in Rosario’s most important daily newspaper, reports on the inauguration of the Tucumán Arde [Tucumán Is Burning] show at the CGT (Confederación General del Trabajo) headquarters in Rosario on November 3, 1968. It [...]

Aracy Amaral states categorically that there is no Brazilian style of avant-garde art because there never were any artistic groups that were large enough or able to provide an innovative groundwork. In Amaral’s opinion, the lack of a local painting [...]

Choque [Shock], the publication of the Alianza de Trabajadores del Arte Plásticas (ATAP) [Alliance of Visual Arts Workers] sets forth the opinions of Diego Rivera regarding art for art’s sake, which he considers “sandez sentimental [...]

This extensive article first appeared in La Gaceta [The Gazette], Tucuman’s most important newspaper, reporting on the first press conference given by the artists upon arriving at Tucumán for their second research trip in October 1968. Accompanied [...]

This prescient op-ed takes the events at the 1968 Braque Prize (sponsored by the French embassy in Argentina) as a starting point and uses them to arrive at the conclusion that the finest artwork was the “uproar” that occurred due to the [...]

The artist Gabriel Morera; the writers José Balza, Jesús Enrique Guédez and Salvador Garmendia; the playwrights Román Chalbaud and Isaac Chocrón; and the graphic designer Nedo all make different statements about the relationship between the [...]

"Art Liberation Movement" is Mario Castillo’s personal manifesto, which appears on the artist’s website. The Chicano/Mexican artist who works from Chicago expresses in this statement his desire to liberate himself from "the aesthetic constraints [...]

In this text, the work is presented as a joint production of the Grupo de Artistas Argentinos de Vanguardia (this is the only document in which they use that exact name) and the labor union. The basis of their denunciation of the government policy is [...]

This short notice in La Tribuna, a Rosario daily newspaper, records the beginning of the artists’ journey to Tucumán. The work in progress is proposed as a collective effort that would integrate artists from different disciplines. Moreover, the [...]

This note appeared in La Gaceta [The Gazette],Tucumán’s most important newspaper, reporting on the Rosario artists’ first exploratory trip to Tucumán in September 1968.  The trip had repercussions in the media, as seen by this account in the [...]

This is one of the key documents bringing to the fore the increasingly political radicalization of the late 1960s Argentinean avant-garde artists, as was demonstrated dramatically by a number of groups in a crucial year: 1968. The document is written [...]

This account of the disbandment of the Grupo Rex asserts that the primordial aim of the São Paulo-based group was to say things that had never been said before, to criticize attitudes beset with bad faith, and to encourage the work of young [...]

The Boletín de TESEO is the newsletter published by the AAEU (Agrupación de Artistas y Escritores Uruguayos), the association of Uruguayan artists and writers whose memorandum of association appears in this Boletín Nº 1, Year 1, August 25, 1923. [...]

This brief but thorough review by the Argentine critic Damián Bayón explores the development of Argentine art from the eighteenth century to the present day. He mentions artists, architects, and sculptors who have helped to define the concept of [...]

Curator María Luz Cárdenas discusses the magazine CAL, which was published from 1962 to 1967. Due to the ideology and cultural characteristics of CAL, Cárdenas considers it “the last avant-garde” effort to emerge in Venezuela. Cárdenas values [...]