Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

In this interview, David Alfaro Siqueiros expressed his views on the Biennial. He began by critiquing the paintings exhibited by the United States, and warned Latin American painters against imitating hybrid ideas that made no sense, such as Tachisme [...]

In this article, Roger Plá refers to Contrapunto magazine’s strategy of inviting artists to discuss the future of painting. The survey asked the following questions: 1. In your opinion, what is the material future of painting (as regards its [...]

Response given by Manuel Espinosa in the survey presented by the Contrapunto [Counterpoint] journal. In it he confronts the defenders of figuration by explaining that realist work is not that which copies, but that which asserts the material reality [...]

This is Tomás Maldonado’s response to the survey conducted by Contrapunto magazine. He is sanguine, not only about the future of the visual arts — “one of the most effective lubricants for revolutionary tension” — but about the future of [...]

This document relates the response of Uruguayan artist Vicente Martín to the survey regarding abstract or non-figurative art, in which he states that abstract values also exist in representational painting. With regard to the future of painting, [...]

This document relates the response of artist Tomás Maldonado to the survey regarding abstract or non-figurative art, in which he considers the term “abstract” to be both appropriate and inappropriate; it is appropriate when it is used to [...]

Manuel Mujica Láinez replies to the survey on abstract and nonfigurative art, noting his inclination to use the terms “abstract” and “concrete” interchangeably, insofar as the trend does not cease to be what it is because of the label it [...]

This document relates the response of critic Córdova Iturburu to the survey regarding abstract art or non-figurative art, in which he leans toward the expression “non-figurative art” because it permits the inclusion of not only the geometric [...]

This document relates the response of Spanish critic Eduardo Westerdahl to the survey regarding abstract art or non-figurative art, in which he considers it opportune to carry out a revision of terms used in these cases. Westerdahl also proposes to [...]

This document relates the response of Spanish sculptor Ángel Ferrant to the survey with regard to abstract, or non-figurative art, in which he indicates that the word “abstract” is inappropriate when it does not acknowledge a visual model. [...]

This document relates the response of artist Mathias Goeritz to the survey regarding abstract, or non-figurative art, in which he indicates that he prefers “abstract art” as the general and popular term, although he agrees with the possibility [...]

This is Hans Platschek’s answer to a survey on abstract and nonfigurative art, in which he suggests that signs could be used for didactic goals. But he doesn’t agree with the terms “abstract” and “nonfigurative” because the former is art [...]

This document relates the response of artist Gyula Kosice (1924-2016), to the survey regarding abstract or non-figurative art, in which he states that Madí adopted, in principle, the name "non-figurative" because it corresponded to the nature of [...]

This document relates the response of painter and sculptor Juan Del Prete to the survey regarding abstract or non-figurative art, in which he considers all such nomenclature conventional. In addition, Del Prete believes that this type of discussion [...]

This document is an open letter in which Julio E. Payró declares his difference of opinion with Guillermo de Torre regarding the application of the term “abstract.” This letter responds to the concepts discussed by Torre in the catalog for the [...]

José Clemente Orozco believed that opposition to political painting was nothing new in Mexico; it had been around since the start of the mural movement. Some painters tried to stamp out all forms of figurative or representative expression. When [...]

Juan Acha examines the rationale advanced by those who, in line with the “new pictorial awareness” of the middle of the century, see greater relevance in abstract painting than in the outdated values of the figurative ideal. The main idea [...]

In this article signed “J. Nahuaca”—the anagram he used as an alias—Peruvian critic Juan Acha reflects on whether or not there is a painting tradition in Peru. He discusses the current state of painting on the occasion of the Premio [...]

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 author identifies the principal characteristic of the works shown at the Primer Salón Annual de Pintura Peruana “as a strong and cohesive predilection for objectivity.” Among others, he highlights Alfredo Ruiz Rosas for his “successful [...]

Juan Carlos Paz defines New Music and that which contributes efficacious elements and solutions and points out the importance of the rise of dodecaphony for these new proposals. He stresses that dodecaphony is responsible for the experimentation [...]

This article published in the “Lecturas Dominicales” or Sunday Readings section of the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo (April 1962) evidences the polemic surrounding abstract and figurative art in Colombia at the time. In the introduction to the [...]

In this article, poet and critic Luis Vidales expresses his position on the debate surrounding abstract and figurative art, a polemic central to Colombian art at the time. First, Vidales argues that certain concepts have been poorly defined in [...]

In this article, published in November 1963, the Colombian journalist Gloria Valencia Diago interviews the Spanish artist Juan Antonio Roda, in connection with the exhibition of his oil painting series, Tumbas,at the Museo de Arte Moderno in Bogot [...]

Painter Aquiles Ralli rejects the comments made by Fernando de Szyszlo that became a national scandal: “there are no painters in Peru.” He juxtaposes the work of the “good artists,” those who diligently “work in silence and never advertise [...]

This is an anonymous interview with Fernando de Szyszlo on his successful presentation at the III Salón Moncloa in Lima in 1955. The artist stated that it was the first artistic competition in which he had participated since 1951 due to his distrust [...]

In this interview, Fernando de Szyszlo states that the only painting tradition that exists is the European tradition, under the standards that emanated from Paris in the late 19th century, to which all other schools have been assimilated. Even “ [...]

This text is Samuel Pérez Barreto’s response to the article by the Agrupación Espacio published as part of the debate that took shape around the polemic statements by Fernando de Szyszlo (“there are no painters in Peru”) published in La [...]

In this text, Sérvulo Gutiérrez asserts that any classification that entails “dividing art” is conventional and falls into pigeonholing. It is misguided since it implies taking “a part for the whole.” Sérvulo Gutiérrez questions whether [...]

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 document relates the response of Spanish critic Ricardo Gullón to the survey regarding abstract art or non-figurative art, in which he points out that it might be time to revise the use of the term abstract with regard to non-figurative works [...]

In this essay, Samuel Cherson, a Cuban critic living in exile in Puerto Rico, discusses the abstract work produced by the Puerto Rican painter, Wilfred Chiesa. Cherson begins with a brief description of the abstract movement and its major exponents. [...]

Léon Degand, the French art critic, delivers a lengthy review of figurative painting in order to explain that abstract art is not the one that is constantly subordinating input from external sources to the demands of plastic expression, but rather [...]

This foreword by Aldo Pellegrini indicates the changes of direction produced in the period of five years separating the first Arte Nuevo [New Art] exhibition and this sixth show, which he characterizes as a passage from the intellectual to the vital [...]

Vicente Caride presents Ferruccio Polacco’s exhibition (Galería Rubbers, Buenos Aires, May 1965), emphasizing his preferences for working with the geometric embodiment of images taken from archaic civilizations. Likewise, he points out the austere [...]

Manifesto included in the catalogue of the Primera Exposición de Pintura Perceptista [First Exhibition of Perceptivist Painting] carried out in Galería Van Riel in Buenos Aires, in October of 1949. Raúl Lozza states that Perceptivism inaugurates a [...]

This introductory text for works by Alfredo Hlito emphasizes how the artist expanded their sensory territory while not abandoning the notion of purely visual painting. Pellegrini also points out that Hlito’s works also divide space into planes in a [...]

While introducing the work of Gyula Kosice, the author refers to movements that sought to create an independent object instead of imitating or deforming one. Juan Bay identifies the difference between the works produced by members of certain [...]

This is an analytical essay in which Edgar Bayley affirms the autonomy of the pictorial image. Based on that opinion, widely held among his generation, he champions “invention” over symbolism, expressionism, and romanticism [...]

The list of artists whose work was shown at the Arte Concreto-Invención Exhibition, held at the Sociedad Argentina de Artistas Plásticos [Argentine Society of Visual Artists], is as follows: Antonio Caraduje, Manuel Espinosa, Alfredo Hlito, Enio [...]

This article challenges the arts teachings offered by Professor Cecilia Marcovich. In it, Hlito reproaches her not only for her reactionary revisionism but also for teaching that modern art ended with Cubism [...]

In this essay, Alfredo Hlito reflects on the particular features of Concrete art. He discusses the viewer’s perception of the meaning of Concrete works of art, which involve neither a process of recognizing objects nor any form of association, but [...]

In this document, Gregorio Vardanega discusses the importance of space in his work. He tried to address this question in a variety of ways, such as his plaster hemispheres, called complejos espaciales [spatial complexes] and his spiraling dots in [...]

The jurors of the Premio Instituto Torcuato Di Tella 1963, Jorge Romero Brest, Jacques Lassaigne, and William Sandberg, awarded the Premio Nacional [National Prize] to Luis Felipe Noé for his work and in particular, Introducción a la esperanza [ [...]

The jury appointed to judge the 1964 Premio Instituto Torcuato Di Tella [Torcuato Di Tella Institute Prize]—whose members included the critics Jorge Romero Brest (Argentina), Clement Greenberg (United States), and Pierre Restany (France)—decided [...]

In this introductory text for works by Enio Iommi, Pellegrini highlights how the artist’s sculpture broke with the traditional criteria of volume, weight and quiescence by juxtaposing spatial structure against volume. His analysis dates three [...]

The text by Pellegrini considers the broad diversity of expressions of this group of non-figurative artists and underscores that the advancement of this trend seems to have ousted all other artistic modalities to become the natural means of [...]

In this notebook, which is one of several kept by Colombian artist Carlos Rojas, the author writes down thirty-two points essential to his art.  Written like a manifesto, this particular manuscript contains ideas that Rojas considers innate to his [...]

In this manuscript, Polish critic Casimiro Eiger, who lived in Colombia, discusses the work in the first solo exhibition of painter Marco Ospina, held at Galerías de Arte in 1949. In Eiger’s view, the merit of Ospina’s work lies in its order. [...]

Martín Blaszko’s letter refers to the importance of rhythm in the visual arts at that time, in contrast to Raúl Lozza’s opinions in support of the plane. The Perceptist artist responds that his ideas could be more clearly understood by reading [...]