Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

In this brief letter, David Alfaro Siqueiros advises Jackson Pollock and his team that the studio in New York will be closed during the day while he prepares for his forthcoming exhibition in Manhattan. Siqueiros explains that he needs to be alone to [...]

This letter was written by UCLA professor Chon Noriega to Elisabeth Sussman, a former curator of the Whitney Museum of American Art. Written in 1993, the letter addresses several concerns about the museum’s upcoming Biennial Exhibition with [...]

In this text, artist Bibiana Suarez’s makes a personal statement about her experience as a self-imposed Puerto Rican exile in Chicago, her negotiations of living “on the edge of two cultures,” and her artistic exploration of feelings of loss, [...]

In this essay, Giulio V. Blanc discusses various reactions to the 1988 burning of a Manuel Mendive’s drawing in Florida, to explain the different attitudes held by Cuban- Americans towards Cuba. He then connects this to the larger issue of exile [...]

Cesar Trasobares’ essay is broken down into fifteen separate “notes” that describe the exhibited project or the Quinceañera planning process; they are written from the perspective of Rosata Quinceañera, the fictional heroine that is featured [...]

In this discussion with Geno Rodriguez, Eleanor Heartney, and Victor Zamudio-Taylor, the three scholars consider the work of Cuban-born artist Luis Cruz Azaceta. They analyze the subject matter of his work, and all agree that it is melancholic and [...]

In this feature on the Cuban-American artist Paul Sierra, Jeff Huebner writes the artist’s biography, his recent ascent in the mainstream art world, and the attendant conflicts that arose in relationship to his status as a Latino artist. Huebner [...]

In this text, Manuel Álvarez Bravo considers the development of Adget (sic) as a photographer and the life experiences, warmth, and creativity reflected in his unique ability to see what is around him. He notes that Adget had no training in the arts [...]

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 [...]

In this article, J. R. Guillent Pérez confronts what he considers to be Marta Traba’s “attitude of disdain,” in her use of the term “apocalypse” in a negative sense; in doing so he makes use of philosophical sources, such as L’être et [...]

In this short, early artist statement, Cuban-born artist Ana Mendieta explains that the first part of her life was spent in Cuba from where she believes her interest in primitive art and culture probably originated. As a child growing up in Cuba, she [...]

This article by Ricardo Pau-Llosa focuses on the motif of the human body as the one theme that constantly recurs throughout the work of Cuban-American artists. He notes that this is unique given the distance that they live from one another. So that, [...]

Carlos Mérida considers that Mexican painting belongs to the Americas because the spirit of its ancestors floats anew all over the Indo-Hispanic land. The author believes that the development of Mexican painting is directed by traditional rules [...]

Poet and critic José Juan Tablada points out that for the first time contemporary art from Mexico had been fully recognized in the United States through the œuvre of José Clemente Orozco, an artist “whose psychological power and highly tragic [...]

In this response to Fernando de Szyszlo, well-known critic Sebastián Salazar Bondy points out how dynamic the Peruvian art scene is; against all odds, “there are people working tirelessly, with no pointless nostalgia as they undertake the creation [...]

In this newspaper article, Federico Lan discusses some of the signature features of Mariana Yampolsky’s early work. He refers to her printmaking and her photography, acknowledging her passionate commitment to both forms of visual expression. Lan [...]

In this short essay, Alejandro Anreus describes Arturo Rodriguez’s series “Ghost Archipelago.” Anreus first names Rodriguez’s influences: Giorgione, El Greco, and Goya, and notes that Rodriguez was self-taught. According to Anreus, Rodriguez [...]

In this text, Francisco Ichaso reflects on the pertinence of the question that Revista de avance posed to its readers: “What should American art be?” and he composes his own response to this question. Ichaso begins by acknowledging that [...]

Mario Bencomo’s artist statement describes how he was born in 1953 on the date of the Moncada Barracks offensive and grew up within the revolution. Growing up Bencomo knew he did not want to stay in Cuba and declares that exile has made him more [...]

In this brief, bilingual artist statement Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons expresses her belief that art is “The transformation of ordinary things into a vision, a new dimension that wasn’t their original purpose.” Therefore, she explains that [...]

This essay by Carol Damian begins in the 1950s with the artist group Los Once [The Eleven Ones] followed by a discussion of the 1959 revolution, and the "Miami Generation" of the 1960s. It continues with coverage of the artistic repression in Cuba [...]

In this short essay on the work of Cuban artist José Bedia, art historian Judith Bettelheim describes the artist as a “transcultural citizen” who “speaks at the intersection of diverse commentaries.” Bettelheim calls Bedia a postmodern [...]

In this essay, George Vargas attests that Carlos Lopez “serves as a vital historical link connecting American modern art in Michigan with a new Latino history of the state.” During the 1920s–1940s, Carlos Lopez was a Latino artist who did not [...]

This brief review deals with Carlos Mérida’s exhibition at the Delphic Studios in New York. It was widely accepted and attended by a large public that included artists, critics, and journalists. Some sections of comments about the show, published [...]

According to Alvar Carrillo Gil, Abstract Expressionism in the United States was in direct competition with the School of Paris. Though it was promoted as an authentically American trend, the collector and art critic believed it had European roots. [...]

Cesar Trasobares opens his artist statement by noting that while he was a student at different universities in Florida, he painted Cuban subjects and called the works examples of “Cubanistic Pop Art.” He then discusses the reasons involved for [...]

This article discusses a plan by the Museum of Modern Art in New York City to purchase works by José Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, Rufino Tamayo, Jesús Guerrero Galván, and Juan Soriano. The chosen artists’ formal and artistic qualities are [...]

American art critic Donald Kuspit opens this essay on the work of María Martínez-Cañas by asking what meaning Cuba holds for the artist, since she immigrated to the United States at such a young age (three months old). He explains the extensive [...]

Ricardo Pau-Llosa’s chapter focuses on fine art production by Miami’s Cuban-American population. Before discussing the work thematically, he notes that in Miami there has been a “resistance to seeing Cuban and Latin American Art as an equal [...]

In the exhibition catalog for Cuban Artists of the Twentieth Century, which was on view at the Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale, Florida—from October 1993 to January 1994,—art historian Giulio V. Blanc opens his essay by noting the 50th anniversary [...]

In this short essay on the work of Cuban artist José Bedia, art historian Judith Bettelheim describes the artist as a “transcultural citizen” who “speaks at the intersection of diverse commentaries.” Bettelheim calls Bedia a postmodern [...]

In this essay Pedro Emilio Coll replies to Latin American critics who, “in the name of tradition and good sense” deplore what they describe as decadent representatives of the new movements that took root in the Americas in the early twentieth [...]

This is a review by Anita Brenner of Edward Weston’s exhibition in Guadalajara, Jalisco. Brenner discusses the differences of photography, stating that Weston is “emphatically a photographer and not a painter with a lens.” However, in her [...]

Luis Lara Pardo interviews the painter Adolfo Best Maugard about the work the latter is doing in the United States. Lara Pardo claims that Best Maugard’s proposal illustrates that he has found a new horizon in Mexican art—one that is rooted in [...]

In this essay, the author—Luis Antonio Meza—states that the prize for the Festival Americano de Pintura was three thousand dollars and that the jury was composed by the Argentinean critic Jorge Romero Brest, the Venezuelan collector Inocente [...]

This article by Ramiro Pérez Reinoso was written in response to a piece by Alberto Gerchunoff published in the Buenos Aires daily newspaper, La Nación (January 31, 1926). The writer reviews the opinion of the Russian/Argentine intellectual, who [...]

In Agustin Fernandez’s artist statement, he begins with his formal training at the San Alejandro Academy. He also discusses how he “was to be nourished by a thousand things when [he] went abroad” and was greatly influenced by both Enrique Senal [...]

The text explains the objectives of the exhibition New Art of Argentina (Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, September 9–October 11, 1964); the characteristics of Argentinean art united to the successive immigration waves that happened to that country [...]

On the occasion of Frances Toor’s death, Diego Rivera, who was a friend and collaborator of Toor’s, dedicated an article in remembrance of the fundamental role that the American writer and editor played in the dissemination of Mexican art, in [...]

In Juan Gonzalez’s artist statement, he describes himself as very religious and traces the source of his work to the drama in Catholic imagery. He states that he works outside of the American mainstream and feels a greater connection to the “ [...]

By focusing on the work of two Chicano muralists who were active in the 1970s, Leo Tanguma and Emigdio Vásquez, art historian Shifra M. Goldman examines some of the historical experiences represented in the work of Chicano artists. According to [...]

This document by Shifra Goldman is a review of the 1987 exhibition Hispanic Artists: 30 Contemporary Painters and Sculptors held at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., in 1987. Goldman applauds the [...]

The essay by Ricardo Pau-Llosa on the work of Cuban-born artist, Humberto Calzada, is divided into three sections. In the first one, “The Symbolism of Order,” Pau-Llosa addresses Calzada’s move from painting elements of colonial Cuban [...]

The essay by Ricardo Pau-Llosa on the work of Cuban-born artist, Humberto Calzada, is divided into three sections. In the first one, “The Symbolism of Order,” Pau-Llosa addresses Calzada’s move from painting elements of colonial Cuban [...]

Ricardo Pau-Llosa’s essay discusses six generations of modern and contemporary Cuban artists, most in exile, and their art as it deals with alienation and uprooting. According to Pau-Llosa, the first generation (1920s) includes the founding fathers [...]

In this brief interview with Rufino Blanco Fombona in the Cuban magazine, Revista de Avance, he is presented with the 4 specific survey questions that support the larger theme question of identity, “Que debe ser el arte Americano?” (What should [...]

In the series of questions asked for the survey for Revista de Avance, Alfonso Hernandez Cata is asked four questions that go in accordance with the larger theme of question of identity “Que debe ser el Arte Americano?” (What should be [...]

The author wonders how indigenous American people compare to other civilizations. Darcy Ribeiro seeks to articulate a general theory to explain the formative and transformative processes that could provide an alternative to European ethnocentric [...]

Stanton Loomis Catlin and Terence Grieder introduce their exhibition Art of Latin America since Independence. They begin by arguing that U.S. audiences should naturally find this art of interest because it was produced by fellow “Americans,” and [...]

In this introduction, Luis Cancel explains the logic behind how he and his colleagues organized the exhibition The Latin American Spirit: Art and Artists in the United States, 1920-1970. He also explains, at length, the curatorial team’s larger [...]