Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

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 [...]

In response to the question in the survey published by the Lima newspaper El Comercio as to whether “modern” painting is an improvement on “classical” painting or a step back, the various respondents agreed that different styles from [...]

Jorge López Anaya writes about the rapid emergence of Grupo Sí [Yes Group] in the city of La Plata. He analyzes the use of chromatic saturation as a trait typical of the group’s artists. The critic states that the chromatic geometry represents, [...]

Ignacio Pirovano presents Enio Iommi’s exhibition (Galería Bonino, September-October, 1969) with a thorough analysis of the different periods involved: his background, the Concrete Art period, the phase begun in 1950 since the dissolution of the [...]

Rafael Squirru presents the exhibition that conmemorates the first 15 years of Madí Art (Museo de Arte Moderno, Buenos Aires, 1961), highlighting the overt opposition that these dedicated artists must have faced in their research of experimental [...]

Rafael Squirru presents the exhibition by artists Eduardo Mac Entyre and Miguel Angel Vidal, identifying it as a sample of “generative art,” as it has been called by Ignacio Pirovano, in tandem with the writings of Georges Vantongerloo. In this [...]

In this document, the art critic Jorge Romero Brest writes about the work of César Paternosto and Alejandro Puente, discussing the concepts of color and image. Romero Brest emphasizes the treatment of the irregular frames that simultaneously suggest [...]

French artist and critic Germaine Derbecq wrote, in a literary text, about the work of Alfredo Hlito underscoring its differences from Concrete art, especially regarding the modulation of color. She conceives Hlito's painting as a block without [...]

In his presentation, Samuel Oliver discusses the new order involved in building form with its own defining formal attributes. He supports his proposal with simple volumes and takes advantage of pure, highly visible colors. The forms are built into [...]

Jorge Romero Brest describes Leopoldo Torres Agüero’s work by saying that it is clearly by someone who understands that contemporary creative output does not represent individual expression as much as a manifestation of reality. The critic also [...]

Jorge Romero Brest begins his text with theoretical definitions about art’s meaning, perceived as an entity that has its own being. In his opinion, the artist becomes a trigger for an expression that is always being, in addition to the experience [...]

Damián Bayón writes about the work of Argentinean-Japanese artist Kasuya Sakai by analyzing his different stages; that is, concerning the harmony of contrasting colors; the influence of Hartung and calligraphy; black forms in a more complex [...]

Aldo Pellegrini writes about the current situation of the debate between Abstraction and Figuration (1968) and presents it as something that has been overcome, while he also points out its avant-garde quality as a demonstration of the vitality of the [...]

Cover and listing of artists who participated in the exhibition 7 pintores abstractos [Seven Abstract Painters], held at Galería Pizzarro in Buenos Aires from October 1 to 19, 1957. Essentially, it brings to the fore a singular grouping in the 1950s [...]

Mário Pedrosa analyzes the relationship that the works of Alexander Calder and other modern artists (especially Fernand Léger) have with industrial production. In his judgment, for Léger, machines are like an incomprehensible and frightening god; [...]

Kenneth Kemble writes about Luis Alberto Wells and Rubén Santantonín and considers them to be artistas malditos [“maudit”] artists presenting an innovative art; although, it was difficult for the public attending at Galería Lirolay to digest [...]

This text is a historical balance sheet of Concrete art in Brazil. The art critic, Ferreira Gullar, introduces Concrete art as a movement of “rupture” whose radical nature contrasts with the painting that predominated in Brazil in the late 1940s [...]

Statement by the artists Eduardo Mac Entyre and Miguel Angel Vidal, in which they recognize that their work stems from the proposal of the Argentinean Concrete artists, although they use the period and the straight line to produce movement. Given the [...]

The author of this article, Sebastián Salazar Bondy, underscores his supposed agreement with Luis Miró Quesada as regards the “poor quality” of the exhibition of works by contemporary Italian painters at the Galería Lima, an event that [...]

Noé presents the work of three artists exhibited at Galería Bonino, while at the same time discussing abstraction theoretically: its limits and relation to the problem of figuration as well to concrete art. Noé points to the work of Jorge de la [...]

Luis Felipe Noé comments on the exhibition by Orlando Pierri at the Galería Pizarro. In Noé’s opinion, all that remains of Surrealism is the concept of dissociation of the light now representing not what is beneath reality but what is above it. [...]

Luis Felipe Noé makes a distinction between abstract and concrete art. He defines Abstraction as an expressive process that intellectually separates the elements of reality to reach its essence. Concrete art, on the other hand, fixes abstract [...]

Luis Felipe Noé writes that the non-figurative work of Juan Del Prete is sustained by his inquiry into the autonomy of medium, form and color, remaining beyond the limitations of concrete and abstract art. In another section of the text, Noé [...]

Luis Felipe Noé studies the Premio Palanza [Palanza Prize] submissions, opting for the work by Santiago Cogorno, given its existential abstraction. Standing out among his assessments are: the depletion of Luis Seoane’s painting in poster-making, [...]

Kenneth Kemble writes about the dilemma of being simultaneously an art critic and an artist, mainly when one’s own work is being exhibited. The matter is worsened by having his wife, Silvia Torrás, included in the show as well. Also, Kemble [...]

The critic writes about Ary Brizzi’s work beginning with the concept of “structure.” He discusses the existence of geometric art and—considering the combinations of geometry are exhaustible—he opts to use the term “parageometry.” Uribe [...]

The first part of a two-part essay published in the Bellas Artes newspaper, this text consists of a lecture given by artist Flávio de Carvalho at the Congrès International d’Esthétique in Paris, and later (in 1937), at the Salão de Maio in São [...]

The second part of a two-part essay published in the Bellas Artes newspaper, this text consists of a lecture given by artist Flávio de Carvalho at the Congrès International d’Esthétique in Paris, and later (in 1937), at the Salão de Maio in Sã [...]

These documents are the invitation to and the program of the Third Exhibition of the Atelier-Abstração, held in São Paulo in June 1956. The Atelier-Abstração was a studio set up by the Brazilian artist Samson Flexor [...]

Enrique F. Gual reviews an exhibition at the Galería Prisse at which the artist José Bartolí mainly shows his oil paintings, in spite of being better known for his drawings. To Bartolí, the oil paintings represent a phase in which he is [...]

Art critic Ceferino Palencia identified the advantages of contests such as the one held within the context of the Inter-American Biennial of Painting and Printmaking. In the first place, he said, such contests gave painters the possibility of [...]

The Venezuelan artist Mateo Manaure outlines an assessment on the artistic career of his compatriot, artist Carlos González Bogen, commenting on his activities from when he was academically training at the Escuela de Artes Plásticas de Caracas when [...]

Fernando de Szyszlo sent this open letter to the editor of Cultura Peruana magazine in response to the article by journalist Jesús Manual Orbegozo that was published in this same magazine (Lima, December 1955). Szyszlo denied the declarations [...]

In addition to organizing and introducing a retrospective exhibition of the work of Alfredo Volpi, Olívio Tavares de Araújo discusses the focus of that show. The exhibition included works with a range of color variations on the same formal design, [...]

The artist Cícero Dias was the subject of this article that includes a combination of first-hand accounts on his artistic career. The text was originally published due to an exhibition on abstract art by the artist in Recife (Faculdade de Direito) [...]

On the matter of the existential “obligations” mentioned by Francisco Miró Quesada Cantuarias, the author challenges the idea that “in order to ‘be’ one has to act.” Believing in an “essential nature of ‘being,’” his relative, [...]

In this text, Luis Miró Quesada Garland offers a categorical response to “Punto final,” an article published by essayist Sebastián Salazar Bondy in La Prensa newspaper (Lima, July 26, 1954) in which he declares his exchange with Miró Quesada [...]

In this article Damián Bayón conducts interviews with two Italian artists: the first with Massimo Campigli and the second with Léon Gischia. Bayón formulates his questions to both interviewees around the problem of explaining the “success” of [...]

In this article Damián Bayón interviews art historian Pierre Francastel (1900–1970) regarding the problem of abstract art, based upon what Bayón read in [Francastel’s] books. Before beginning [the interview], he states that the questions he [...]

In this review of Ademar Manarini’s photography exhibition, at the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, Wolfgang Pfeiffer notes the quality of the photographs. The critic is acutely aware of the debate in progress about the visual arts, which he [...]

This is of the checklist of the groups included in the Exposición de arte no figurativo [Exhibition of Non-Figurative Art] (1960): they were Asociación de Arte no figurativo [Association of Non-Figurative Art], Arte Nuevo [New Art], Grupo Buenos [...]

Kenneth Kemble reviews the exhibition by sculptor Carlos de la Motta at Galería Pizarro. It involves his metal sculptures, whose inventiveness and quality surprised the critic. The same gallery exhibits the Uruguayan painter Jorge Páez with [...]

Journalist Rubén Wisotzki interviewed Magdalena Fernández in 1996, when she was awarded the Premio Eugenio Mendoza. Fernández acknowledges that her work, particularly her studies in design to which abstraction and geometricism are fundamental, is [...]

In the second article in his series “Conceptos concretos sobre el arte abstracto,” the writer Miguel Otero Silva rejects the idea of dividing art into two camps: abstract and figurative art. In his opinion, this makes as little sense as talking [...]

Kenneth Kemble writes about the exhibitions taking place in several galleries. By observing the works of five female artists, he is able to analyze the variables in Argentinean art at that moment. Based on a formal analysis of this production, he [...]

In his introduction to Jorge Marcio Gentilini’s exhibition at the Galería Lirolay (Buenos Aires, September 1961), Manuel Mujica Láinez notes that this young artist, who specializes in the art of fire, has already been admitted to the circuit of [...]

Kenneth Kemble points out the characteristics of Generative art. He mentions Rafael Squirru’s lecture. Kemble is ironic about geometry and the aesthetic value of the cow (regarding the rancher and collector, Ignacio Pirovano). He highlights the [...]

This is the text of the entire talk delivered by Fernando de Szyszlo and part of the tribute organized by the IAC (Instituto de Arte Contemporáneo) in 1955 in honor of the painter Mario Urteaga. Szyszlo describes him as a highly idiosyncratic [...]

The manifesto La visión elemental [The Elemental Vision] puts forth a Non-Illusionist theoretical position on the image: working with volumetric or flat forms, simple and concise, activating planes and volumes using pigmentation, the usage of flat [...]

Nicolás Rubió wrote that the artists had been going through different “-isms” supported by the “explainers of art,” a reference to the critics. For this reason, those artists who had resisted both the “-isms” and passing fads had come [...]