This interview by journalist Pedro Lhaya with artist Mateo Manaure contains remarks the artist made in the context of the exhibition Suelos de mi tierra. In his opening comments, Lhaya describes the work of the Venezuelan painter as the expression of a Latin American sentiment that goes beyond folkloric anecdote and costumbrismo. In the conversation that follows, Manaure asserts that his creation should be understood in relation to magic realism. Manaure states that the Americas holds the key to finding a new visual language. He defends the cultural autonomy of Latin America and expresses the need for freedom from European and North American influences that have exercised excessive influence on Venezuelan art for too long.

Journalist Pedro Lhaya interviewed Venezuelan painter Mateo Manaure (b. 1926) in the context of his 1967 solo exhibition Suelos de mi tierra, held at the Sala Mendoza in Caracas. Both Lhaya’s opening remarks and the statements by Manaure that follow introduce the reader to the matter of Latin American identity in Manaure’s work. Indeed, interest in the values specific to the continent and their expression in the arts were at the center of the cultural debates of the seventies. The influence of international art movements was severely questioned. This interview sets a precedent for later debates in Venezuelan art. It also demonstrates the concerns reflected in Manaure’s formal and expressive development as his work moved from geometric to lyrical abstraction in the late fifties, and in 1962, his return to figuration. After experimenting for a time with the preferred media of the Surrealists (objects, photomontage, collages), Manaure began working on the Suelos de Mi Tierra series. The refinement of forms and use of chromatic atmospheres in those works suggest inner universes. Due to their experiential elements and use of local and natural references, the works in that series are bound to the defense of the Latin American imaginary in open opposition to the “formalist” tendencies on the rise at the time. Manaure’s stance was still more radical in the eighties, when he returned to figurative production once and for all and overtly questioned the validity of abstraction on the basis of the issues facing Venezuela at the time.

For other texts on Manaure’s work, see Víctor Guédez, “La creación estético-visual en Mateo Manaure” (ICAA digital archive doc. no. 1155531); Roberto Guevara’s texts, “Manaure y la inmensa noche” (doc. no. 1156411), “Manaure: Columnas en tierras movedizas” (doc. no. 1155301), and “Manaure y las Cuvisiones” (doc. no. 1156459); Perán Erminy’s essay, “Las imágenes poéticas de Manaure” (doc. no. 1156523); Alfredo Boulton, “Mateo Manaure en el Museo de Bellas Artes” (doc. no. 1157497); Gastón Diehl, “Mateo Manaure” (doc. no. 1156491);  Teresa Alvarenga’s article, “Mi obra de hoy: Mateo Manaure llega a los 50 años” (doc. no. 1156427); and “La Escuela de artes plásticas de frente y de perfil” (doc. no. 813569), a text by Manaure himself in which he provides a critical overview of the history of the Escuela de Artes Plásticas de Caracas.