Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

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 article in the Revista Semana discusses the research and sketches being done by Santiago Martínez Delgado in order to portray the congressional session in Cúcuta when the Liberator, Simón Bolívar, and General Francisco Santander took office [...]

The Cuban critic José Gómez Sicre introduces an exhibition of engravings made by the Venezuelan artist Luis Chacón held at the Pan-American Union (Washington, DC). The writer points out the tireless willingness of Venezuelan artists in exploration [...]

Susan Best, the North American researcher and art critic, suggests that Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological reflections on perception and aesthetic experience are especially well suited to interpreting (non-representational) contemporary works [...]

The introduction to this interview with Colombian artist Doris Salcedo by Santiago Villaveces provides a brief overview of the socio-political and economic situation in Colombia in the early nineties. The interview presents Salcedo in relation to the [...]

The art and photography critic Fernando Castro reviews the works Aliento [Breath], Narcisos [Narcissi], and Lacrimarios [Tear Containers] by Oscar Muñoz that were exhibited at the Sicardi Gallery in Houston in March 2002 as part of Fotofest. [...]

The Colombian artist Rosemberg Sandoval took part in the Simposio sobre la situación social, política y artística en Colombia [Symposium on the Social, Political, and Artistic Situation in Colombia], organized by the Fundación Daros Latinamerica [...]

This is the published record of the conversation that ensued when Hans-Michael Herzog, the curator of the Fundación Daros Latinamerica [Daros Latinamerica Foundation] interviewed Rosemberg Sandoval. The interview shows how the Colombian artist’s [...]

In the catalogue text for the exhibition Fanny Sanín: Obras de 1960 a 1986 held at the Museo de Arte Moderno of Bogotá, John Stringer, the Australian curator of the show, analyzes the work produced by Fanny Sanín, a Colombian artist who lives in [...]

This document is an essay by Jacinto Quirarte outlining key moments in the history of modern Mexican and Mexican-American art in the United States. It begins with a discussion of the Mexican School, detailing central figures, sociopolitical [...]

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 [...]

This essay posits the 1980s as a period of intense self-reflection among Latin American artists living in the United States. Susana Torruella Leval considers the complex relationships of these artists to the tumultuous North American art milieu, [...]

This document consists of paragraph-long statements by three members of Mujeres Muralistas. The first one is by Consuelo Mendez, who identifies herself as an artist-worker. She articulates her reasons for being a muralist and the importance of having [...]

This document is an editorial page outlining the motivations for the creation of the magazine Tin-Tan. It cites its primary focus as addressing a critical absence in the print media of publications dedicated to the concerns of Mexican-Americans and [...]

This document is a transcript of a conference presentation given by Chicano artist and writer José Montoya. Referring to the title of the conference [Chicano Art: Resistance in Isolation "Aquí Estamos y no nos vamos" (1981)], Montoya proposes that [...]

In this document, Tim Drescher and Rupert Garcia consider the conditions that influenced the proliferation of mural production by Chicano artists after the start of the Chicano Movement in the late 1960s. It details various thematic and aesthetic [...]

This document is a letter addressed to the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle and signed by Artists of the Fifth Sun Exhibition. It was written in response to the review of the exhibition The Fifth Sun: Contemporary/Traditional Chicano and Latino [...]

This document is a review by Alfred Frankenstein of The Fifth Sun: Contemporary/Traditional Chicano and Latino Art exhibition at the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum in 1977. Frankenstein begins by describing the show, detailing the [...]

In this document, curator and art historian Susana Torruella Leval considers works by several artists whose practices reflect an interest in articulating a particular historical consciousness that is tied to their cultural identity as Latin Americans [...]

This document by Jacinto Quirarte begins by proposing possible definitions for the terms “Hispanic” and “aesthetic” and their potential implications for a study of Chicano art. Quirarte states that the focus of his essay is an exploration of [...]

This document is a short essay by Art Hernandez describing what Chicano art is. It begins with a history of the early derogatory uses of the term “Chicano” and several descriptions of Chicano art that incorporate individual styles, art school [...]

This document is a description of the Concilio de Arte Popular (CAP), a statewide coalition of artists and art organizations in California. The statement outlines the need for CAP given the high percentage of bicultural and bilingual people reflected [...]

The document is an undated letter from Juan Carrillo, the interim board chairman of the Concilio de Arte Popular (CAP), to its members. Along with stating its founding history, purpose, names, and affiliations of the founding board members, the [...]

This document is an essay by Rupert Garcia that considers the educational and political potential of two distinct but contemporaneous modes of aesthetic practice—easel painting and muralism— championed by the artists of the School of Paris and [...]

This document posits that the perspective of the urban Chicano artist—in this case one from the San Francisco Bay Area—is fundamentally different from that of rural artists, suggesting that thematic concerns of artists from both areas reveal [...]

This anonymous document considers the relationship between socially engaged artistic practices by Chicano artists and the development of particular stylistic characteristics that have come to define Chicano art. It posits that the desire to create [...]

This is an anonymous statement that documents the need for Chicano artists to pursue a practice that is engaged with the community of which it is a part, and considers the broader implications of artistic production. It posits that while some Chicano [...]

In this document Chon Noriega considers the process of developing a panel discussion organized in conjunction with a museum exhibition. As a scholar who is also a curator, Noriega notes the existing tension between museums and universities as [...]

This document is a copy of an application for a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) grant submitted by Chicano artist, Gronk, in 1981. It briefly outlines several major moments in the life of the artist, beginning with an anecdote about the [...]

This document involves a brief article published in the Los Angeles Times in late 1973 that reports on the early developments in Chicano muralism, focusing on the large-scale mural project at the Estrada Courts Housing Project in East L.A. It begins [...]

This article, first published in the summer/fall 1992 issue of High Performance by Mexican-born, U.S.-based artist Guillermo Gómez-Peña, parodies the social, political, and cultural structures of the United States. A commentary on an [...]

In this 1992 conversation, artists Guillermo Gómez-Peña and Coco Fusco discuss the notion of Latino identity and the possibility of an intercultural dialogue between U.S.-born Latino artists and Latin American artists. As a Mexican who emigrated to [...]

The text “Entrance” serves as the introduction to the book, Hybrid Cultures: Strategies for Entering and Leaving Modernity, by Mexico-based Argentinean academic and anthropologist Néstor García Canclini. Written in 1995, the work rapidly became [...]

This document is an interview with painter and printmaker Enrique Chagoya, conducted by Paul Karlstrom. The artist recounts early influences growing up in Mexico, his parents, the political upheaval that transpired in the 1970s in Coyoacán, [...]

Written by César Augusto Martínez, one of the most active members of the Chicano art movement of the 1970s, “Arte Chicano” discusses the implications of the term “Chicano” (in Part One) and the status of Chicano art in the mainstream art [...]

“Brown Paper Report” is the manifesto of the Tejano [Texan-Chicano] San Antonio-based art collective Con Safo, written by artist Mel Casas in 1971. This short text presents the concepts of Chicano and “Brown Vision,” as well as the etymology [...]

In this 1986 essay, art historian Marcos Sanchez-Tranquilino discusses Mexican poet Octavio Paz’s (mis)representation of 1940s Mexican-American subculture, including the zoot suits worn by Chicano people. The writer states that in his book [...]

In this article, art historian Robert Goldwater analyzes the life and work of Mexican painter Rufino Tamayo. Goldwater explains that although Tamayo is thought to have an individual style, when his works are assembled, it is apparent that his work is [...]

This text is an introduction to the 1959 exhibition South American Art Today, presented at the Dallas Museum of Art. It is written by the curator, Cuban art critic and writer José Gómez Sicre. Gómez Sicre explains that the exhibition South [...]

In "Bits and Pieces: The Mexican American Folk Aesthetic," authors Suzanne Seriff and José Limón argue that a common aesthetic pervades all aspects of Mexican American culture including folk art, food, music, games, and rituals. Seriff and Limón [...]

In “Painted Miracles,” Mexican writer Anita Brenner examines the Mexican tradition of offering milagro paintings, or ex-votos, to the saints or to God as thanks for a miracle. Brenner explains that although the offering of milagro paintings was [...]

This is a flyer invitation to a “Fabulous Halloween Party at LACE” at the Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE) Gallery at 240 S. Broadway Street organized by artists Gronk and Patssi Valdez of the Asco Collective on October 31, 1978. The [...]

This document is an example of a Xerox mail art by Harry Gamboa, Jr. and Patssi Valdez of the East Los Angeles-based Asco Collective. Titled Pistol Whippersnapper, the piece stems from a Chicano Cinema No Movie created by Gamboa in 1976 as part of [...]

Fernando Cocchiarale wrote a historical overview of the pioneering uses of technology in art created in Rio de Janeiro, emphasizing the return of the close links between art and life initiated in the 1960s. The writer also foresaw the revival of the [...]

Art critic and curator Fernando Cocchiarale argues that the expansion of the visual arts into other fields has implied greater distance from the traditions of which it formed part. The inclusion of time and space in art became an important mark of [...]

Here Fernando Cocchiarale discusses how the fields of contemporary art have overflowed past their previous boundaries, going beyond painting, sculpture, printmaking, and drawing; he cites collage and photomontage in the early twentieth century as [...]

Alair Gomes discusses at length the nude male photographs that are currently making the rounds. He discusses the range of the subject, from porn to the artistic nude shot, noting how photography is excluded from contemporary art, and comments on the [...]

In this text, art critic Paulo Herkenhoff identifies and describes some of the characteristics of drawing as an autonomous form of expression in contemporary art from South America. He formulates ten categories in relation to the production in the [...]

Aníbal Machado writes about the printmaker Oswaldo Goeldi, noting his “moral profile,” his “impetuous temperament,” his humble, melancholy nature, and his “artistic solitude.” Machado describes Goeldi’s childhood in Belém (in the [...]

This text by critic Alberto Tassinari addresses the sculptures by Paulo Monteiro exhibited at the Galeria Paulo Figueiredo in São Paulo in 1990. According to Tassinari, the works revolve around the primordial gesture that ensues at the instant when [...]