Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

In this essay, Enrique Lihn discusses the Tango series of photographs by Paz Errázuriz, based on a review of the works of authors who have written about the origins and lyrics of this particular style of music and dance. Lihn claims that & [...]

In this essay, Rita Ferrer discusses photography based on an international critique of several periods. She refers to authors such as Roland Barthes, Charles Baudelaire, and the Chilean artist Carlos Leppe, claiming that they all share a “ [...]

The essay written by Patricio M. Zárate covered the new emerging generation of Chilean artists. According to the author “customary artistic boundaries had been disregarded” with the incorporation of artistic works pertaining to [...]

This essay by Alberto Madrid is on the exhibition Fotografía: intervenciones, cruces y desvíos. His play of words “field of reference out of field” emerged in the essay questioning the bibliographic references with which [...]

In this essay, written for the solo show of works by Patricio de la O, the art critic and curator Justo Pastor Mellado discusses the catalogue, the gallery, and the relevant demands on both the painter and the painting itself. Pastor Mellado claims [...]

Roberto Merino writes about Unidos en la gloria y en la muerte, the installation by Gonzalo Díaz on display at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes. The work takes its name from a sculpture by Rebeca Matte located outside the museum that was [...]

Pablo Oyarzún’s short essay “Virginia Errázuriz. Pequeña poética de sus instalaciones” (Virginia Errázuriz. A Brief Poetics of her Installations) was inspired by the installation of Errá [...]

In this philosophical text Pablo Oyarzún asks: What is art criticism? What is its function? And what are its characteristics? He begins to answer these questions by seeking to define “criticism” as a subjective opinion about a work [...]

The theorist Justo Pastor Mellado outlines his curatorial approach for the exhibition 1973–2000: Transferencia y densidad. He begins by defining concepts such as “curator,” discussing the term’s evolution in Chile and its [...]

In discussing the work of Eduardo Vilches, the critic Justo Pastor Mellado refers to two stories, or legends. The first is about the prehistoric origins of painting found on cave walls at Lascaux. The second is about the Italian painter Giorgio [...]

In this essay, Milan Ivelic writes about the third group exhibition of the Promoción 80 [Class of ’80]. He explains why these artists are “a group,” noting their age, where they were educated, and how they approach art in [...]

In her essay about an exhibition of paintings by Roser Bru, Adriana Valdés refers to Bru’s portraits of Franz Kafka, Milena Jesenská, and Anne Frank, commenting on the sitters’ eyes and how they gaze out from the canvas to [...]

Twenty years after the production of Para no morir de hambre en el arte —the first art action performed by CADA (Colectivo Acciones de Arte, Art Actions Collective)—one of the members of the group, Fernando Balcells, discusses its works, [...]

In her essay “Trama urbana y fugas utópicas” (Urban Fabric and Utopian Flights), Nelly Richard discusses CADA (Colectivo Acciones de Arte) two decades after the group launched its program of urban actions in Santiago. She describes the [...]

Ronald Christ writes about Catalina Parra’s exhibition Imbunches and mentions a childhood anecdote that evokes the work. He explains that the artist explores different forms of silencing, and her work therefore defies interpretation. The author [...]

In this article, Carlos Aldunate casts an eye on Juan Downey’s production, referencing some of his works. He recalls his connections with the artist and Machu Picchu, calling Downey a “true artist.” Aldunate explains that some of [...]

In this essay Pablo Oyarzún discusses the emancipating quality of Juan Downey’s work via paidéia (teaching). The essayist notes Downey’s constant focus on the creation, circulation, and meaningful social transmission of [...]

Eugenio Dittborn discusses Nelly Richard’s book, Margins and Institutions. Art in Chile Since 1973 (1986), condensing his review into four brief comments. The first considers the text as a “lengthy written work,” which contributes [...]

Adriana Valdés discusses Margins and Institutions. Art in Chile Since 1973, the book by Nelly Richard. Valdés pays particular attention to “the writing scene,” which included Richard as well as others who contributed to the [...]

José Joaquín Brunner explains how the authoritarian regime that came into power after the 1973 coup d’état impacted cultural production in its various forms and, more specifically, what was going on in the Escena de [...]

This is Nelly Richard’s “Introduction” to her book Margins and Institutions. Art in Chile Since 1973, in which she outlines the concept of the Escena de Avanzada. The “advanced scene” flourished in an unofficial sector [...]

Roberto Merino discusses La nueva novela [The New Novel] by Juan Luis Martínez, concentrating on specific pages in the book and questioning its operations. He addresses the photograph that Lewis Carroll took of Alice Lidell, which Martí [...]

In this essay Nelly Richard discusses the connection between writing and the reader, the implicit recipient of a text. In this review of the reader, she takes a sociological approach in describing and assessing the target of a text; counter to that [...]

Néstor Olhagaray, the video maker and researcher, writes about the arrival of video in the Chilean art world. He refers to one of the essential characteristics of the medium, which is its ability to create both a personal and a social [...]

In this brief essay Gaspar Galaz discusses a series of landmark events that took place in the 1980s and 1990s. In his opinion this period was characterized by an economic boom in Chile (fueled by neoliberal policies) and by conceptual approaches to [...]

In this historical review, prompted by the exhibition of contemporary Chilean art in Berlin, the artist and teacher Francisco Brugnoli reflects on the “impertinence” of (ethnic-geographical and artistic) otherness as seen from the [...]

Justo Pastor Mellado’s essay “Breve nota sobre pintura chilena: 1950–88,” introduced the traveling exhibition Cirugía Plástica [Plastic Surgery] to Berlin audiences. Mellado mentions certain specific features of [...]

The essay “Parpadeo y piedad,” which appeared in the catalogue for the exhibition Cirugía plástica (Plastic Surgery), held in Berlin, discusses art in Chile, specifically, the art produced in the wake of the 1973 fascist [...]

   In her essay “Sobre arte y política(s): contraoficialidad, poder y lenguajes,” written for the exhibition catalogue Cirugía plástica (Plastic Surgery), Nelly Richard reflects on the socio-political and [...]

In this text Nelly Richard identifies some of Walter Benjamin’s ideas that, in her opinion, are relevant to works produced in Chile during the military dictatorship (1973–90) and the start of what was known as the “democratic [...]

Nelly Richard   discusses C.A.D.A. (Colectivo  Acciones de Arte), taking a critical look at the art action group’s relationship to what she called the Escena de Avanzada, a name she coined based on the group’s strategies [...]

In this text Justo Pastor Mellado discusses the concept of “theoretical transference,” an idea that is mentioned in several of his publications. He uses two fictional models: one refers to the origin myth in Chilean painting, the other to [...]

Justo Pastor Mellado discusses the evolution of Chilean painting, from its roots to the 1980s. He divides his essay into six sections that explore the field’s history, from José Gil de Castro to the early twentieth century, remembering [...]

In this essay Justo Pastor Mellado presents an extension of his theory concerning the vital contribution made by printing to the emergence of “modernity” in Chilean art. The text, arranged in 21 sections, describes the evolution of [...]

Justo Pastor Mellado explains the reasons that motivated the Chilean submission to the X Mostra da Gravura, which was a desire to articulate a new artistic cartography. The hypothesis he lays out in this text points to formal movements in the field [...]

Pablo Oyarzún, the Chilean essayist, discusses Quadrivium, the installation by Gonzalo Díaz. He begins by describing previous installations whose formal designs were also based on the Stations of the Cross and identifies components of [...]

In this essay Néstor Olhagaray writes about Yanomami, the video by Juan Downey, focusing on specific moments or scenes. He analyzes the role of the “creator of images” who addresses a proposed fictional reality and its viewers. [...]

In this essay Juan Downey describes what he experienced while immersed, with his camera, in several indigenous tribes in Venezuela and Brazil. His goal was to make recordings that would facilitate connection with such environments, claiming that the [...]

Diamela Eltit escribe sobre la obra de Juan Downey, a propósito de su exposición en Chile Festival Downey. El texto se articula en dos puntos: “La patria: todas las patrias” y “Todas las patrias: la patria” cuya [...]

In this article, Juan Downey alternates between questions and certainties as he writes about video, the medium he used to create his body of work. The title refers to a phrase attributed to Marcel Duchamp, who supposedly said that artists keep [...]

In this essay Justo Pastor Mellado discusses Quadrivium, the exhibition of works by Gonzalo Díaz, presenting a critical overview of the latter’s production since 1982. Mellado’s review could be split into two parts, each of which [...]

Nelly Richard writes about Eugenio Dittborn’s airmail paintings, discussing the folds and marks that are created as they travel through the postal system and what they mean. In her opinion, these “production marks” should be [...]

In this essay Eugenio Dittborn writes about his Pinturas aeropostales [Airmail Paintings], discussing them in poetic terms laid out in 13 sections in which he describes how they were put together and how they were supposed to function. He explains [...]

Gonzalo Muñoz discusses three of the processes that Eugenio Dittborn uses in his work, indicating the presence of an intent and a strategy. The first is “the relief” created by the combination of drawing and photography in [...]

The essayist Pablo Oyarzún discusses the work of Eugenio Dittborn, stitching together a patchwork quilt of quotes and references. He talks about what is “legible” and “illegible” in the Chilean experimental artist&rsquo [...]

In this article, Gaspar Galaz rates José Balmes as one of the most important painters in the Chilean art world. The writer notes the international influence Balmes brings to his local perspective and concentrates his attention on the paintings [...]

In her essay Chile en la XII Bienal de París (Chile at the Twelfth Paris Biennial), Nelly Richard compares the history of Latin American art to the history of art (in its most visible European and North American versions) on the occasion of [...]

“The broadening of the critical space” represents one section of the book, Chile Arte Actual [Chile Art Today], written by the art historians, Gaspar Galaz and Milan Ivelic. In the book, the authors ask themselves why the late 1970s and [...]

In this essay Pablo Oyarzún, an authority on philosophical matters, discusses Lonquén 10 años (Lonquén 10 Years), the installation by the Chilean artist Gonzalo Díaz, keeping in mind the procedures, relationships, [...]

In her review of Love, a 1988 painting by Juan Domingo Dávila, Nelly Richard refers to ideas she had previously explored in La cita amorosa, jointly published with the artist a few years earlier. Harking back to that publication allows the [...]