Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

This is the photographic documentation for the written texts about three ethnic groups in northern Brazil: the Kampa (in Acre state), the Marubo (Amazonas state), and the Yanomami (Amazonas and Roraima states). The author is the Franco-Italian [...]

This study in aesthetic anthropology by Regina Polo Müller revolves around the following topics: 1. Supports and techniques in drawing: artistic style; 2. Techniques and style in drawing; 3. “Tayngava”: pattern, image, replica of the human form [...]

This publication by anthropologist Maria Heloisa Fénelon Costa encompasses the following sections: Introduction; I. Drawing; II. The World’s Beings; III. Supernatural; IV. Animals- Iconography. The Mehináku Classification of the World and [...]

This volume contains three essays on the feather art of the Mekrãgnoti tribe, a subgroup of the Kayapó people. The first, “La notion de personne. La peinture corporelle chez les Kayapó” [Body Painting Among the Kayapó: The Concept of Person [...]

This is a book by Erich Freundt on featherware, face painting, memorial services, hunting scenes, ceramics, and carved wooden dolls of three ethnic groups from the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil, which he had visited between 1939 and 1942. The [...]

In this critical bibliography, German ethnologist Herbert Baldüs compiles 1,785 entries on works related to indigenous themes in Brazil, works that were published from the mid-16th century to the early fifties of the 20th century. Baldüs [...]

This book jointly written by the anthropologists Darcy Ribeiro and his wife Berta G. Ribeiro is about the extremely elaborate feather work produced by the Urubú-Kaapor indigenous people, who are members of the Tupi language branch, and live in [...]

This text by Gastão Cruls is outlined as follows: The Visual Arts, Basic Elements and Development; Instruments and Material; Body Adornments; Featherwork; Auxiliary Decoration Elements; Braids and Weaves; Works with Strings of Beads; Artifacts Made [...]

This essay by the anthropologist Darcy Ribeiro was published in the História geral da arte no Brasil. The essay includes the following subjects: 1. Introductions: The Indians. Art genres (art on stone, weavings, fabrics, ceramics, and music). [...]

This essay presents an anthology of drawings by indigenous people collected as part of the aesthetic anthropological studies conducted by Lux Vidal. The anthropologist Dominique Tilkin Gallois, in this essay about the Waiãpi Indians (the [...]

This is a chapter from Kadiwéu, the book about the homonymous indigenous group. The chapter, called “Arte: a vontade da beleza” [Art: The Will of Beauty], includes ethnological studies about knowledge, bad luck, and beauty. Here, [...]

The Desana ethnic group is represented in this book by their myths, which are set in the Rio Negro region (in the Brazilian state of Amazonas), as narrated by one of their descendant groups, the Khẽíripõrã. The myths describe [...]

This book is about the collections of featherwork at the MAA-USP (Museu de Arte e Arqueologia, da Universidade de São Paulo). The introduction is by the anthropologist Paula Monter; Fernando Mendonça d´Horta provides the [...]

This book is about Chico Tabibuia, the African-Brazilian artist whose sculptures are known for the tension they express between religiosity and eroticism. In Brazilian syncretism, Exú (the messenger of the gods) is a recurring theme, as is in [...]

This text by anthropologist Rita Amaral covers the collection of ritual art—specifically of the Afro-Brazilian cult Candomblé—which forms part of the collection of the Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia at the Universidade de São Paulo. She [...]

This is a catalogue for the collection of African art at the Museu Nacional de Belas Artes in Rio de Janeiro, which includes pieces from Nigeria and Benin (the former Republic of Dahomey). This document was produced by the anthropologist and [...]

This is the catalogue for the collection of ceremonial scepters at the Museu Nacional in Rio de Janeiro. These pieces are from various parts of Africa, and are made of particular types of hard woods that have been expressly chosen for the purpose. [...]

This text consists of excerpts from the catalogue for the exhibition Para nunca esquecer. Negras memórias/ Memórias de Negros, held at the Museu Histórico Nacional (in Rio de Janeiro in 2001). It includes scores of texts and poems by writers who [...]

This is a report on the 18 anthropomorphic sculptures of orishás (divinities of Afro-Brazilian religions) that have been restored to the national heritage and are now in the collection at the Museu Nacional in Rio de Janeiro. All 18 sculptures are [...]

This is the catalogue that describes the collection of Afro-Brazilian religious art that is housed at the Fundação Cultural do Estado da Bahia. The text, written from an anthropological perspective, is by the museologist Raul Lody, who was also the [...]

This is the catalogue of ritual objects related to the Yoruba deity Xangô (written Changó in Cuba) in the collection of the Museu do Estado de Pernambuco in Recife. The 307 works are placed in the following categories: sculptures of [...]

The catalogue for the “Coleção Arthur Ramos” was organized by the anthropologist and museologist Raul Lody, who was with the Universidade Federal do Ceará. The pieces in the collection are made of the following materials: wood, Flanders sheet [...]

This article discusses what is meant by the term “Afro-Brazilian art.” The anthropologist Marta Heloísa Leuba Salum describes it as an abstract place where Africa and Brazil commingle in an imaginary universe. She stresses that Afro-Brazilian [...]

This catalogue documents the Afro-Brazilian religious art collection known as “Discoteca Oneyda Alvarenga,” which belongs to the Secretaria Municipal de Cultura of São Paulo. It includes 580 pieces, organized within the following groups: (1) [...]

This is the catalogue for the collection at the Museu Afro-Brasileiro in Salvador, the capital city of the state of Bahia. In it, the anthropologist Jocélio Teles dos Santos explains that this collection is an incentive to make comparisons, [...]

In this text, the anthropologist Vagner Gonçalves da Silva discusses the religious art used in the rites of Candomblé (a Brazilian cult originally brought from Africa) and Umbanda (an African-Christian syncretism). The author draws the [...]

The catalogue for Arte e religiosidade afro-brasileira, the exhibition held at the Kunstverein Museum, in Frankfurt in 1994, introduces the work of contemporary artists of African descent or whose work is inspired by African culture. The exhibition [...]