Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

In this newspaper article, the journalist Miguel de Almeida reviews Idéias Modernas, the exhibition of work by Guto Lacaz that was presented at the Galeria São Paulo in 1982. The journalist comments on the inventiveness and excellent humor he sees [...]

This manifesto was written by artist Raul Córdula, then director of the Núcleo de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade Federal da Paraíba (NAC-UFPB). Today, it serves as a record of the precarious situation of state-supported cultural institutions [...]

This text summarizes artist Regina Silveira’s position in a debate held at the Galeria São Paulo in December 1981 on the state of printmaking in Brazil in the early eighties. Early on, Silveira asserts that in her view, the idea that printmaking [...]

In this text, art critic Sônia Salzstein analyzes a sculpture in the collection of the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (MAM-SP) produced by José Resende in 1975. On the basis of this sculpture, Salzstein formulates the way that Resende’s work [...]

In this text, originally published in 1943 in a portfolio of drawings and prints entitled Mangue, by Lasar Segall, Mário de Andrade defines the drawing in its calligraphic, lyrical and “extra-visual” properties, coming to consider it as “ [...]

This was a lecture by the art historian and critic Walter Zanini about the arts activities of the Japanese community in Brazil, particularly in the cities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Although this study is focused on the art world after World [...]

The professor and essay writer Celso Favaretto assesses the parameters that frame the work of Hélio Oiticica, from the experience of pure art to the statement made by environmental art. In Favaretto’s opinion, the path followed by the artist from [...]

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 article by Olívio Tavares de Araújo discusses the exhibition Pintura como meio (1983) held at the Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo (MAC-USP), which at the time was directed by Aracy Amaral. The exhibition brought [...]

Sônia Salzstein wrote this essay for the catalogue accompanying the exhibition of work by Carlos Fajardo that was held at Galeria A. S. Studio in São Paulo in 1997. In it, she discusses the persistence of memory in painting (the medium most [...]

In order to write this article, the architect Valdir Arruda had to make an effort to understand the phenomena of graffiti, and street painting and writing, which were on the rise in São Paulo in the 1980s. The text reproduces passages from various [...]

This article by the artist João Câmara Filho celebrates the tenth anniversary of the founding of the Oficina Guaianases de Gravura, the print shop in Olinda, Pernambuco. The author describes the origins and activities of the nonprofit organization [...]

In her role as the director of the MAC-USP (Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo), Aracy Amaral praises the results of the first edition of Arte na Rua [Art in the Street], the project suggested by the artists Ana Maria Tavares [...]

To start with, the newspaper’s editorial statement was very clear concerning the basic purpose of A parte do fogo [The Fire’s Part]: to take part in Brazil’s cultural process and create a space devoted to reflection and to the production of [...]

This is a report on the opening of the exhibition Os artistas pelas Diretas at the entranceway of the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper facilities in February 1984. The management of the newspaper, in conjunction with various artists, conceived the [...]

The article on the collective exhibition named Múltiplos e objetos, presented in August-September 1979 at the gallery Múltipla in São Paulo, turned out to be emblematic on the discussions regarding the “democratization” of art and on “public [...]

This newspaper article reports on the raid carried out at the Teatro Ruth Escobar, in São Paulo, on June 8, 1968, when federal police violently shut down the Iª Feira Paulista de Opinião, an event produced by the Teatro de Arena group and directed [...]

This article, essentially the minutes of a meeting of the Cooperativa de Artistas Plásticos de São Paulo, was published in ABC Color, the organization’s newspaper. The article reports on the meeting of Cooperative members on July 2, 1980, at [...]

This is a news report on the formation of the Cooperativa dos Artistas Plásticos de São Paulo in 1979, which in fact was a pioneering initiative in Brazil. Instead of meeting to discuss issues on aesthetics, the collective sought to establish an [...]

The article by Cacilda Costa develops her ideas about “public art” as one of the possible links for creating an alliance between “power, politics and the image.” In other words, it is a “resource that governments and companies may deploy to [...]

This is a report on the seizure of flags and banners presented by artists Nelson Leirner and Flavio Motta at the corner of Avenida Brasil and Rua Augusta (December 1967); the repressive action was ordered by the city’s district attorneys. According [...]

In this article, the architect and artist Flávio Motta discusses the properties of art—color especially—that can transform a city into an “expansive, intelligent, and observable” space where relationships and humanist aspirations for social [...]

This newspaper article reports on the Municipalidad de São Paulo’s official approval of the architect and artist Flávio Motta’s proposal to paint the concrete columns that support the elevated Presidente Costa e Silva highway, known to locals [...]

This newspaper article reports on the Municipalidad de São Paulo’s official approval of the architect and artist Flávio Motta’s proposal to paint the concrete columns that support the elevated Presidente Costa e Silva highway, known to locals [...]

This proposal, which envisioned a program of artistic activities in “public spaces,” was submitted to the City Hall of São Paulo in 1974 by the artist and architect Flavio Motta and the artist Marcello Nitsche. The project called for greater [...]

Flávio Motta discusses the connections between the landscape and urban living conditions in large cities, which he believes affect human relationships. Cities that grow haphazardly with no urban planning are a reflection of a disorganized society. [...]

In this interview, the sculptor José Resende describes his training as an architect and his career as an artist since the mid-1970s. He discusses the development of the Grupo Rex and the founding of the Escola Brasil, in both of which he was [...]

This interview with Carlos Zilio was written in conjunction with the exhibition Carlos Zilio: Arte e política, 1966–1976 held at the Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro (MAM-Rio) in 1996. The questions put to the artists by a number of [...]

In his testimony, the artist Abelardo da Hora (1924–2014) mixes autobiography with episodes that refer to the organization of the Sociedade de Arte Moderna (SAM) in Recife and the workshop known as the Atelier Coletivo as well as the Movimento de [...]

In this essay, Roberto Schwarz discusses the growing prevalence of leftist politics in Brazilian cultural circles after the military coup of 1964 (which kept its grip on power for two decades). He confirms that, the right wing military dictatorship [...]

During his visit to Brazil, the French art critic Pierre Restany notices that “the complex Brazilian reality” is reflected in “the small world of art,” to the point of expressing a certain “cultural confusion” (over and above questions of [...]

In the view of Brazilian historian Aracy Amaral, the widespread prejudice against art with a “conteudístico” (content-based) approach hinders twentieth-century production from tackling sociopolitical issues. From the thirties through the [...]

Brazilian art critic Frederico Morais bases this text on two writings on the student uprising in Paris in May 1968: “L’artiste et la société” by French critic Michel Ragon and “L’image-action de la société ou la politisation culturelle [...]

In this excerpt from his book Pancetti (Rio de Janeiro: Ministério da Educação e Cultura, 1960), Medeiros Lima recounts José Pancetti’s first experiences with paintings when he was still a sailor. The section cited begins with the painting work [...]

The theatre group Oficina’s use in 1967 of Oswald de Andrade’s 1933 novel O rei da vela [The Candle King] to re-inaugurate their stage expressed the desire of the company, which was led by José Celso Martinez Corrêa, to offer a new dramatic [...]

This seminar analyzes research, debates, interviews, and statements collected by the Núcleo de Estudos e Pesquisas of the Fundação Nacional da Arte (FUNARTE). The main topic addressed is how “the national” and “the popular” have been [...]

This article, jointly written by Carlos Zílio, José Rezende, Ronaldo Brito, and Waltércio Caldas Jr., discusses Brazilian art in the mid-1970s and examines its connection to the local market, a relationship that affected both the circulation and [...]

In this text, Jorge Mautner looks at Brazilian artists working in different disciplines (in the visual arts, music, literature, film, and theater), and the parallels between their past and present work. His thesis is that there is a liberating [...]

This article seeks to “analyze”—in the true psychoanalytical sense of the word—Brazilian art’s commitments and symptoms during the process of its resistance to contemporary art and to the utter annihilation of the Fine Arts system. Jointly [...]

In this essay about Brazilian art, the critic Rodrigo Naves refers, first of all, to the formal timidity of the works produced in Brazil since the modernism of the 1920s. When compared with the modern art shown on the international circuit, which [...]

In this chapter of his book, Ronaldo Brito discusses the work of the painter Iberê Camargoin during the early days of his career in the 1940s. Brito mentions the painter’s involvement with his pictorial material and the expressive savagery of his [...]

This article describes the Núcleo Bernardelli, a group of young students at the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes (which operated in Rio de Janeiro from 1931 to 1942), who were interested in updating certain Brazilian art instruction methods. According [...]

In this review, Ferreira Gullar describes the one-man show of works by Iberê Camargo at the Acervo gallery in Rio de Janeiro (1981). No invitation was issued, and no catalogue was printed for the exhibition that displayed a selection of the artist [...]

This interview with Iberê Camargo published by Cultura magazine in 1972 is preceded by an introduction to the artist that includes biographical and professional information. They record his studies at the Escola de Artes e Ofícios at the Santa [...]

This is an article written by Marcos Santarrita, published in the form of a one-act play, with the lead parts played by Décio Vieira and Alfredo Volpi, along with a reporter (Santarrita) and a photographer. The scene takes place in the workshop of [...]

In discussing paintings by Anita Malfatti such as O homem amarelo, as well as work by Zina Aita and Vicente do Rego Monteiro, Graça Aranha asserts that visitors to the Semana de Arte Moderna of 1922 would consider the exhibition a “heap of ‘ [...]

This essay is about reaching a dead end in the nationalist project as well as the aesthetic requirements inherent in the avant-garde when modern art began to develop in Brazil. That development was launched with the 1917 exhibition by the painter [...]

This is an illustrated text in which José Geraldo Vieira defines the characteristics of “naïve” or “primitive art” at a time which coincided with Brazilian art critics’ growing interest in the trend. In his judgment, it is an instinctive [...]

In this article the painter Emiliano Di Cavalcanti seeks to clear up certain misunderstandings conveyed by the lecture he gave the previous year at the MASP (Museu de Arte de São Paulo), titled “The Myths of Modernism, with Criticisms of [...]

This article describes the origins, operation, and goals of the Clube de Gravura of Rio de Janeiro, which was founded in 1952 “thanks to the growing interest in printmaking that is sweeping the country.” Clubs of this nature have contributed to [...]