Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

In this interview with Friedhelm Mennekes, Luis Cruz Azaceta (b. 1942) expresses his desire to study art from a young age. The artist notes that while he was at the School of Visual Arts in New York City (1966–69) he painted geometric abstraction, [...]

In this short essay, Alejandro Anreus describes Arturo Rodriguez’s series “Ghost Archipelago.” Anreus first names Rodriguez’s influences: Giorgione, El Greco, and Goya, and notes that Rodriguez was self-taught. According to Anreus, Rodriguez [...]

Guilio V. Blanc’s introductory essay opens with a brief overview of Cuban painters from the 1920s through the revolutionary period and it continues by transitioning to Cuban art created in exile. Blanc argues that the art of early revolutionary [...]

In this essay, Giulio V. Blanc discusses various reactions to the 1988 burning of a Manuel Mendive’s drawing in Florida, to explain the different attitudes held by Cuban- Americans towards Cuba. He then connects this to the larger issue of exile [...]

In Tony Labat’s short artist statement, he notes that he left Cuba as a child and upon his return there as an adult in the early 1980s he felt as much a stranger there as in the United States. Labat discusses how before his return to Cuba his art [...]

Mario Bencomo’s artist statement describes how he was born in 1953 on the date of the Moncada Barracks offensive and grew up within the revolution. Growing up Bencomo knew he did not want to stay in Cuba and declares that exile has made him more [...]

In Juan Gonzalez’s artist statement, he describes himself as very religious and traces the source of his work to the drama in Catholic imagery. He states that he works outside of the American mainstream and feels a greater connection to the “ [...]

In Agustin Fernandez’s artist statement, he begins with his formal training at the San Alejandro Academy. He also discusses how he “was to be nourished by a thousand things when [he] went abroad” and was greatly influenced by both Enrique Senal [...]

In this artist statement, Cuban-born painter Carmen Herrera begins by recounting her training at the Montessori School in Havana, the San Alejandro Academy in Havana, and her studies of architecture at the Universidad de la Habana. Though the artist [...]