Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

In this essay, the critic Roberto Guevara discusses the Cuban-born Venezuelan painter Rolando Dorrego’s career and latest work. Guevara begins with a review of the art movement of the early 1970s (in which Dorrego was an active participant), which [...]

The researcher Irma Arestizábal comments on the placement of Argentinean avant-garde art, (always at the margin) in relationship to the hegemonic art centers. She writes based on a selection of works of Argentinean artists that appear in [...]

In this article the journalist A. M. I. researches the field of special edition books. She interviews Luisa Palacios, the printmaker and director of TAGA (Taller de Artistas Gráficos Asociados) in Caracas, tracing the origins of this kind of [...]

In this essay, which appeared in the catalogue for Veinte disecciones (Caracas: Museo de Bellas Artes, 1982), the exhibition of works by Roberto Obregón, the researcher Susana Benko reflects on cultural symbols, conventions, and codes and the [...]

There are five chapters in La Pintura de Héctor Poleo, Simón Noriega’s book about the Venezuelan artist. The one chosen here is chapter III, “El surrealismo de Poleo.” Section 4—“¿Reinterpretación o Mímesis?”—presents Poleo’s [...]

Cultural activist Manuel Rodríguez Cárdenas calls the attention of the public authorities of Venezuela to the visible deterioration of the monument created by Alejandro Colina in homage to María Lionza, the protector goddess of the forest, water, [...]

In the design ¿Y por qué no?, the artist Antonieta Sosa describes the action planned in detail. As she states it, this work consists of placing wine glasses on different parts of her body so that they will drop and break. Added to the sound of [...]

This text, written by the anthropologist Juan Ignacio Castillo at the time of the 3rd Bienal Salvador Valero de Arte Popular (Trujillo, 1991), is a commentary on popular religious imagery and its use in different social contexts and strata. The [...]

In this brief review Carlos González Bogen, a member of the Los Disidentes group, adopts a rather critical tone to discuss the negative aspects of an anonymous newspaper report—“De nuevo Los Disidentes,” published in the Márgenes column in [...]

In this essay, Roberto Guevara gives an overview of Gego’s career, [based on a selection of works that are] on display at the São Paulo Biennial. Guevara describes how Gego’s work has evolved from her early sculptures in the 1950s to her latest [...]

Abdel Hernández, the Cuban critic and writer, discusses the VII Bienal Nacional de Dibujo de Caracas (Museo de Artes Visuales Alejandro Otero, 1994) which, in his opinion, was an event that promoted “fragmentation and disciplinarity” in art, and [...]

In this text, reporter Carlos Eduardo Misle, alias “Caremis,” remembers Venezuelan draftsman and humorist Leoncio Martínez, known as LEO, on the forty-second anniversary of his death. “Caremis” mainly discusses Leo’s work in advertising, [...]

In this essay, Eugenio Espinoza analyzes Dibujos sin papel [Drawings Without Paper], a series of works by Gego, a Venezuelan artist of German origin. Espinoza focuses on the works from that series created in 1985 as he explores the way Gego goes [...]

In this article, Elsa Flores comments on the performances of a group of “action-language artists” gathered by the actor, Marco Antonio Ettedgui, who is also a performance artist. Together, they designed and presented their plans at the Galería [...]

In this interview, the journalist Rubén Wisotzki asks Eugenio Espinoza about Orla, the exhibition presented at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Sofía Imber in Caracas, in 1993. The Venezuelan artist believes that the exhibition was a moment for [...]

Roberto Guevara reviewed Gego’s Reticulárea (1969) when it was first installed at the Museo de Bellas Artes [Museum of Fine Arts] in Caracas. He mentions the artist’s use of space within the Reticulárea, which acquires a new environmental [...]

Published in the magazine Imagen in 1969, this article by sculptor and teacher Pedro Briceño takes the reader into the universe of Gego’s Reticulárea. Briceño points out that Gego is an architect as well as an artist, and then describes the [...]

The journalist Lorenzo Batallán writes about the impending opening of Signos, the exhibition of works by the painter Mercedes Pardo at the Sala Mendoza (Caracas). In his article, Batallán describes this Venezuelan artist’s experimentation with [...]

The art critic Perán Erminy reviews and analyzes the exhibition Testimonios organized by El Techo de la Ballena in the context of an international meeting of this group. In this text, Erminy points out what he finds interesting in this exhibition: [...]

‘Visibilia’ en el punto neutro de la figuración is Alfredo Chacón’s essay about Visibilia, the graphic designer Gerd Leufert’s exhibition at the Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas, in 1966. Chacón approaches his review from a comfortable, [...]

In response to the questions put to her by Venezuelan filmmaker José Antonio Pantin, Gego remarks on the origin of her art and the processes it involves, focusing specifically on her three-dimensional work. She states that her works have been [...]

This text by artist Alberto Brandt describes the artistic aims of his exhibition Alberto Brandt. Exposición de pinturas held at the Centro Profesional del Este in Caracas in 1957. As opposed to the “pseudo-classicism,” rationality, and formalism [...]

In this text, Ruth Auerbach explains the curatorial guidelines behind the 3rd Bienal Nacional de Arte de Guayana (Ciudad Bolívar, 1993). She believes the salons were established in order to propose that they be a space open to experimentation. In [...]

This text written by the art critic Roberto Guevara is the preface to the catalogue for the exhibition Pinturas, which exhibited work by the French artist Marcel Floris, who had been living in Caracas since 1950. The exhibition was held at the Museo [...]

Curator Juan Calzadilla begins his essay on the Venezuelan painter known as “Pájaro” [Juan Vicente Hernández] by pointing out the similarity between some, though not all, aspects of his work and orthodox Surrealism. Calzadilla comments on the [...]

This text by Guillermo Meneses is a presentation of CAL magazine, which he founded. Published in the magazine’s first issue, Meneses’s text explains the meaning of the letters in the publication’s name: C refers to crítica (criticism), A to [...]

In this brief text that appeared in the catalogue of Roberto Obregón’s second solo exhibition held in Caracas at Galería XX2 (1967), the artist presents a creed-like manner in expressing his convictions about art and life, and also commenting on [...]

In this essay, Venezuelan artist Víctor Valera discusses many of the concepts crucial to his work in sculpture. He describes, for instance, his conception of form as volume incorporated or projected into space. He mentions a number of [...]

The curator Axel Stein introduces the exhibition of works by Luis Lizardo at the Centro de Arte Euroamericano (Caracas, 1991). In his essay Stein talks about the artist’s early days, when he was just getting started, interspersing his own formal [...]

In this brief prologue to the catalogue of his exhibition Nedo: Reversámbitos held at the Museo de Bellas Artes in Caracas in 1973, Italian-born Venezuelan designer and artist Nedo [Mion Ferrario] describes his experience of space in terms of [...]

In his prologue to the catalogue for a show of the Taller Libre de Arte (TLA), Luis Berroterán asserts that the Liceo Fermín Toro played an important role in the origin of the TLA. He explains that the members of the TLA aspire to work with other [...]

In this essay, Italian critic Umbro Apollonio analyzes Jesús Rafael Soto’s vibrational work, particularly his production from the fifties. Apollonio starts out with a brief description of common, albeit distorted, perceptions of contemporary art. [...]

In his text, Pedro Briceño describes how the work of another Venezuelan sculptor, Pedro Barreto, has evolved from his early work (“totems”) of tropical and chain-like forms, to his new work. The latter is characterized by a greater preoccupation [...]

Researcher and historian Bélgica Rodríguez analyzes the work of Hugo Baptista in a biographical text with quotations made by the painter; beginning with the artist’s move to Caracas in 1951 so that he could enroll in Vicente Emilio Sojo’s [...]

In this essay, the Spanish artist Angel Luque, then living in Venezuela, performed a point-by-point review of the pictorial characteristics of his work and his general world attitude. He states that he is in search of a type of painting that is [...]

In his essay, the curator Miguel Arroyo states his opinion about the lethargy that has overcome the sculpture world in Venezuela. He is struck by the movement of young sculptors stepping up to continue the work started by Francisco Narváez, Gego [ [...]

In this document, the critic Francisco Da Antonio develops a chronological essay on the life and work of Domenico Casasanta, starting in 1958, when the artist arrived in Venezuela. After almost a decade in which he produced no work, in 1968, the [...]

This is the preface of a book by Carlos Cruz-Diez, Reflexiones sobre el color (1989) in which the Venezuelan Kinetic artist uses short sentences to set forth the definitions and basic concepts of the art he creates. He also discusses the condition of [...]

The art critic and researcher Eliseo Sierra reviews a decade of the life and art of the Venezuelan painter Susana Amundaraín, from her beginnings in the 1980s through 1992. After reviewing the art world at the time she began to produce art, the [...]

[This text is] the first issue of Los Disidentes (Paris, 1950) magazine, in which [the group] explains succinctly the “essential mission” of the eponymous magazine and the “immediate aim” which they are pursuing with this [...]

Analyzing the work of Venezuelan artist Diana López, critic Jesús Fuenmayor highlights the most salient features of her work from the beginning of the 1990s (when she began her artistic career) up to the moment that the exhibition he is reviewing [...]

In this text, Juan Calzadilla analyzes Luisa Richter’s work in drawing while also providing an overview of the drawing genre in the post-World War II era—a time when there was widespread interest in the graphic arts in general. Calzadilla [...]

The curator Cecilia Fajardo-Hill introduces the exhibition Usted, el espacio by the Venezuelan visual artist Alí González, held at the Galería D’Museo in Caracas in 2001. In connection with that event, the curator discusses the artist’s recent [...]

In this essay, Hans Neumann discusses José María Cruxent’s kinetic work. He describes the experience of first seeing Cruxent’s “parakinetic” work and analyzes the way the artist turns light—whether natural or artificial—into an integral [...]

Here, the French critic and journalist Thiébault-Sisson performs an exhaustive review of the artistic life of the painter Emilio Boggio. The article comments on his artistic beginnings and his relationships with his teacher Jean-Paul Laurens and his [...]

This essay by Pedro León Castro appeared in the catalogue for his exhibition of paintings at the Museo de Bellas Artes de Caracas in 1949. Following a brief introductory paragraph, in which he explains that the exhibition is a reflection of his [...]

In this text, the members of El Techo de la Ballena, a group that emerged in the sixties, in Caracas, delineated the differences between categories such as “tacky,” “unfortunate,” and “ridiculous” in the exhibition, Homenaje a la cursiler [...]

The researcher Victoria de Stefano wrote the introduction to a catalogue for the 1985 exhibition Nenias by the graphic designer Gerd Leufert at the Museo de Bellas Artes in Caracas. She provides an overview of the artist’s work, in contrast with [...]

In this text, curator William Niño Araque reflects on Fabiola Sequera’s sculpture on the occasion of the exhibition held at the Galería Astrid Paredes in Caracas in 1991. The curatorial essay proposes three approaches to a body of work that [...]

In this text, the critic Perán Erminy proposes a visual and symbolic analysis of the popular style of landscape painting practiced by Josefa Sulbarán, in recognition of her twenty years of creating art in Venezuela. Erminy divides his essay into [...]