Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

In “Bellas Artes, Arquitectura, Arqueología y Arquitecturas Mexicanas," published in 1899 in the journal El Arte y la Ciencia, Tepoztecaconetzin Calquetzani (a pseudonym for an anonymous Mexican author) argues against the use of decorative [...]

Journalist Alfonso Bonilla Aragón writes a review of a solo exhibition of the artist Beatriz González, which took place at the Museo La Tertulia in Cali, Colombia, in 1965. The show encompassed three bodies of work: nine oil paintings [...]

In "Bits and Pieces: The Mexican American Folk Aesthetic," authors Suzanne Seriff and José Limón argue that a common aesthetic pervades all aspects of Mexican American culture including folk art, food, music, games, and rituals. Seriff and Limón [...]

In this text, Guillermo Gómez-Peña declares the new dominant U.S. culture “border culture,” and assesses how Latino culture has infiltrated U.S. culture writ large. U.S. culture has, he argues, become fundamentally multicultural, and the “ [...]

“Brown Paper Report” is the manifesto of the Tejano [Texan-Chicano] San Antonio-based art collective Con Safo, written by artist Mel Casas in 1971. This short text presents the concepts of Chicano and “Brown Vision,” as well as the etymology [...]

This is the catalogue published to accompany Camargo, the exhibition organized by the Gimpel Fils gallery in London. The Brazilian artist Sérgio Camargo’s works were exhibited there from November 17 through December 5, 1970. The [...]

In this text, André Salmon considers the paintings of the young Guatemalan artist, Carlos Mérida, and their appeal to Parisian audiences, while also expressing nationalist sentiments specific to Guatemala. Salmon begins by recounting how young [...]

In this essay, Shifra Goldman defines Chicano art as the expression of the historical conditions of what she calls the “double-mestizaje” [double-intermingling] of Chicano experience. Beginning with a consideration of the unresolved question of [...]

In "Comentarios sobre el nacimiento de la arquitectura hispano-americana," Argentinean architect, art historian, and writer Martín Noel asserts that colonial architecture represents the foundation of the Latin American architectural styles that [...]

In this text, Jorge Romero Brest responds to an article by Damián Bayón about what qualities make art produced by Latin American artists Latin American, and to four related questions about the nature of Latin American art which were sent to him by [...]

The Brazilian writer and art critic Luis Gonzaga Duque Estrada presents a strong critique of the notion of an escola brazileira, [Brazilian school] promoted by the Academia Imperial de Belas Artes.  Since its origins, he argues, the escola [...]

Frederico Morais uses an extremely long title to provide a précis of his essay. But it only complicates the simplified narratives of a movement—whose embrace of doctrinaire Constructivism was followed by a critical rift between Concrete [...]

This brief, anonymous article, published on January 25, 1959, in the Brazilian newspaper Folha de São Paulo, notes that the Galeria de Arte das Folhas closed out 1958 with a group exhibition of Concrete art. The article names the six [...]

In this essay, Ferreira Gullar critiques the exhibition of works by São Paulo Concrete artists at the MAM-RJ (Museu de Arte Moderna de Rio de Janeiro, 1957). He also critiques Waldemar Cordeiro’s introductory essay and its assertion that [...]

In this text, Grace L. McCann Morley reviews recent developments in Latin American art, and makes a number of suggestions about how the appreciation of Latin American art can be furthered in the United States. McCann Morley begins by reminding us of [...]

In this letter to Peruvian writer and journalist José Carlos Mariátegui, avant-garde Peruvian writer and poet Alberto Hidalgo thanks Mariátegui for sending him a copy of his recently published book, Seven Interpretative Essays on Peruvian Reality [...]

This exhibition essay by adjunct curator Julia Herzberg on artist Magdalena Fernández’s video installation 2iPM009 (2009) intends to broaden our understanding of the Venezuelan artist’s concepts, processes, sources, and development [...]

Despite the title “Del patrioterismo en el arte,” in this article the Argentinean painter Martín Malharro rejects the idea of a narrowly prescribed and defined national art school. He partially does so in opposition to the influence of the [...]

In this text, Aluísio Carvão recalls taking part in the third Salão Nacional de Arte Moderna, which was also known as the Salón Blanco y Negro (Black-and-White Salon) “mainly because of the political statement it [...]

This testimony records Décio Vieira’s recollections of taking part in the third Salão Nacional de Arte Moderna, also called the Salón Blanco y Negro (Black-and-White Salon) as a member of the Grupo Frente. Challenging & [...]

In his testimony the critic Ferreira Gullar describes his involvement in the third Salão Nacional de Arte Moderna, also called the Salón Blanco y Negro (Black-and-White Salon), in 1954. At that point in time he was not a professional [...]

In this statement, Iberê Camargo recalls how the third Salão Nacional de Arte Moderna, also known as the Salão Preto e Branco (Black-and-White Salon), was planned as a protest against the Brazilian Finance Minister Osvaldo Aranha& [...]

In this text, Ione Saldanha recalls how the third Salão Nacional de Arte Moderna, known as the Salão Preto e Branco (Black-and-White Salon), influenced both her work and Brazilian modernism more broadly. She remembers having works in [...]

The curator Glória Ferreira interviews the painter and art critic Quirino Campofiorito, asking him about the circumstances that led to what came to be known as the Salão Preto e Branco (Black-and-White Salon) in 1954 in Rio de Janeiro. [...]

The curator Luiza Intermenghi interviews the Brazilian artist Sérgio Camargo, asking him about his involvement in what came to be known as the Salão Preto e Branco (Black-and-White Salon) (1954) in Rio de Janeiro. Camargo explains that [...]

This brochure was designed in 1996 for the exhibition Desexp(l)os(ign)ição (a compound word meaning something like ignited-signs-that-do-not-explode-in-the-non-exhibition). This event was a historical celebration of the Exposiç& [...]

In this interview, art critic Marta Traba poses ten questions to Colombian artist Beatriz González. Traba begins by inquiring about the ironic nature of González’s subjects and the kitschy character of the objects she produces. In [...]

Puerto Rican painter Francisco Oller delivered this speech to students and fellow professors around 1902 while teaching at the Normal School in Río Piedras. Oller explains that in order to impart anything meaningful to his audience, he must first [...]

This address was given by the Spanish-born, Chilean-based scholar José Victorino Lastarria in 1842 during a meeting of the recently formed Sociedad Literaria, a literary society of important Chilean scholars and politicians. In his speech to the [...]

In this introductory essay, which appeared in the catalogue for the paradigmatic exhibition Projeto Construtivo Brasileiro na Arte, Aracy Amaral describes the “revelation” she experienced as she researched the period in question: “ [...]

In two chapters from his book Indología, José Vasconcelos outlines his concept of a culturally and politically unified Latin America, discussing how Latin America’s internal conflicts and its disagreements with the United States could be resolved [...]

This article records a polemical debate over Argentinean national artistic and literary practices that took place in 1894 between three Argentinean artistic figures: poet and playwright Rafael Obligado; painter, critic, and scholar Eduardo Schiaffino [...]

In this lecture, Gustavo Buntinx looks to convince his listeners that the current idea of “Latin American art” is an imperialist construct, and argues that the only solution is for them to reinvent it in its entirety. He begins by declaring that [...]

In "El momento," Juan Marinello announces the existence of a new avant-garde movement in Cuban literature and the arts. Marinello prophesizes a coming “battle” between the new Cuban intellectual scene and the outmoded literary establishment who, [...]

“El pabellón de Mexico en Sevilla,” by architect Manuel Amábilis, describes the Mexican pavilion at the 1930 Universal Exposition in Seville. In the prologue, Enrique González Martínez, the Mexican ambassador to Spain, explains that the [...]

In “The Pachuco and Other Extremes,” the Mexican poet, writer, and diplomat Octavio Paz grapples with the issues related to the search for the national identity in post-revolutionary Mexico and, more broadly, the existential relationship of [...]

In these three extracts from the first chapter of his book Última Tule, Alfonso Reyes considers the history of conquest and how it has fostered mythic notions of the Americas. In the text “Colón y Américo Vespucio,” he corrects the historical [...]

In this text, Marta Traba considers the problem of how Latin American artists can produce art “continental” in character at a moment when realism is not the contemporary mode of expression. She introduces the problem by observing how European [...]

The text “Entrance” serves as the introduction to the book, Hybrid Cultures: Strategies for Entering and Leaving Modernity, by Mexico-based Argentinean academic and anthropologist Néstor García Canclini. Written in 1995, the work rapidly became [...]

This is the transcript of an interview—broadcast during a radio program, Clube da Crítica—in which the host, Pascoal Longo, discusses the third Salão Nacional de Arte Moderna with the Brazilian painter Djanira. Speaking as [...]

This exhibition brochure, written by consulting curator Julia P. Herzberg, addresses Ernesto Pujol’s installation Conversion of Manners. The title comes from a Benedictine vow that Catholic monks take when they leave secular life and enter [...]

Written by guest curator Julia P. Herzberg, this exhibition leaflet explains the ideas behind Ernesto Pujol’s installation American Fields. This Cuban artist’s work comprises a wooden table, a metal chair, and cast-aluminum corn cobs, as [...]

This review was written for the Mexican minister of public works by Mexican diplomat Pedro Escandón, president of the Mexican commission for the 1855 Universal Exposition of Products of Agriculture, Industry, and Fine Arts in Paris. In this essay, [...]

In this text, María Luisa Torrens responds to Aracy Amaral’s article arguing that the installation entitled Etsedrón, which appeared at the 1975 (XIII) São Paulo Biennial, constituted a promising new direction for Latin American art. Torrens [...]

In this text, Aracy Amaral considers the strong negative responses provoked by a work entitled Etsedrón in the 1975 (XIII) São Paulo Biennial. She argues that this work provoked such responses because of its visceral power and because it is [...]

This text, included in an exhibition catalogue for artist Carlos Alfonzo, is a transcription of a conversation between Alfonzo and his friend César Trasobares. The interview was videotaped by Alfonzo’s friend Craig Robins in November [...]

In this newspaper article dated June 20, 1954, professor Walter Zanini reviews the exhibition of works by artists representing the Atelier Abstração at the MAM-SP (Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo). Despite the fact that, as a [...]

This poster was designed to promote the inaugural Exposição nacional de arte concreta: artes visuais, which was presented in December 1956 at the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (MAM-SP) and in January–February 1957 at [...]

El Nuevo Indio by the Cuzco-born historian and sociologist José Uriel García (1894–1965) outlines an astute proposal for the Peruvian national project. Rejecting forcefully any nationalist framework based solely on race or “blood,” Uriel Garc [...]