Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

This document by Shifra Goldman is a review of the 1987 exhibition Hispanic Artists: 30 Contemporary Painters and Sculptors held at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., in 1987. Goldman applauds the [...]

In “El Espíritu Latinoamericano: La perspectiva desde los Estados Unidos,” Shifra M. Goldman criticizes the political and cultural criteria underlying the exhibition of Latin American art entitled Latin American Spirit: Art and Artists in the [...]

This document is a transcript of a conference presentation given by art historian Shifra M. Goldman. In her talk, she defends the validity of contemporary Latin American and Chicano art as fields of study for art historians, criticizing detractors [...]

This document is an essay by Shifra M. Goldman in which she proposes that contemporary art criticism is in a state of crisis, a situation she attributes to the “problematics of modernism.” Goldman argues that art criticism’s internal turmoil is [...]

In this text, Shifra Goldman argues that the “boom” in interest in Latin American art that occurred in the United States during the 1980s was largely motivated by political and economic interests. According to her, events and phenomena that [...]

In this text, Shifra Goldman examines the problematic homogenization of the idea of “Hispanic” art and culture that was promoted by the exhibition Hispanic Art in the United States: Thirty Contemporary Painters and Sculptors organized by The [...]

Art historian Shifra M. Goldman writes with great acuity and depth about the traveling exhibition, Art of the Fantastic: Latin America, 1920–1987, which opened at the Indianapolis Museum of Art in 1987, and subsequently went to the Queens [...]

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 [...]

Shifra M. Goldman wrote this text about María Enríquez de Allen to honor her for her contribution to art in the areas of flower making, Santos carving, and crafts. She especially praises Enríquez de Allen for enriching the visual vocabulary of [...]

In this essay, art historian Shifra M. Goldman addresses Chicano mural art in the United States, which began as an independent movement around 1970. Goldman discusses the influences of Mexican muralism, especially that of Los Tres Grandes, Diego [...]

U.S. critic Shifra M. Goldman comments on the importance of the Bienal de San Juan del Grabado Latinoamericano y del Caribe [San Juan Biennial of Latin American and Caribbean Graphic Art] for Puerto Rico, Latin America, and the Caribbean. At the VII [...]

The American art historian, Shifra M. Goldman, writes an analysis of what happened in Mexican art during the years 1955 to 1965. In her opinion, this decade was marked by a growing international trend and by the essentialist loss of both national and [...]

This document is an essay by Shifra Goldman in which she proposes that contemporary art criticism is in a state of crisis, a situation she attributes to the “problematics of modernism.” Goldman argues that the internal turmoil of art criticism is [...]

In this document, Shifra Goldman profiles several Chicano artists with ties to Texas to assess and highlight the state of Chicano art in that region in 1981. Goldman links the development of Chicano art in Texas to the Chicano Movement in the [...]

In this document Shifra Goldman and Tomás Ybarra-Frausto outline an extensive model for the study of a social history of Chicano art, beginning with a consideration of the cultural theories of Ernesto Galarza and anthropologists Americo Paredes and [...]

This essay by art historian and critic Shifra M. Goldman is a review of two Chicano group exhibitions held in 1981: Califas: An Exhibition of Chicano Artists in California and Murals of Aztlán: Street Painters of East Los Angeles. The former was [...]

This letter by the art historian and critic Shifra M. Goldman responds to a letter from the Chicana artist Judithe Hernandez. The latter’s letter was responding to Goldman’s review of the exhibition Murals of Aztlán: Street Painters of East Los [...]

Art historian and curator Shifra M. Goldman begins this essay with a brief background of Chicano art prior to discussing the history of the Austin-based Chicana artist group MAS (Mujeres Artistas del Suroeste) and the work of its five founding [...]

Defining art as a combination of technology, formal expression, and ideology, this essay by art historian Shifra M. Goldman addresses the relationship of each element to Chicano art practices, ultimately proposing that resistance from dominant [...]

In this essay, Shifra M. Goldman discusses the inextricable link between the politics and art of the Chicano movement. Political and social rifts of the 1980s were echoed within the Chicano art world. The main point of contention in both realms was [...]

This essay by North American historian Shifra M. Goldman examines the artistic production of Chicanos. She considers that production part of the nationalist strategy of a people that determines its own destiny by means of its declarations, be they [...]

The American critic and historian Shifra M. Goldman considers the influence that the art of the New Deal (the program introduced by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States that existed from 1933 to 1938) and Mexican Social Realist art [...]

North American historian Shifra M. Goldman offers a brief account of the Segunda Bienal de La Habana [Second Havana Biennial] held in November 1986. The event included more than 2,400 works by 690 artists from 51 countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin [...]

Shifra M. Goldman’s essay provides a brief history of the Chicano Movement and also names some of the early Mexican American women’s political groups, professional associations, and art groups. She discusses the overall failure of the Chicano [...]

In this essay, art historian Shifra M. Goldman addresses Chicano mural art in the United States, which began as an independent movement around 1970. Goldman discusses the influences of Mexican muralism, especially that of Los Tres Grandes, Diego [...]

By focusing on the work of two Chicano muralists who were active in the 1970s, Leo Tanguma and Emigdio Vásquez, art historian Shifra M. Goldman examines some of the historical experiences represented in the work of Chicano artists. According to [...]

In this essay, Shifra M. Goldman discusses the Chicano poster movement by considering its historical background, followed by an examination of poster collectives and the work of individual Chicano poster artists, including Rupert Garcia, Malaquías [...]

In this essay, Shifra M. Goldman discusses Chicano art in the United States from a social art historical perspective. According to her the first phase of the Chicano art movement (1965–1980s) was characterized by a quest for self-identity, which [...]

Shifra M. Goldman writes about Patricia Israel’s painting in the early 1990s. She shares her thoughts on conditions in Latin American and their historical roots, focusing on how the discovery of America continues to be problematic five [...]