Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

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 [...]

In this essay, Venezuelan writer Guillermo Meneses provides an overview of the life of Jesús Rafael Soto. He begins with a lyrical description of the artist’s place of birth (Ciudad Bolívar, on the banks of the Orinoco River) and how it would [...]

Enrique Buenaventura reviews and critiques Gabriel Bracho’s first exhibition at the Museo de Bellas Artes in Caracas. The Colombian playwright identifies the artist as a realist painter who has not yet reached maturity, which is the reason why the [...]

This is José Ignacio Herrera’s essay about the works on paper (or in which paper plays a key role) created by three of the four participants in the exhibition Uno, Dos, Tres, Cuatro (Caracas: Museo de Bellas Artes, 1991): Héctor Fuenmayor, [...]

This text by writer Guillermo Meneses is divided into three parts. The first discusses the characteristics of Jesús Rafael Soto’s work, his exceptional skill and talent as an artist, and his perseverance, which allowed him to overcome a number of [...]

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 [...]

In his review of the exhibition “Paisaje Venezolano” held at the Museo de Bellas Artes in August 1942, critic Enrique Planchart underscores the importance of French-Venezuelan painter Emilio Boggio to the national art scene. Planchart [...]

This text, written on behalf of the Galería de Arte Nacional (GAN) in Caracas, introduces Gego’s environmental work Reticulárea (1969), identified as a constant presence that was also capable of variation. While this was a unique work of art, [...]

In 1949, the journalist José Ratto-Ciarlo outlined the exhibition of [work] by Alejandro Otero at the Museo de Bellas Artes de Caracas. The beginning of the outline and the two first subtitles (“Comprensión de Otero” and “La parte por el todo [...]

Poet Guillermo Alfredo Cook asserts that, insofar as Gabriel Bracho’s work has rendered painting literary, it has mistaken the essence of art, reducing it to political slogans and ideological propaganda. He describes Bracho’s painting as a [...]

In this essay about the exhibition of paintings by the Ecuadorian artist Oswaldo Guayasamín at the Museo de Bellas Artes de Caracas, Alejandro Otero discusses the question of influences in art and originality. Following a detailed analysis of many [...]

In the second part of his extensive review of the Exposición del Paisaje Venezolano, which took place in 1942 at the Museo de Bellas Artes of Caracas, Enrique Planchart analyzes some of the twentieth-century painters of his country, each of which he [...]

This document summarizes the proposals submitted by the participants at the Primer Encuentro Iberoamericano de Críticos de Arte y Artistas Plásticos who were sitting at work table number two. Referring to the subject “Criticism, Theory, and [...]

This document includes a summary of the proposals presented by the participants at the Primer Encuentro Iberoamericano de Críticos de Arte y Artistas Plásticos who were sitting together at work table number three. Referring to the subject “The [...]

This document sets forth the contents of the program, the activity schedule and the different venues of the 1st Encuentro Iberoamericano de Críticos de Arte y Artistas Plásticos, held in Caracas June 18 – 27, 1978. It gives the names of all the [...]

In the first part of his extensive review of the Exposición del Paisaje Venezolano, which took place in 1942 at the Museo de Bellas Artes of Caracas, Enrique Planchart establishes a chronological framework that distinguishes the pioneers (he calls [...]

In this text, journalist Héctor Mujica examines the artistic qualities of painter Gabriel Bracho in the exhibition of the artist’s work held at the Museo de Bellas Artes of Caracas in 1951. Mujica describes Bracho’s work as “combat painting [...]

Curator and art critic Élida Román divides her presentation into two parts. She first tries to define not only the objective of art criticism but also to identify the craft and reach of art critics.  Román then presents a diagnosis on the [...]

The director of the Museo de Bellas Artes in Caracas, Marco Miliani, along with his research team, set parameters for research on the Latin American visual arts. This paper begins by diagnosing a range of causes for the backward state of research in [...]

In his presentation, the theorist and critic Juan Acha—whose central theme is on the analysis of the processes of artistic work and its technical divisions—makes a cursory historical overview on the topic before addressing the case of Latin [...]

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 fifth and last issue of Los Disidentes [The Dissidents] (Paris, 1950) magazine, which states as its purpose to “severely” attack the cultural reality of Venezuela, which [the group] describes as “false,” and with the intention of [...]