Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

This is the catalogue, written in French, for the exhibition of drawings by Juan Devéscovi and poems by Xavier Abril that was presented at the Maison de l’Amérique Latine [Latin American House] in Paris (November 1927). In his introduction, Jean [...]

Writer Juan Ríos offers a brief biography of Sérvulo Gutiérrez based on the memories of their first encounter in Paris (1938): “he gave the impression of a force of nature encased in a slight and high-strung body of a man;” he highlights the [...]

This text is writer Sebastián Salazar Bondy’s response to the criticism of artistic nationalism voiced by Luis Miró Quesada Garland in El Comercio newspaper (Lima, September 25, 1955) [see in the ICAA digital archive “En blanca y negra” (doc [...]

In this interview, Alejandro Romualdo Valle (“Xanno”) reacts to the ideological turn that the debate as to whether or not there are painters in Peru has taken. He states that the real problem facing Peruvian art “is the lack of critics.” [...]

This text is the editorial published in the first issue of Espacio, the journal launched by the Lima-based group of the same name in 1947. In it, the collective takes a radical stance in favor of the association of artistic and social avant-gardes. [...]

In this article, the indigenist Peruvian anthropologist Luis E. Valcárcel pays tribute to José Sabogal, following his death in 1956. In the author’s opinion, Cuzco (where the painter lived after spending several years studying in Europe) was [...]

In this text, Luis Miró Quesada Garland offers theoretical observations on the Surrealist exhibition held at the Galería de Lima in July 1954. On the basis of specific quotes, the author disputes the arguments put forth by writer Sebastián Salazar [...]

In this text, Sebastián Salazar Bondy reflects on what he views as the unquestionable ties between an artist and his country. For the author, a sense of uprootedness, rather than physical distance, is what causes the artist to become disengaged from [...]

Contrary to the arguments put forth by opponents of “non-figurative” painting, this article maintains that a country’s degree of cultural evolution is in no way tied to its adherence or lack of adherence to a given artistic tendency. While, the [...]