Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

The experimental poem by Olivero Girondo “Topatumba” is characterized by a strong rhythm that results from the frequent use of alliteration and proliferation of compound neologisms based on the same semantic roots, lack of punctuation, and the [...]

This document is the first issue of Imagen, a journal of art, literature, and cultural information published every two weeks by the Instituto Nacional de Cultura y Bellas Artes, in Venezuela. This issue offers articles related to cultural events in [...]

This prose poem is a brief reflection on “space” and “no space” that Gego wrote in English while she was in California in 1966. She starts by considering a wall and its holes from which to let her vision and imagination take off for the [...]

This brief poem by Gego was originally written in German in 1935. It is dedicated to her mother (Elizabeth Dehn) with the phrase “For Mom from Gertrud.” It begins with the line “I built a castle in the air,” after which the young Gego speaks [...]

A short poem by the humorist Jesús Rosas Marcano published in his column “En Parihuelas,” in the newspaper El Nacional, is signed with the pseudonym “Hisopo” [Swab], and dedicated to Gego. The rhyming poem starts with the line: “Qué [...]

This text was written by Peruvian artist Fernando de Szyszlo to accompany his series of paintings inspired by “Apu Inka Atawallpaman,” an elegiac Quechua poem by an anonymous author. The poem describes the death of the Inca Atahualpa, and the [...]

This essay on the work of Antonio Manuel was written by the concrete poet Décio Pignatari, who referred to the artist as “the cock of the golden eggs.” On the subject of contemporary art issues, the author describes the friction between the [...]

This poetic text by the artist Rubens Gerchman is based on the opposition of certain words. Influenced by concrete poetry, this text is similar to works Gerchman produced at the time when the connection between word and image, and word and object, [...]

This is a book of poems by the Brazilian writer Jorge de Lima, with illustrations by the painter Lasar Segall. The poems address various aspects of the life experiences of Africans and their descendants in Brazil. There are references to the slavery [...]

This poem, written by Ralph de Romero, a Puerto Rican artist born in New York, was sharply critical of the year 1970. In the text, we can discern a tone that is openly critical of the policies of the U.S. administration under President Richard Nixon [...]

“O Beautiful America” is a satirical poem written by Ralph de Romero, a Puerto Rican artist born in New York. De Romero uses it as a basis for his open criticism of U.S. democracy, the administration, its policies, and the lack of liberty and [...]

In this poem, Ralph de Romero, a Puerto Rican artist born in New York, writes about the tierra [earth] as if it were a living being that provides us everything we need, as well as what we are. The poem begins and ends by pointing out that the earth [...]

In this set of four brief poems, Ralph de Romero, a Puerto Rican artist born in New York, expresses his thoughts about painting and art. Some of the themes he addresses in his poems are related to defining art and its elements, and he also reveals [...]

In this short poem, Ralph de Romero, a Puerto Rican artist born in New York, criticizes a Christian prayer by repeating “blah, blah, blah, blah . . . ” to show his lack of interest in either prayers or the Ten Commandments. Romero concludes his [...]

In this short poem, Ralph de Romero, a Puerto Rican artist born in New York, explains why he has always been an artist, never paying any attention to other people’s opinion [of him]. In the poem, de Romero explains that his dedication is documented [...]

After a scandalous raid in Mexico City in which forty-two homosexual men were detained, subsequently known as the Ball of the Forty One, this satirical poem calls the Forty-One (among other things) “viciosos inmundos [dissolute, filthy] / nutridos [...]

After a scandalous raid in Mexico City in which forty-two homosexual men were detained, known as the Ball of the Forty-One, the poem describes the possible foundation of a mutual aid society in which a dance was mentioned: “El traje debía de ser [...]

The poem Revolución [Revolution] by Manuel Maples Arce describes the negative aspects of war and his fascination with machines such as trains and airplanes. He tells how the wind of the iron-man dictator shudders and in the afternoons, there are [...]

Satirical poem dedicated to Amigos del Arte [the Friends of Art Association] for having prohibited David Alfaro Siqueiros’s third lecture from taking place in their meeting hall [...]