Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

In this brief review, Bill Caro discusses his own career, ranging from his 1972 exhibition (focused on Lima shantytowns) to his interest in light that became one of the key facets of his work in the 1980s. Caro states that “photographing is as [...]

This document is the catalogue to Cementerio de automóviles, an exhibition of work by hyperrealist painter Bill Caro held at Galería Enrique Camino Brent in Lima in late 1976. In a synopsis, architect Héctor Velarde states that beauty is “ [...]

In this text, Raúl María Pereira rejects the notion of sincerity—a value as arbitrary as it is ungraspable—as privileged category in artistic creation. He upholds, rather, the duty born of “today’s agonizing mindset”—the search for the [...]

The Venezuelan writer José Napoleón Oropeza reviews the works exhibited at the 51º Salón Michelena in Valencia (in the Venezuelan state of Carabobo) in 1993, and groups them in the categories mentioned in the invitation: painting, photography, [...]

Researcher Ana de Azcárate analyzes the art of Sandra Vivas from her early production through 2004. De Azcárate points out constants in Vivas’s work, such as feminism and machismo, the use of her own body in performances and in videos, and the [...]

Curator Jesús Fuenmayor explores the work of Venezuelan artist Diana López on the basis of her participation in an annual show at PS 1 Contemporary Art Center, in New York. The theme López presented for that show was the result of her experiences [...]

The curator Jesús Fuenmayor introduces Inmobilia (Sala Mendoza, Caracas, 1997), the exhibition of works by the Venezuelan photographer Luis Molina Pantin. Fuenmayor uses the idea of a “frame” as a metaphor in his review of the artist’s [...]

This text by curator Ruth Auerbach introduces Venezuelan artist and photographer Mauricio Lupini on the occasion of the 1995 exhibition Mauricio Lupini V-6.811.042, held at the Sala Mendoza in Caracas. Auerbach reflects on two specific points: the [...]

In this essay, curator Julieta González discusses artist Claudio Perna, specifically the way he uses photography and his archive-based methodology. González argues that Perna’s photographs can be analyzed in terms of the concept of the “index [...]

The essay “Visión panorámica de las nuevas cartografías. Los años setenta: se borran los límites” is the first chapter of the monographic book by Zuleiva Vivas on the life and work of Claudio Perna. In it, the author provides an overview of [...]

In this review of contemporary Peruvian photography the author questions the attempt to divide the genre into two separate categories that make a distinction between artist photographers and lay photographers. Montalbetti claims that the discussion [...]

In this article the writer Humberto Suárez (who uses the pseudonym Kocha-Puma) profiles the photographer Martín Chambi. Suárez describes the city of Cuzco as an emblematic artistic center that indigenous artists should work to promote. He [...]

In this newspaper article, Oscar Cerruto discusses the work of the photographer Martín Chambi. Cerruto refers to Benedetto Croce’s idealistic philosophical concept about expressive beauty, which he uses to defend the artistic nature of photography [...]

This article, “Miguel Ángel Rojas. Rastrear el origen de una mirada indeleble” [Miguel Ángel Rojas: Tracing the Origins of an Indelible Perspective], is the product of an extensive interview with the artist identified in the title. In her [...]

The Colombian curator and art critic Miguel González reviews the work of the photographer Patricia Bonilla in minute detail. The review begins with an interesting sentence: “These days it is not unusual to find interrelationships used in ways that [...]

This essay by the critic Jaime Cerón appeared in the catalogue for the exhibition Ruven Afanador presented at Fotomuseo in 2002. Cerón divides his essay into three sections, as follows: i) “Entrada” [Entrance], in which he describes photography [...]

This document is the flyer for the exhibition Fotografiar lo invisible featuring work by Colombian artist Víctor Robledo; the show was held at the gallery of the downtown campus of the Alliance Française in Bogotá from June 13 to July 5, 2001. The [...]

The text “He aquí, pues, mis citaciones a la audiencia” by Natalia Gutiérrez is the eleventh chapter of ciudad-espejo (2006), a theoretical research project that focuses on artists whose work—mostly in the medium of photography—attempts to [...]

In discussing the underlying theory that connects the essays in his book Los rostros de Medusa [Medusa’s Faces], Carlos Jiménez describes photography in terms of the question of mechanical time in the modern era. According to Jiménez, photography [...]

This document is an informative flier about the exhibition La fotografía como documento en el arte conceptual de Barranquilla. Inviting the public to attend free of charge, this program references anexhibition to take place on January 16, 1981, in [...]

In this article, the critic Natalia Gutiérrez reviews a number of works by Alberto Baraya, such as his photomontages in Proyecto recorridos (1997–98), Mitificación artificial de una pintura (1998), Herbario de plantas artificiales (2002−), and [...]

This document consists of a curatorial text written by Jaime Cerón and the catalogue of images that record the works shown in the group exhibition, Corporales. The exhibition included works by the Colombians María Isabel Rueda, Juan Pablo Echeverri [...]

Alair Gomes discusses at length the nude male photographs that are currently making the rounds. He discusses the range of the subject, from porn to the artistic nude shot, noting how photography is excluded from contemporary art, and comments on the [...]

In this text, Julio Plaza draws a parallel between photography’s impact on nineteenth-century iconography and the current transformation with images that no longer depend on artisanal or mechanical systems, but rather on digital ones. Plaza senses [...]

In this text, Arlindo Machado analyzes the characteristics of the technological image, from the invention of photography to the computer and from Renaissance perspective to the synthesis of computer-generated images. Machado argues that in [...]

Written by Harumi Yamagishi, this overview of photography in the twentieth century was the presentation of the exhibition Foto/Idéia held at the Museu de Arte Contemporânea de São Paulo (MAC-USP) in 1982. Yamagishi asserts that photography as a [...]

Lenora de Barros offers three alternative perspectives on the redefinition (or the semantics) of the photographic image. (1) She juxtaposes Susan Sontag’s interpretation of the photographic scene (repetition and time saturates and wears down the [...]

Greek-Brazilian artist Gretta Sarfaty asserts that there is an undeniable tie between her art and her life as a woman in this society. As a woman, she faces constant aggression against, among other things, her sensuality—an issue that, by means of [...]

In this text written by Aracy Amaral on the occasion of the opening of the Espaço Fotóptica/MAC-USP—a space dedicated to photography at the Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo that Amaral directed—the author defends the [...]

The writers set forth a range of photographic work produced in the north-Brazilian State of Pará. They describe photographs starting with the early records taken by 19th century travelers (undoubtedly a highly important research source), through [...]

Using a good series of literary metaphors, Cláudio de La Roque Leal presents the photographic work produced by Cláudia Leão during the mid-1990s. He considers it a visual reflection on the perennial character of images and their connection to [...]

Based on the events of 1981, this newspaper article comments on the cultural environment in the city of Belém (Estado de Pará), which is located in the Amazonian equatorial region of Brazil. While on the one hand the visual arts and music were not [...]

This essay describes the establishing of the photography club Foto Clube do Pará, naming its founding partners, the activities presented, and the postal addresses of its members. Around the mid-1950s, in the state capital of Belém, they opened a [...]

This essay by Orlando Maneschy emphasizes the importance of Gratuliano Bibas to photography from the Brazilian state of Pará. Maneschy places Bibas’s work in historical context in relation to the presence of North American photographer Charles [...]

On the occasion of the XI Salão Arte-Pará held in 1992, Paulo Herkenhoff provides an overview of photography from the Equator region of northern Brazil. He compares the production from the state of Pará and its capital city Belém to that of the [...]

This essay introduces I FotoNorte, the exhibition held in equatorial Belém, in the state of Pará. The show consisted of a selection of photographs of the Brazilian Amazon taken as part of a larger project sponsored by the Instituto Nacional de [...]

In this presentation of his research, Rubens Fernandes Júnior attempts to provide an overview of photography from the state of Paraná in southern Brazil, placing it in wider historical and geographic context. The author not only summarizes the most [...]

This text was the introduction to the exhibition Fotografia Contemporânea do Pará - Novas Visões, held in Rio de Janeiro (Fundação Nacional de Artes - Funarte) as well as at Niterói (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro), both in 1998. The [...]

This text by writer Benedito Nunes is a comparison of two works, both of them urban scenes from his collection: a painting by Emmanuel Nassar and a photograph by Gratuliano Bibas. Drawing on the author’s background in philosophy, the text is a [...]

This critical essay poem by Julio Plaza reviews a sequence of computer-processed images produced by José Wagner Garcia, based on a (Landsat 5) satellite image of Guarujá Beach on the coast of São Paulo. In Plaza’s opinion, the work is a metaphor [...]

This text is a critical review of the exhibition Novíssimos: a produção dos 90, held at the Galeria Fotóptica in São Paulo in 1993. Margot Pavan’s comments on the exhibition hark back to the accomplishments of the nineteenth-century Swedish [...]

In this article, the author claims that the emergence of video art prompted a reversal of figurative expectations in the field of technical images. Heavily influenced by a Renaissance approach to visual expression (based on a monocular geometric [...]

This text was written by Arlindo Machado and Julio Plaza to be published in the catalogue for Artecnologia, the exhibition that the two authors co-curated and presented on September 2-9, 1985 at the Museu de Arte Contemporânea de São Paulo – [...]

The graphic artist Julio Plaza claims that all forms of cultural expression are supported by a technique; based on that premise, he briefly outlines the development of the concepts involved in the production of images. He refers in particular to the [...]

In this text, Vilém Flusser upholds the philosophy of photography as necessary for reflection on how to live freely in a world programmed by devices. Flusser’s approach delves into photography as praxis in an attempt to understand the medium. In [...]

Annateresa Fabris explores the impact of photography on the reproduction and the dissemination of artwork. Her position arises from her reading of W. M. Ivins, Jr. (published in Barcelona, 1975), who considers it an important factor in the emergence [...]

At the end of his book, A ilusão especular[AB1] , Arlindo Machado focuses on the issue of representation in photography, which he calls the “referent.”  He deconstructs its codes, as in any other system for representing images, freeing them [...]

In this review of Ademar Manarini’s photography exhibition, at the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, Wolfgang Pfeiffer notes the quality of the photographs. The critic is acutely aware of the debate in progress about the visual arts, which he [...]

This is an interview by the art critic Ligia Canongia with the artist Miguel Rio Branco. Here the two discuss the status of photography in terms of “art,” its links with “reality,” and the absence of any specialized photography criticism in [...]

Art critic Wilson Coutinho weaves an analysis of the photographic work of Miguel Rio Branco, stating that the artist works with the idea of the “unproductive economy,” since his photographs focus on the economically marginalized sector of the [...]