Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

In this text, Rodrigo Quijano argues that Lima 01—a series of photographs of inverted images of interiors of old abandoned buildings in downtown Lima—addresses questions of forgetting and urban decay. The series makes reference to the design of [...]

This essay published in June 1959 by Grupo 8 in the Boletín N° 1 de Artes Visuales expresses the desire to create common work spaces for artists working in different techniques in order to cross skills and generate new goals for each area. This [...]

This essay, is on the art critic Fernando García Esteban and on his noted intellectual presence in Montevideo during the fifties and the sixties. The art critic echoes the difficulties encountered when critiquing local art and the differences in [...]

In this text, José Sabogal states that, upon their arrival, the Spanish were impressed by the architecture and art they found in America. They understood that “their fortunate victory could not be maintained if they did not consolidate it through [...]

This is an article by José Sabogal on the civil architecture of the Peruvian city of Arequipa. He highlights one of the most original constructive solutions of the Spanish during the colonial era. Given the lack of wood in the environment, the [...]

The writer of this text was Sibyl Moholy-Nagy, an art history professor and architecture critic in Germany. Here, she addresses the issue of art integration, which has been of interest to the art world for a long time. Focusing on the way [...]

In this essay, Venezuelan architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva discusses in general terms why an architect might incorporate paintings and sculptures into an architectural project and the social implications of this integration. He outlines the concepts [...]

In this short essay, Víctor Vasarely recalls the beginning of his collaboration with architects, which began in 1952, when he met Venezuelan architect Carlos Raul Villanueva in Paris through Sofia Imber. [Villanueva] invited him to participate in [...]

The critic Carlos Silva wrote a study of the work of the Venezuelan sculptor Edgar Guinand, pointing out two fundamental periods in his life in art. The first is defined by the writer in the visual arts context that follows the Latin American Post- [...]

In his essay about the Venezuelan sculptor Víctor Valera’s synthesis of the arts, Ariel Jiménez discusses the concepts of “artistic integration” and “the synthesis of the visual arts,” highlighting the social and collective ramifications [...]

In his essay on the Venezuelan sculptor Harry Abend’s architectural reliefs series, the critic Carlos Villalba offers a lyrical interpretation of stone as an artistic element. Villalba praises its virtues and its material function as the qualities [...]

The curator María Elena Ramos discusses the problem of space, both in architecture and in works of art that involve manipulating art and space; her frame of reference ranges from what is “visible and exists” (architecture, real space) to what is [...]

Hanni Ossott introduces Gego’s exhibition Gego: Dibujos para proyectos [Gego: Drawings for Projects], which includes the artist’s architectural, design, and art projects from 1937 to 1975. The critic suggests that during her training as an [...]

In this periodical article on the Parisian International Exposition [of Art and Technology in Modern Life] in 1937, the engineer Alberto Jochamowitz questions the “nudism” found in the modern styled architecture. In his opinion, the pavilions of [...]

The author of this article notes that Santa Rosa [Saint Rosa] has been glorified with altars, chapels, and temples in various parts of the world; he therefore believes that a basilica should be built in her honor in Lima, her home city. But first, he [...]

This text is a statement of the principles that governed Espacio [Space], an association made up of Peruvian architects, artists and intellectuals. As Espacio saw it, “Entre el mundo de ayer y el mundo de hoy, se ha establecido el origen de la [...]

This letter was written by the U.S. archaeologist and historian, Phillip Ainsworth Means, to the Peruvian Minister of Education in connection with the opening of a rug factory in Cotahuasi. Means points out “la vital importancia de la arqueología [...]

This article was written by José Sabogal on the development of architecture in Latin America. Sabogal emphasizes the emergence of an art of construction with its own nuances after the Spanish conquest, when Western elements were combined with Native [...]

This landmark manifesto by architect and intellectual Ricardo Severo da Fonseca e Costa (1869–1940) was delivered in São Paolo, Brazil, at the 1914 conference, A Arte Tradicional no Brasil: a Casa e o Templo [Traditional Art in Brazil—The House [...]

In "Comentarios sobre el nacimiento de la arquitectura hispano-americana," Argentinean architect, art historian, and writer Martín Noel asserts that colonial architecture represents the foundation of the Latin American architectural styles that [...]

In this article, Peruvian artist, photographer, and art critic Teófilo Castillo describes the architecture of Lima as deficient, proposing a structure he calls “el Palacio Posnanski” [sic], a home built by the Austrian engineer, amateur [...]

The 1859 article by Peruvian painter Francisco Laso on the history of Peruvian architecture, sculpture, and painting is primarily a critique of the lack of support for artists in Peru. Laso contends that the inferiority of Peruvian artistic [...]

In this text, researcher Otília Arantes reflects on the impact of recent initiatives in France to restore the country’s position as a world center of twentieth-century cultural production. The projects undertaken and investments made form the [...]

In this article, the architect Lina Bo Bardi describes the ten years it took to design and build the MASP (Museu de Arte de São Paulo) on the Avenida Paulista in São Paulo. She mentions her first visits to the site in 1957, the political [...]

The Italian journalist and art dealer Pietro Maria Bardi describes the organization and construction of the MASP (Museu de Arte de São Paulo) during the first two decades of its existence, from 1947 to 1967. This was no easy task in the provincial [...]

In this article, the architect and visual artist Sérgio Ferro criticizes the state of Brazilian architecture, especially in São Paulo, during the period in the 1960s, known as post-Brasilia. He takes a radical and critical approach by exposing the [...]

In this essay, the architect and visual artist Sérgio Ferro outlines the first part of his theory about the contradiction that exists between an architectural drawing and a jobsite. Approaching the subject from a Marxist perspective, he discusses [...]

This document is a technical description of the architectural solution put into effect by the implementation team working on the Ministério da Educação e Saúde (MES) project designed by Lucio Costa, Oscar Niemeyer, Affonso [...]

This text by Lucio Costa discusses the “unpredictable” nature of Brazilian architecture. In it, Costa develops a far-reaching theory of modern art and architecture to which the visual form is the sine qua non. The visual-formal component [...]

The Brazilian intellectual Afonso Arinos discusses the artist Candido Portinari’s popular sensibility that emanates from his works on easel or on his murals. Refuting an argument first made by Mário de Andrade, Arinos believes that Portinari is a [...]

This article openly criticizes the making of the statue Homem Brasileiro by the sculptor Celso Antônio, originally planned to be built at the MES (Ministério da Educação e Saúde) on Debret Street in the center of Rio de Janeiro. The writer [...]

In this article, the sculptor Alfredo Ceschiatti examines Brazilian modern sculpture. It is his belief that between the artistic manifestations produced by the Semana de Arte of 1922, sculpture was the least affected. However, he considers it to be [...]

The architect Attílio Corrêa Lima presents the book, Avant-projet d’aménagement et d’extension de la ville de Niterói au Brésil[Draft Proposal for the Development and Expansion of the City of Niterói, Brazil], which includes the thesis he [...]

“Modernist” sculptor Celso Antonio arose from the arts scene in Rio de Janeiro during the 1930s; he was named a professor at the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes by its director, architect Lúcio Costa, who was a member of the same movement. The [...]

This article is about the construction of a plaza designed for cultural activities at the new USP (Universidade de São Paulo) campus. The article is in three parts: the first part describes the plaza that has been built in front of the Rectory; the [...]

An architectural project by Henrique Mindlin for an American bank in Recife, Brazil, presents Gilberto Freyre with an opportunity to analyze the idea of “nationalism.” Mindlin was an important theorist on Brazilian architectural modernism, and [...]

This is a manifesto by graphic artist Julio Plaza in which he proposes that art, as relating to time and space, be integrated in an objective way, into an open environment that reverberates with life. He declared that the invention of the “ [...]

This book is about the presence of northeastern Brazilian colonial architecture in two West African countries: Benin (the former Republic of Dahomey) and Nigeria. This particular style was taken there by merchants and slaves (ex-slaves and their [...]

In this text, Mario Barata ostensibly rejects the function of industrial art and crafts in the modern city. He sees benefits and drawbacks to the standardization of furniture and, naturally, of taste. On the other hand, he believes wholeheartedly in [...]

This article by Vera Pacheco Jordão questions the procedures followed at the Congresso Internacional de Críticos de Arte in 1959, a publicly funded event that brought foreign guests working in the cultural sphere to Brazil. The author condemns the [...]

Mário Pedrosa cites Brasilia (the new capital of Brazil) as the supreme example of man’s ability to control his environment and build new cities anywhere, regardless of physical and climatic conditions. He considers this project, which was a huge [...]

André Bloc seeks to explain—during his participation in the celebrated conference that was organized in Brasilia for the inauguration of the new Brazilian capital—why the visual arts are absent from modern architecture. He states that modern [...]

In this text, Mário Pedrosa remarks on the crisis different art forms are experiencing, a topic that surfaced in the debates at the “Congresso dos Críticos” in 1959. In Pedrosa’s view, the only disciplines deeply affected by that crisis are [...]

In the paper he delivered at the Congresso Internacional Extraordinário de Críticos de Arte (CIECA), Polish critic Werner Haftmann addresses Brasilia, the new capital of Brazil, as a way to discuss the broader question of the content and form of [...]

In this article, Meyer Schapiro asks a number of questions about the arts, as follows: Why is it rare to find painting and sculpture incorporated into modern architecture? Is it because of the autonomy of the arts? Is it possible to get architects [...]

In this article Bruno Zevi discusses the crisis facing modern architecture as a result of its inability to strike a balance between the dynamics of urban structures on the one hand, and human and social structures on the other. In his opinion, [...]

This text by writer Murilo Mendes addresses the connections between the work of Brazilian painter Nery and the Surrealist movement. It contains an account of when, in 1927, Nery met Russian painter Marc Chagall and remarks on certain affinities [...]

In this text, Oscar Niemeyer responds to criticisms that consider his architectural projects “formalist.” He clarifies that, in his view, architecture must enjoy almost boundless visual freedom in its creative content if it is to be a work of art [...]

In an article written in 1951 entitled “Depoimento de um arquiteto carioca” [Testimony of an Architect from Rio de Janeiro], Lúcio Costa describes Le Corbusier’s visit to Brazil in 1929, his plan for the city’s urban layout, and what he [...]

Flávio de Carvalho proposes that, in the twentieth century, man’s dwelling be transformed in response to a new reality. In de Carvalho’s view, man spends most of the day in the urban universe—that is his primary dwelling—and hence it should [...]