Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

While a member of the Central Committee of the Colombian Communist Party, Nicolás Buenaventura wrote the text, “Sobre la prostitución” [On Prostitution], that discusses the exhibition Fernell Franco Fotografías. Buenaventura analyzes [...]

This text, which compiles interviews and conversations that took place between art critic and researcher María Iovino and photographer Fernell Franco between 2001 and 2004, is the introduction to the catalogue, Otro Documento. The catalogue was part [...]

This interview covers Óscar Muñoz’s career from the early days in Cali in the late sixties until 2004, the time period that is the focus of interest. Muñoz connects his art with his formation as an artist and with what happened in his native [...]

In this theoretical essay written for the magazine Revista Pan, the Colombian photographer Luis B. Ramos rates “Beauty” as the only goal worth pursuing in life. In his opinion, that pursuit should be unfettered by any particular technique, though [...]

In 1971, a group of young adults (20–26 years old) in Cali led by Hernando Guerrero, a photographer and editor, set up an independent space to promote creative projects in the visual and graphic arts, photography, and film. In order to make this [...]

One hundred fifty years after the birth of photography, the Puerto Rican photographer, Héctor Méndez Caratini, writes in 1991 about art photography in New York. He notes what a different reception this work is given in New York, compared to the [...]

In this letter, art critic Alfredo Boulton reveals to his friend, the artist Alejandro Otero, then in Paris, about his reservations with the new extra-pictorial [habitually not used] materials he had begun using after the Coloritmos series created by [...]

In this essay, Amelia Jones explores the Post-modern notion of the “multiply identified body/self” that emerged in the art of the 1990s, by focusing on the self-portraits of the Los Angeles Chicana photographer Laura Aguilar. Unlike the body- [...]

In this essay, Guisela Latorre examines the reinterpretation by Chicano/a artists of photographs of soldaderas (female soldiers who participated in the Mexican Revolution) by the Mexican photographer Agustín Víctor Casasola. According to Latorre, [...]

American art critic Donald Kuspit opens this essay on the work of María Martínez-Cañas by asking what meaning Cuba holds for the artist, since she immigrated to the United States at such a young age (three months old). He explains the extensive [...]

Art critic Lucy Lippard gives an overview of issues that have galvanized Latino artists in the United States to take action; the most notable causes being migrant workers rights in the 1960s and ‘70s, protests against United States interventions in [...]

Betty Wilde-Biasiny recounts the emergence of the photography collective, En Foco [Focused], to the rise of alternative artist-run spaces and collectives in New York City during the 1970s. Wilde-Biasiny states that En Foco’s promotion of cultural [...]

Photographer Charles Biasiny-Rivera recounts the history of En Foco [Focused], the first Puerto Rican photographers collective in New York City. Founded in 1973, En Foco’s community-based programs in the Bronx included operating a street gallery, a [...]

En Foco founding director, Charles Biasiny-Rivera, and Nuyorican artist Adal Maldonado discuss the latter’s transition from documentary projects in the 1970s, to the employment of photography in conceptual installations in the 1990s. Adal relates [...]

José Luis Falconi discusses Nuyorican photographer Adal Maldonado’s series, Out of Focus Nuyoricans, as a metaphorical depiction of the mutable nature of Puerto Rican identity and nationhood. By choosing to portray his Puerto Rican subjects as [...]

This is an informative short article about an exhibition held by Tina Modotti and Edward Weston in Guadalajara, Jalisco, from August 31 to September 6, 1925, in the Exhibition Hall of the Museo del Estado. José María Peña gives us a detailed [...]

The writer of this short article tells us that there will be an exhibition of about 100 photographs of the “very delicate” work of Edward Weston. He tells us that these works will be related to the concept of daily life in Mexico, and that the [...]

In this article, Rafael Heliodoro Valle informs us about some of the photographers working from the nineteenth century through the first half of the twentieth century. The article refers to descriptions of photographs taken by Madame Calderón de la [...]

This group of texts describes an exhibition of Augustín V. Casasola’s photographs—and the public programs that accompanied it—organized by Movimiento Artístico Chicano (MARCH) and mounted at the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1976. In [...]

In this text, Jose G. Gonzalez describes an exhibition of photographs by Agustin V. Casasola of the Mexican Revolution that was organized by Movimiento Artístico Chicano (MARCH) and displayed in the Chicago Circle galleries of the University of [...]

The writer of this article discusses some of the formal changes that photography must undergo in order to improve the presentation and subjects captured. To that end, he proposes that professional photographers abandon their studio props: “the [...]

In this letter from Tina Modotti to Manuel Álvarez Bravo, she expresses some of her opinions about the character of Antonieta Rivas Mercado (A.R.M.), whom Modotti deems bourgeois and decadent—which would explain her suicide in 1931. She then lets [...]

In this letter written by Tina Modotti in March 1931 to Manuel Álvarez Bravo, she mentions the recommendation she has made to a photo agency in Berlin. Her purpose is for Álvarez Bravo to provide them with some current images, whether recently [...]

Eugene Witmore turns the adventures a foreign photographer could experience in Mexico into a good tale. The eloquent text sets forth both the myths and realities related to photographers entering Mexico. Myth: You cannot bring in a camera. Reality: [...]

The Guatemalan writer established in Mexico, Luis Cardoza y Aragón, focuses Emilio Amero’s work from a lyrical perspective. In fact, Amero weaves the “snapshot of the word” (poetry), with the photogram (a short space of light and emotion). To [...]

In spite of showing his work in solo photography exhibitions, Carlos Mérida’s favorite subject to write about was Emilio Amero’s cinematographic work. Specifically, he focuses on 3-3-3 shorts, whose balance surprises him, since the medium works [...]

In this essay, the historian Justino Fernández sets forth the two common opinions about photography: on the one hand, understanding photography as a form of expression apart from art and, on the other, considering it to be a unique form of art. [...]

This article introduces one of the oldest studio photographers in Mexico City: José P. Arriaga, who was fifty years old at the time the article was published. He began as an amateur photographer and in less than six years became so proficient with [...]

In this article, Aragón Leyva defends the artistic qualities relevant to photography. In a rapid analysis ranging from scientific to technical discourse about the image, the writer points out the specific characteristics of photographic creation. [...]

La gracia de los retratos antiguos [The Charm of Old Portraits] by Enrique Fernández Ledesma (1950) is required reading to learn about the history of photography in Mexico. It includes a prologue written by the diplomat Marte R. Gómez, as well as a [...]

This is the third and last article in the series by Antonio Rodríguez. In a quick history of illustrated news, he shows us how it developed from the pre-Hispanic period through the modern world of the twentieth century. In this article, Rodríguez [...]

This is the second of three articles written by the art critic, Antonio Rodríguez. To provide continuity with the first essay, Rodríguez reviews the progress of illustrated journalism in Mexico from the woodcut print to copper plate print. From [...]

This article is the first of a series of three written by the critic and historian Antonio Rodríguez on the development and dissemination of the news over several centuries and historical periods in Mexico. He organized the graphic and textual [...]

The text by Carlos Argüelles that precedes the photographs taken by the photojournalists Faustino Mayo and Nacho López shows the transformation of Mexican photography in the mid-twentieth century. This photo-essay presents photographs of great [...]

Adriana Valdés wrote this essay for the catalogue for an exhibition of works by Mónica Bengoa. Organizing her text around six themes, Valdés writes about stories, pixels, the unspeakable, “To the sound of a smooth, soft [...]

The anonymous author of this article advises photographers on how to photograph nudes and obtain a truly worthy result. The writer emphasizes that this is one of the genres in which it is hardest to achieve perfection; therefore, he suggests that the [...]

In this newspaper article, Carlos Mérida, a Guatemalan artist who lived in Mexico, quotes from an essay he had written for the exhibition catalogue, Amero 25 nuevas fotografías [Amero: 25 New Photographs]. He also includes three of Emilio Amero’s [...]

In this essay, Enrique Lihn discusses the Tango series of photographs by Paz Errázuriz, based on a review of the works of authors who have written about the origins and lyrics of this particular style of music and dance. Lihn claims that & [...]

In this essay, Rita Ferrer discusses photography based on an international critique of several periods. She refers to authors such as Roland Barthes, Charles Baudelaire, and the Chilean artist Carlos Leppe, claiming that they all share a “ [...]

The essay written by Patricio M. Zárate covered the new emerging generation of Chilean artists. According to the author “customary artistic boundaries had been disregarded” with the incorporation of artistic works pertaining to [...]

The short article written by the Guatemalan writer extols the artwork of Emilio Amero, who had lived in the United States in the 1920s, enjoying a certain success in the U.S. market. The writer praises the characteristics of the artist’s work— [...]

Rubén Santantonín presented this work at the exhibition New Art of Argentina (Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, September 9 – October 11, 1964 [...]

This essay by Alberto Madrid is on the exhibition Fotografía: intervenciones, cruces y desvíos. His play of words “field of reference out of field” emerged in the essay questioning the bibliographic references with which [...]

This profound essay by the muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros was prompted by what critics had said about Manuel Álvarez Bravo’s exhibition at the Sociedad de Arte Moderno. Siqueiros describes the critiques as a useless form of photo- [...]

In this informal interview by Juan Gonzalo Rose, photographer Nacho López reveals a little-known side of himself and his ideas. During the course of the conversation, López discusses the difference between painting and photography, making a [...]

In this article, Guillermo Luzuriaga acknowledges the importance of photography in the field of advertising. He is convinced of the need to radically change the way commercial products are advertised through intelligently presented photographs. He [...]

In this article, the writer discusses the latest exhibition of works by students of the Catalonian instructor Antonio Fabrés at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes [National School of Fine Arts]. That is why works by even the youngest pupils are of [...]

This short article tells how photographers launched the Asociación de Fotógrafos de Prensa [Press Photographers Association] in Mexico. Its historical importance lies in its being the first association of this kind. The article also describes the [...]

Carlos Mérida asserts that photography is an art which has no developmental links to the advance of technology (as is the case with science) since daguerreotypes can be just as beautiful as contemporary photographs. For this author it is necessary [...]

Justo Pastor Mellado writes about Los nómadas del mar, the selection of photographs taken by Paz Errázuriz. The text is divided into four sections, beginning with comments on the artist’s work as a whole, which Pastor Mellado [...]