Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

In this article, journalist Rodolfo Gerschman responds to the questions raised in a press release against an award given to altarpiece maker Joaquín López Antay issued by the Asociación Profesional de Artistas Plásticos (ASPAP) that upholds a [...]

In this text, Alfonso Castrillón argues that the conflict between “high art” and “folk art” is a reflection of class division, where the dominant class sets limits for low art by means of notions such as “individual creation” and “ [...]

The author of this article, Francisco Abril de Vivero, claims that the decision to send arts and crafts instead of “fine arts” to represent Peru at the 1977 Bienal de São Paulo was an act of “infra-Marxist populism.” In his opinion it was a [...]

In this newspaper article Juan Gargurevich criticizes the negative opinions expressed by the painter Juan Manuel Ugarte Eléspuru, who opposed the decision to award the 1975 National Culture Prize for art to the Andean altarpiece artist Joaquín Ló [...]

This is an interview with Joaquín López Antay, the Andean altarpiece artist who was awarded the Peruvian National Culture Prize in 1975. He describes certain aspects of his life and work, and responds to the criticism prompted by the recognition of [...]

This text was written by Félix Nakamura for the catalogue for the exhibition Los pintores de Sarhua, that took place at the Huamanqaqa Gallery in Lima in 1977. Nakamura provides an account of his visit to the workshop operated by the artists Víctor [...]

In this letter to Lomanto Júnior, the governor of the State of Bahia at the time, architect Lina Bo Bardi requests public support for the Plano de Artesanato Popular, a project geared to encouraging craft production in northeastern Brazil. In a way [...]

Olívio Tavares de Araújo introduces an exhibition of the work of Farnese de Andrade, an artist then known in Rio, but not in São Paulo. The writer brings up the strange nature of this artist from Minas Gerais, under the label of “mineiridad.” [...]

This essay by the architect Lina Bo Bardi is about A Mão do Povo Brasileiro, the exhibition she organized and presented at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo. The exhibition reflects her interest in preserving the traditional arts and culture of [...]

In this text, critic Jorge Bernuy points out that the decision to grant the Premio Nacional [award] to an altarpiece maker is unprecedented in Peru. He agrees that it is necessary to consider craftsmanship a cultural expression of the people, [...]

In this short review, the U.S. poet and educator, Muna Lee de Muñoz Marín, comments on the art exhibitions held at the Universidad de Puerto Rico from 1929 to 1938. She thanks Walter Dehner, the professor and artist who planned and organized the [...]

The synopsis and the annotations in English are coming soon. However, our bilingual readers can click on “Español” to access this information in Spanish [...]

According to Clarival Valladares, folk art and fine art both took parallel approaches in terms of the socio-economic divisions in Brazilian society. He describes the internal migration of people from the northeast to the southern part of the country [...]

Aracy Amaral states categorically that there is no Brazilian style of avant-garde art because there never were any artistic groups that were large enough or able to provide an innovative groundwork. In Amaral’s opinion, the lack of a local painting [...]

This is a poster for the Peruvian Folk Art exhibition at the XIV Bienal Internacional de São Paulo in 1977. The design includes only the title of the exhibition and an enlarged detail photograph of a Pucará Bull [...]

Alfonso La Torre interviews the photographer Eva Lewitus, who shares her opinions on the Peruvian folk art exhibition that was presented at the XIV Bienal de São Paulo in 1977. She thinks the exhibit did not reflect the full scope of this kind [...]

In this text, the anthropologist Vagner Gonçalves da Silva discusses the religious art used in the rites of Candomblé (a Brazilian cult originally brought from Africa) and Umbanda (an African-Christian syncretism). The author draws the [...]

In this article the visual artist Carlos Bernasconi discusses the meaning of the terms “art,” “traditional art,” and “handcrafts” based on the definitions agreed upon at the 1st World Congress of Craftsmen held in New York in 1964. Noting [...]

In this essay the artist and researcher Juan Manuel Ugarte Eléspuru discusses the differences between “handcrafts” and “art.” In his opinion, the former term refers to traditional community works that were produced in response to local needs [...]

This newspaper article includes the full text of the communiqué from the ASPAP (Asociación Peruana de Artistas Plásticos) [Peruvian Association of Visual Artists] in which the association’s board of directors expresses its “radical [...]

This is a letter published in the newspaper O Estado by the art critic Mário Baratta, written posthumously to the modernist poet Mário de Andrade, a year after his death. Baratta wanted to convey to the reader a hypothetical letter that he would [...]

This is the catalogue for the collection at the Museu Afro-Brasileiro in Salvador, the capital city of the state of Bahia. In it, the anthropologist Jocélio Teles dos Santos explains that this collection is an incentive to make comparisons, [...]

This catalogue for the Perseverança Collection refers to objects of Afro-Brazilian art connected to the Yoruba religion of the warrior-god Xangô [Changó]. Researcher Abelardo Duarte, organizer of the collection and catalogue, enumerates, describes [...]

The catalogue for the “Coleção Arthur Ramos” was organized by the anthropologist and museologist Raul Lody, who was with the Universidade Federal do Ceará. The pieces in the collection are made of the following materials: wood, Flanders sheet [...]

In this opinion column the writers and critics Mirko Lauer and Abelardo Oquendo, writing under the pseudonym “Pedro Rojas,” challenge the arguments made by the ASPAP (Asociación Peruana de Artistas Plásticos) [Peruvian Association of Visual [...]

In this article about the 1975 Premio Nacional de Cultura [National Culture Prize], the painter Teodoro Núñez Ureta recognizes the legitimacy of the award and praises the winning altarpiece artist, but also deplores the controversy sparked by the [...]

This review, which appeared in the Lima magazine Oiga (February 27, 1976), discusses the different positions adopted by ASPAP (Asociación Peruana de Artistas Plásticos) [Peruvian Association of Visual Artists] and SUTAP (Sindicato Único de [...]

This essay appeared in the catalogue for the exhibition that explored the symbolic cosmogony of Umbanda and Candomblé altars. The author, the Brazilian anthropologist Maria Lúcia Montes, describes these altars as an elaborate symbolic text to be [...]

In this 1972 lecture, delivered at the Primer Seminario sobre Diseño Artesanal in Bogotá, and organized by the Asociación Colombiana de Promoción Artesanal and the Artesanías de Colombia, Carlos Rojas discusses creativity, understood as the [...]

This critical review suggests that “art” is not an expression of the human spirit—as philosophical idealism would have us believe—but something created by culture and class; it is therefore a historically determined phenomenon that is [...]

The visual artist Gastón Garreaud weighs in on the debate over the decision to award the 1975 National Culture Prize for art to the Andean altarpiece artist Joaquín López Antay. Garreaud points to parallels he sees between this decision and Pablo [...]

This is the journalist Juan Gargurevich’s second article about the debate sparked by the decision to award the 1975 National Culture Prize for art to Joaquín López Antay, the altarpiece artist from the Andean region of Peru. Gargurevich supports [...]

In this article the art historian Alfonso Castrillón looks back at the debate over the jury’s decision to award the 1975 National Culture Prize for art to Joaquín López Antay, the altarpiece artist from the Andean region of Peru. Following the [...]

In this sarcastic article the ethnohistorian José Felipe Valencia-Arenas replies to the arguments expressed by the members of the ASPAP (Asociación Peruana de Artistas Plásticos) [Peruvian Association of Visual Artists], who disagreed with the [...]

In this interview the painter Milner Cajahuaringa expresses his profound disagreement with the decision to award the 1975 National Culture Prize for art to the Andean altarpiece artist Joaquín López Antay. Quoting from the dictionary of the Real [...]

In this essay Jorge Caillaux states that the new approach taken by the Bienal Internacional de São Paulo (1977) was “an acknowledgement of a new phase in the development of Latin American art;” he believes that the biennial board’s decision [...]

In this newspaper article, Winston Orrillo announces the death of the painter Alicia Bustamante, and above all, acknowledges her contributions to a greater appreciation for traditional Peruvian art. She traveled all over the country collecting work [...]

Francisco Moncloa applauds the decision to honor Joaquín López Antay, the Andean altarpiece artist who was awarded the National Culture Prize in the art category in 1975. Moncloa responds to critics who value “cultured art” above “handcrafts [...]

This essay presents the basis and verdict of the Premio Nacional de Cultura [National Culture Prize] for art, awarded in 1975 to the Andean altarpiece artist Joaquín López Antay. It is said that in Peru two types of art coexist: one is the so- [...]

In these interviews, the author Ismael Pinto said that the decision by the INC (Instituto Nacional de Cultura) to send “arts and crafts” to the Bienal Internacional de São Paulo (1977) was evidence of a discriminatory cultural policy at the INC [...]

Bruno Zevi discusses the event that prompted the cancellation of Civilização do Nordeste, the exhibition that was to have been presented at the Galleria d’Arte Moderna di Roma, as expressly instructed by the Brazilian embassy on orders from the [...]

This is the invitation to the opening of the exhibition La Artesanía de la Madera en Territorio Argentino [Wood Handcrafts in Argentina] on October 12, 1966, at the Museo Municipal Genaro Pérez. This event was organized as part of the III Bienal [...]

In this newspaper article Félix Álvarez, the Spanish historian who lived in Peru, discusses the divide between popular and elite culture from the perspective of Marxist social theory. He explains that this dichotomy is not a capitalist invention, [...]

In “Introducción a Las artes populares en México,” Mexican painter and writer Gerardo Murillo, known as Dr. Atl, argues for the quality and importance of Mexican indigenous craftsmanship. Among the various handicrafts popular in Mexico, Dr. Atl [...]

This article by the art critic Miguel González describes in great detail Hernando Tejada’s series of wooden sculptures of women. Tejada became interested in working with wood in 1963 when, at Marta Traba’s invitation, he was exploring the [...]

In this article the art historian Alfonso Castrillón looks back at the debate over the jury’s decision to award the 1975 National Culture Prize for art to Joaquín López Antay, the altarpiece artist from the Andean region of Peru. There is a [...]

Writer Luis Freire responds to the press release issued by the Asociación Peruana de Artistas Plásticos (ASPAP) protesting the decision to grant the Premio Nacional de Cultura to Andean altarpiece maker Joaquín López Antay. Freire considers the [...]

In this article the artist Félix Oliva reviews the debate sparked by the jury’s decision to award the 1975 National Culture Prize for art to Joaquín López Antay, the altarpiece artist from the Andean region of Peru. Following the latter’s [...]

For the second time, the writer and journalist Luis Freire weighs in on the debate sparked by the jury’s decision to award the 1975 National Culture Prize for art to Joaquín López Antay, the altarpiece artist from the Andean region of Peru. In [...]

This article was written from Europe by the Peruvian writer and politician César Falcón. In his opinion, “Incan art” constitutes a legacy lacking in ideological direction and, in his judgment, transcendence. He attributes it with a dearth of [...]