Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

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 [...]

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

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 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 [...]

This article is about the events organized by the self-styled “Gobierno Revolucionario de las Fuerzas Armadas Peruanas,” the revolutionary government of the Peruvian armed forces led by General Juan Velasco Alvarado, designed to support the [...]

This article is about the Festival Arte y Pueblo, which was installed in the Plazoleta de San Francisco in the city of Arequipa, in southern Peru, from November 18–25, 1975. The anonymous reviewer notes the integration and multidisciplinary nature [...]

This is a newspaper review of the Primera Feria Artesanal Naylamp 72, the event organized in the city of Chiclayo in the northern coastal region of Peru. The review notes the participation of about three hundred artisans from sections in that part of [...]

This newspaper article discusses the opposing points of view expressed by Peruvian artists in the debate over the 1975 National Culture Prize. Speaking in favor of the decision, Ciro Palacios states that the award acknowledges “an urgent need to re [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

In this interview the painter Leslie Lee discusses the reasons behind the founding of SUTAP (Sindicato Único de Trabajadores en las Artes Plásticas) [Sole Visual Arts Workers Union], explaining the group’s disagreements and subsequent break with [...]

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 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 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 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 [...]

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 [...]

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 text, Mirko Lauer (under the pseudonym “N. O. Sengai”) points out that only artists and intellectuals, not artisans, have participated in the debate around granting the Premio Nacional [award] to López Antay. He argues that that is due [...]

On the occasion of the decision to grant the 1975 Premio Nacional de Cultura [award] to Andean altarpiece maker Joaquín López Antay (1897–1981), journalist José B. Adolph reviews the categories of “high art” and “folk art.” While Adolph [...]

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, [...]

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, 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 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 [...]

In this article the intellectual and writer Guillermo Rouillón notes the post-mortem influence exerted by the work of the Indigenist painter José Sabogal, an influence that can even be seen in the decision to award the 1975 National Culture Prize [...]

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 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 [...]

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 report on the visit of the Andean altarpiece artist Joaquín López Antay—the winner of the 1975 National Culture Prize in the art category—to the INC (Instituto Nacional de Cultura). The report includes his statements as well as those [...]

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 [...]

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- [...]

This article, published in the newspaper La Crónica (Lima, 27 December 1975), quotes the opinions expressed by a group of artists shortly after the announcement that Joaquín López Antay, the altarpiece artist from the Andean region of Peru, had [...]

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 [...]

In this essay, Rogério Duarte defines “industrial design” as the concept of  form in its serial reproduction. As he references the origins of Renaissance-style typography, he weighs in and deliberates about various theories on the subject, as [...]

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.” [...]

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 [...]

Sixteen years after having worked in northeastern Brazil, specifically in the state of Bahia, architect and cultural administrator Lina Bo Bardi evaluates the state of drawing in a dependent and capitalist country that underwent intense [...]

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 article Lívio Xavier discusses the production of handcrafts in the state of Ceará, which are brought into town and offered for sale in the markets in Fortaleza, the state capital. Xavier notes the wide variety of artisan products produced [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

This is a catalogue for the collection of African art at the Museu Nacional de Belas Artes in Rio de Janeiro, which includes pieces from Nigeria and Benin (the former Republic of Dahomey). This document was produced by the anthropologist and [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]