Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

After spending four years in prison in Mexico for an obscure “crime of social dissolution,” Siqueiros was released in July 1964. He then wrote this letter to all the friends in various parts of the world who had demanded his freedom. In [...]

This essay is on the author of the speech delivered at the Ateneo de Montevideo, Antonio Miguel Grompone, on “the culture of liberation,” where he highlights the cultural and political importance of the “peoples” universities or adult [...]

Cipriano Vitureira was one of the main intellectuals who feted Candido Portinari during his visit to Uruguay in 1947. On the whole, the Brazilian painter was well liked by members of the PCU (Partido Comunista Uruguayo) and artists working in the [...]

This text is the message delivered by painter Sérvulo Gutiérrez to the first convention organized by the Asociación Nacional de Escritores y Artistas (ANEA); the event was held in Lima in September 1955. In his statement, Gutiérrez asserts that, [...]

In this text, Puerto Rican artist Elizam Escobar writes a treatise on the relationship between art and freedom. He states that “art is a constant exercise of liberation and freedom, in which a being commits to writing or deliriously recreates his [...]

Luis Beltrán Guerrero, in his re-reading of the famous book from 1900 by José Enrique Rodó, Ariel, diminishes the importance of its criticism of “yanqui” (Yankee) culture, given that in his judgment, the Uruguayan philosopher could not [...]

As President of the Artistic Solidarity Committee with Chile, Mário Pedrosa addresses then President Salvador Allende Gossens during the reception ceremony for the works that would make up the collection of the Museo de la Solidaridad in Santiago. [...]

This article explains that the Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes [National Academy of Fine Arts] issued a statement in which it acknowledged that artists should be free to create works of art, but cautioned that when works of art are used for [...]

This article denounces the director of the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria, Ángel Vallarino, for suspending, by order of the Secretario de Educación Pública [Minister of Public Education], a group of students. The students were suspended for [...]

The author condemns the double standard with which two property rights cases were adjudicated. Siqueiros compares the destruction of the offices of La revista de Yucatán [Yucatan Magazine] by an angry crowd to the attack by a group of dentistry [...]

In his position as the vice-president of the Sociedad Argentina de Artistas Plásticos (SAAP), the artist Ignacio Colombres sent a letter to the director de Artes Plásticas del Instituto Torcuato Di Tella; in it he condems the closure of one of the [...]

Rufino Tamayo expressed his ideas on the need to protect freedom of expression in the creative process. He explained that he did not belong to any group; on a personal level, however, he expressed his support for one of the “inalienable rights of [...]

Aldo Paparella discusses his ideas concerning creative freedom, truth, and the legacy of the past, as well as his view of idealism as a form of heroic asceticism in the face of the consumer society. He defines his new works as new receptive entities [...]

Aldo Paparella claims that, in a consumer society, the artist is reduced to being a salesman. He defends the idea of “classicity” in his sculptural work. And, finally, Paparella explains his own artistic motivation as being influenced by terms [...]

Aldo Paparella writes to Libero Badii about artistic practice in contemporary society, and laying out certain opinions about invention, freedom, and the marketplace [...]