Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

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 “ [...]

In these two chapters of text from the book ¿Existe América Latina?, Luis Alberto Sánchez discusses the idea of “Latin America” as both a political bloc and a cultural value, ultimately arguing for a dynamic concept of Latin America that is [...]

In this chapter from América Latina en sus artes Jorge Alberto Manrique begins by describing the artistic movements of the 1920s and comparing this period to a giant hinge that moved backward to the nineteenth century and forward to the twentieth [...]

Brazilian literary critic and essayist Afrânio Coutinho wrote this article in the late- 1960s. His article states since inception that to him the term “Latin American,” is at odds with the historical, social, cultural, literary, and artistic [...]

In this editorial article, the Czech–Peruvian poet and critic Mirko Lauer reviews Peruvian culture on the seventh anniversary of the military coup led by General Juan Velasco Alvarado, who installed the self-styled Gobierno Revolucionario de las [...]

This document is a transcript of the contribution to a panel discussion by the art historian, Amalia Mesa-Bains, in which she addresses the ways in which the social circumstances experienced by Chicanos in the United States have influenced their [...]

In this artist statement, Bibiana Suarez discusses how her work reflects her search for self-identification and the problems of living between two cultures—that of Puerto Rico and the United States—as a self-imposed exile. Suarez also describes [...]

In this artist statement for the exhibition In Search of an Island (1991), Bibiana Suarez discusses how her work reflects her search for self-identification and the problems of living between two cultures—that of Puerto Rico and the United States [...]

In this essay the critic Mário Schenberg discusses the political and cultural changes he sees in the wake of the uprising led by Getúlio Vargas that was known as the Revolução de 1930. Schenberg believes that the agricultural oligarchy’s loss [...]

[This text is] the first issue of Los Disidentes (Paris, 1950) magazine, in which [the group] explains succinctly the “essential mission” of the eponymous magazine and the “immediate aim” which they are pursuing with this [...]

Mário Schenberg introduces PANAMÉRICA, the book by José Agrippino de Paula e Silva, whom he describes as an important figure in the new generation of Brazilian writers. In the critic’s opinion, this is a contemporary epic about the American [...]

The prologue to Forjando patria: pro nacionalismo, published in 1916 by leading Mexican anthropologist and archaeologist Manuel Gamio, compares the forging of metal out of an amalgam of bronze and steel to the ideal societal intermixing of Mexicans [...]

Cuban novelist Zoe Valdés pays homage to the work of Dominican artist Darío Suro. Transformed into a perceptive art critic while still displaying her lyrical gift as a fiction writer, Valdés gives literary form to Suro’s art, which she sees as a [...]

Playwright Augusto Boal declares that all the stories contained within his book are true, and were written based on testimony overheard during different trips that occurred after he left Brazil in 1971, during the height of the military dictatorship [...]

This text, written by Julio Le Parc, states that cultural penetration is used in Latin America as a weapon of domination by the United States imperialism, which also seeks to control the means to value artwork at the international level. He also [...]

In this lecture, the artist Bibiana Suarez recounts how a student's question prompted her to consider her own reasons for producing art; including the motivation of greed, which, although ostensibly negative, she considers as a motivator. Suarez [...]

In this lecture given in April 1989 at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago-based, Puerto Rican artist Bibiana Suarez states that the value of art is dependent on its power to reveal the artist’s innermost world, and to preserve that [...]

Other than the intimate details of the communication between Siqueiros and Brum, this letter provides extremely interesting insights into Siqueiros’s public relations in Buenos Aires, as well as his opinions and intentions concerning the local [...]

In this letter to the painter Tarsila do Amaral, the writer Mário de Andrade urges her, Sérgio Milliet, and Oswald de Andrade—the “country folk” who have become futurists during their stay in Paris—to return to the “virgin jungle,” to [...]

This letter by Mariano Ibérico was written at the request of painter Antonino Espinosa Saldaña. More specifically, Ibérico was asked to share his opinion on the polemic surrounding the course on Incan art given at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas [...]

Mexican printmaker Alberto Beltrán writes to his Puerto Rican colleague Lorenzo Homar about the controversy stirred up by Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes and his group, following the announcement in the press that he [Fuentes], José Luis Cuevas, [...]

Aldo Paparella writes to Libero Badii with his opinions about classic art, about the ancient sculptures he observed in Europe, in particular Etruscan culture [...]

In this letter written by the Planning and Organization Commission of the Symposia on Uruguayan Culture in Exile, José Artigas expresses gratitude for the contribution to and solidarity with Uruguayan culture in exile, and for the defense of that [...]

In this fifth and last issue of Los Disidentes [The Dissidents] (Paris, 1950) magazine, which states as its purpose to “severely” attack the cultural reality of Venezuela, which [the group] describes as “false,” and with the intention of [...]

The author of this essay, Adrianne Dwyer, discusses the autobiographical references found in Magdalena Campos-Pons’s work that relate to her Afro-Cuban background, specifically the spiritual tradition of Santeria. Campos-Pons explains that her [...]

In this text, artist Bibiana Suarez’s makes a personal statement about her experience as a self-imposed Puerto Rican exile in Chicago, her negotiations of living “on the edge of two cultures,” and her artistic exploration of feelings of loss, [...]

In this brief chapter, the artist and researcher Nicolás Gómez Echeverri explains how the art critic Marta Traba became a cultural icon on television in Colombia. Gómez draws on his research to describe the physical and intellectual [...]

The Cuban-American artist Paul Sierra begins this lecture, delivered at the Terra Museum of Art in Chicago, by declaring that even though he has been asked to speak about the “sources of Hispanic Art,” he has decided to speak instead about [...]

In this panel presentation at the 1992 Women's Caucus for Arts, artist Bibiana Suarez spoke about how her images reflect her reality as a Puerto Rican living in the United States who feels caught between two cultures and who insistently searches for [...]

Colombian artist and art critic Beatriz González Aranda provides a thorough review of what she considers the key events necessary to understanding the art scene in 1987. In the text’s seven sections, González Aranda voices her opinion of the [...]

The catalogue for I Salão, the exhibition sponsored by the Feira de Indústrias, includes essays written by the organizers of the event: Elias Chaves Neto, Vittorio Gobbis, and Quirino da Silva. Gobbis talks about the meaning of art and [...]

This text is the monthly bulletin of the Sociedade Pro Arte which includes the list for the catalogue of works presented at the III Salão da Pro Arte, a few of which it reproduces within. The following artists participated in the exhibition: Alberto [...]

This document claims that one of the fundamental tenets of the so-called Movimento Antropófago is a return to a “natural state” (understood as a kind of “beauty with natural features” that is ugly, rough, barbaric, and [...]

In this essay, Annateresa Fabris addresses the issue of identity and its connections to the visual arts in Latin America. She refers to the concept of a “sense of place” in the development of the symbolic system that posits the idea of a “ [...]

In this text, art historian and activist Victor Alejandro Sorell ponders on arguments for designating Chicano people a nation: the history of the twelfth-century Aztec homeland Aztlán, —located in the U.S. Southwest,— included; the seizure of [...]

Painter Antonino Espinosa opens this letter questioning the pertinence of the “Arte incaico” [Incan Art] course at the ENBA—to be offered by writer Augusto Aguirre, author of the novel El pueblo del sol [The People of the Sun]—arguing that [...]

This text by the anthropologist Darcy Ribeiro establishes the following theoretical categories: “testimony-peoples,” “new peoples,” “transplanted peoples,” and “emerging peoples” as the basis for the [...]

The author reflects on a comparison between abstraction and realism, presenting it as a grave problem of the era. For José Renau, the main trend of the “bourgeois” culture is based on the abstract and trivial aspect of intellectual creation. He [...]

The text poses several key starting points drawn up by the work group involved in the II Encuentro de Intelectuales por la soberanía de los pueblos de nuestra América  [Second Encounter of Intellectuals for the Sovereignty of the Peoples of Our [...]

In this essay from 2004, the Mexico-based Argentinean art theoretician and anthropologist Néstor García Canclini traces the decline of Latin America through [recent times] and examines three styles of Latin Americanism beginning in the mid- [...]

In this essay, Ramón García explores the foundations and essential qualities of Chicano camp (rasquache) and its artistic and literary manifestations. García begins with a discussion of the walking murals of the Los Angeles conceptual art group, [...]

This article announces the founding of the Bolivian AIAPE (Agrupación de Intelectuales, Artistas, Periodistas y Escritores) a few years after the founding of homonymous associations in Argentina and Uruguay. The Bolivian group basically embraced the [...]

The author, Susan Keller, ponders the work of Amalia Mesa-Bains within the context of the Mexican-American social empowerment movement of the 1960s and 1970s, also known as the Chicano Movement. A figurehead of her generation, Mesa-Bains looked to [...]

The author, Susan Keller, ponders the work of Amalia Mesa-Bains within the context of the Mexican-American social empowerment movement of the 1960s and 1970s, also known as the Chicano Movement. A figurehead of her generation, Mesa-Bains looked to [...]

Inspired by the creation of the Memorial da América Latina (designed by Oscar Niemayer), this article discusses the various attempts to promote cultural unity among Latin American countries. According to the author, the anthropologist Darcy [...]

In this article, J. R. Guillent Pérez confronts what he considers to be Marta Traba’s “attitude of disdain,” in her use of the term “apocalypse” in a negative sense; in doing so he makes use of philosophical sources, such as L’être et [...]

This is a summary of Gilberto Freyre’s thoughts on the subject of Latin America, with a focus on the cultural anthropological aspects of a hybrid civilization based on a blend of black, American Indian, and European traditions. The author discusses [...]

Gilberto Freyre defends the right of each country in the Americas to have its own form of government, as long as it refrains from causing any kind of violent disturbance elsewhere on the continent. His views are challenged by orthodox supporters of [...]

In this text, Antenor Orrego argues that nationalist culture should not be based on the traditional cultures of Peru, but rather on a totally new Pan-American sensibility. Orrego argues that a contemporary “Peruanismo literario” is a false idea [...]

Critic Mariano Picón-Salas interprets the model proposed by José Enrique Rodó in Ariel (1900) as a symbol of the antagonism between Latin America and the United States. This opposition, caused by the imperialist thirst of the United States and [...]