Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

The synopsis and annotations in English are coming soon [...]

In her text, Maria Lúcia Bueno follows the course of twentieth century visual arts, from modernity to globalization. She in turn probes the art world, relating art spaces and dissemination of art to their social context. Based on her analysis of the [...]

In her text, Maria Lúcia Bueno follows the course of twentieth century visual arts, from modernity to globalization. She in turn probes the art world, relating art spaces and dissemination of art to their social context. Based on her analysis of the [...]

[This article is] a debate between the German Marxist intellectual Iring Fetscher and the writer Mirko Lauer for the Peruvian magazine U-tópicos Entornoalovisual, moderated by Gustavo Buntinx, the editor of the magazine. This issue of the magazine [...]

This editorial appeared in number 2/3 (1983) of the magazine U-tópicos: Entornoalovisual (Lima). The text refers to the ongoing failures of the Peruvian government’s cultural organizations over the course of two decades, including the “ [...]

This “lesson” given by Joaquín Torres García (JTG) is a manifesto of sorts. It is the first in which the artist formulates the idea of “inverting the map” of South America and asserts the existence of a local cultural identity that should [...]

This [document] is on the thesis of art in America a developed by Joaquín Torres García during 1938 and 1939, when he wrote his Metafísica de la Prehistoria Indoamericana. The book aimed to associate pre-Hispanic tradition with what he called the [...]

This unsigned interview with Argentinean critic Jorge Romero Brest published in the weekly Jaque is somewhat alarmist. The main topics addressed—the decline of easel painting in the world over, the avant-garde experience at the Instituto Di Tella [...]

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 essay the critic Gabriel Peluffo discusses the artistic and cultural policies that were introduced during the Gabriel Terra dictatorship (the so-called period of political terrismo, 1933–1938), and the institutional map that was proposed [...]

In this essay Gervasio Guillot Muñoz is displayed as a writer that was rather akin to twentieth century French culture as he wrote about the European cultural malaise during the interwar period. He wrote particularly regarding the crisis manifested [...]

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 [...]

In this essay the objectives of the Asociación de Intelectuales, Artistas, Periodistas y Escritores (AIAPE, Association of Intellectuals, Artists, Journalists and Writers) are presented, which, were in line with the French and in accordance with the [...]

This essay proposes that a “Latin American identity” was an idea based on two facts: the influence of the decadent post-war European culture and secondly, the geopolitical circumstances of Latin American governments confronted with North American [...]

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 [...]

This review focuses on the harsh critiques leveled against the Uruguayan government and its arts institutions, which are considered to have failed in their attempts to create events that achieved the stated objectives. Some of those objectives are [...]

In the early twentieth century, Europe—which had, until that time, been Latin America’s cultural referent par excellence—was deeply immersed in a devastating socio-economic crisis brought about as a result of the First World War. Fascism and [...]

In the 1930s the ideological frictions sparked in intellectual circles by the dictatorial government of Gabriel Terra were not just a local problem; they were a reflection of the global conflict presaged by the unstoppable advance of fascism, the [...]

Eduardo Blanco Acevedo was ideologically conservative and participated in the 1933 coup d’état of Gabriel Terra. During the elections of 1946, he self-directed the “blancoacevedismo” movement, a major force of conservative ideology within [...]

The article “Cansinos Assens comenta Estética del Novecientos” is a study on the book Estética del Novecientos by Uruguayan essayist and historian Alberto Zum Felde, who sought to establish cultural views about his country and Latin America [...]

This is an essay written by Alberto Zum Felde, the director of the magazine La Pluma (Montevideo, 1927−31), in which he describes “La Casa de Arte” (a cultural center created at the initiative of the Uruguayan minister of public education in [...]

Uruguayan essayist, historian, and critic Alberto Zum Felde sums up his position on the possible origin of a culture unique to the South American continent. He looks to two major influences: Spanish culture since the time of colonization and French [...]

This document is the second issue of the journal El Mate, published by the Grupo Toledo Chico of the Department of Canelones, Uruguay, in December 1966. It attests to the polemic, in the sphere of visual art, on the country’s broader cultural and [...]

The crisis and feelings of “remorse” (that, in this case, connotes political impotence) of the 1980s were the result of more than ten years of military dictatorship that had effectively dismantled the network of cultural organizations that had [...]

Drawing on the perspective gained from her association with the CGM (Club de Grabado de Montevideo), Olga Larnaudie describes the general dissatisfaction and sense of crisis she sees in the visual arts community in Uruguay. She was writing in the [...]

“Declaración de los intelectuales colombianosdurante el paro general” is an open letter dated May 8, 1957 published in issue No. 13 of the magazine Mito. It is signed by twenty-five people, among them politicians, writers, poets, and artists. [...]

In this essay, numerous questions are raised relating to national and continental identity in Latin America, after eleven years (1973–84) under military dictatorship. There is a manifest recognition of both the reality of underdevelopment, as well [...]

José Sabogal states that his commentary regards what occurred before the creation of the Museo de Artes Vernaculares, the latter being indispensable because they possess “holdings that are essential to this time, as they have been throughout all [...]

In this essay, Spanish journalist Francisco Villanueva y López de y Uralde asserts that an American awakening is underway in the New World, particularly in Mexico, Peru, and Cuba, owing to thinkers in each republic, such as José Vasconcelos, Juan [...]

In this interview with Miguel von Dangel by French-Venezuelan painter Luis Pannier (b. 1953), von Dangel reflects on art as a religious activity and on the role of the natural environment of the Americas in his work. In von Dangel’s view, the [...]

In this document, the communicator Marco Antonio Ettedgui outlines his conceptual idea behind “Feliz cumpleaños, Marco Antonio,” an informative and body art event that he staged at the GAN (Galería de Arte Nacional), in Caracas, on December 14 [...]

This text is writer Sebastián Salazar Bondy’s response to the criticism of artistic nationalism voiced by Luis Miró Quesada Garland in El Comercio newspaper (Lima, September 25, 1955) [see in the ICAA digital archive “En blanca y negra” ( [...]

In search of an expression that would be authentically Latin American, Alejandro Lora Risco establishes the difference between American culture and reality, the latter referring to the material facts of life on the continent. Reflecting on his [...]

The author, Federico Costa y Laurent, considers the discussion about nonfigurative art to be anecdotal when he states that “painting, as such, simply is.” He claims that the core issue in the debate comes down to “sincerely living the essential [...]

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 [...]

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 essay is on the newspaper add announcing the commencement of the Inca Art courses and studies at the ENBA (Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes) in Lima by the Peruvian writer Augusto Aguirre Morales. The studies, a program that was fully [...]

This text is the second of three articles on the kitsch written by Hugo Salazar del Alcázar. In Salazar del Alcázar’s view, “the kitsch is the art of daily life, modern man’s frustrated ideal of joining art to daily life by means of a [...]

This document is the official version of the press conference given by the de facto president, General Juan Velasco Alvarado, at the Palacio de Gobierno in Peru on June 24, 1972. While the issues addressed revolve around international relations of [...]

In this interview, the writer Mario Vargas Llosa criticizes governmental cultural plans during the first phase (1968–75) of the self-styled Gobierno Revolucionario de las Fuerzas Armadas del Perú. Vargas Llosa says the results of those plans have [...]

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 charter document lists the main cultural guidelines established by the self-styled Gobierno Revolucionario de las Fuerzas Armadas Peruanas (1968–80). The text, which is divided into several chapters, discusses a number of prior situations and [...]

This article acknowledges the accomplishments of the policy of producing public events—such as the Contacta 72 and Inkari festivals—instituted by the self-styled Gobierno Revolucionario de las Fuerzas Armadas en el Perú (1968–75). It explains [...]

This article briefly discusses the connections between “revolution” and “culture”—in this case in terms of the military government led by General Juan Velasco Alvarado (1968–75). The anonymous author notes that because the revolution “ [...]

This is the official transcript of the speech given by General Juan Velasco Alvarado, the president of the Peruvian military junta, at the closing ceremony of the thirty-ninth Congreso Internacional de Americanistas in Lima in August 1970. He used [...]

This is the response of the Peruvian Modernista architect, Luis Miró Quesada Garland, to a series of three articles by the writer, Sebastián Salazar Bondy, published in the Lima daily newspaper, La Prensa,in September 1955. The writer describes [...]

This article signed S. P. B. (Samuel Pérez Barreto) forms part of the “El Perú y la cultura” column published in the Lima-based newspaper La Prensa in 1950. According to the author, a return to the pre-Hispanic essence is the only way to create [...]

In her article, “La Galería Santa Fe, una historia en tres momentos”, the freelance curator Ana María Lozano discusses the significant cultural changes that took place in Bogotá in recent decades and how this transformation made the city more [...]

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 [...]

In March 1988, journalist and editor Guillermo González Uribe, then editor-in-chief of the journal ¡Viva el arte! interviewed nine Colombian artists of different generations to ask their opinions about the following: What function should be [...]