Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

In this text, Sergio Benvenuto, director of Artes journal, describes and analyzes the visual arts in Uruguay and its connections to the rest of Latin America; he points out cultural differences from Anglo-Saxon America. Benvenuto asserts that [...]

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 text, Marta Traba argues that there is not really a unified [Latin] American aesthetic in the visual arts and calls for an honest investigation of the question of such an aesthetic approach, even at the risk of affirming that no common spirit [...]

This text, written by the anthropologist Juan Ignacio Castillo at the time of the 3rd Bienal Salvador Valero de Arte Popular (Trujillo, 1991), is a commentary on popular religious imagery and its use in different social contexts and strata. The [...]

Alfonso Castrillón defends the decision to recognize López Antay by granting him the Premio Nacional de Cultura [award], asserting that his work “is more authentic than the work of many so-called high artists, who have spent their whole lives [...]

The first part of the interview covers the start of his career and his training in Europe. After living in Buenos Aires (where he returned to his art studies), he returned to Peru in 1919. Sabogal states that “the Cuzco area cast a powerful spell [...]

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 [...]

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 by architect Lina Bo Bardi describes the difficulties she faced as the head of the Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia (MAMB) and of the Museu de Arte Popular (MAP), both of which were located in the Solar do Unhão (since 1963), a seventeenth- [...]

On the back cover of number 4/5 of the magazine U-tópicos: Entornoalovisual (Lima, 1984), a brief anonymous article discusses the iconographic scenes painted on truck mudguards. The writer points out that, despite being ignored “by [...]

This text underscores the originality, expression and strength of the works created at the Escuelas de Pintura al Aire Libre [Open-Air Schools of Painting], arguing that these qualities are the product of racial purity and that as mestizaje [racial [...]

This is an article by the Italian architect Lina Bo Bardi, who lived in Brazil, about the first exhibition held at the MAP (Museu de Arte Popular) in 1963 in Salvador, the capital of the state of Bahia. The exhibit included everyday items handcrafted [...]

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 [...]

The document is an undated letter from Juan Carrillo, the interim board chairman of the Concilio de Arte Popular (CAP), to its members. Along with stating its founding history, purpose, names, and affiliations of the founding board members, the [...]

In this letter, the painter [and writer] Roubaix de l’Abrie Richey, known by the pseudonym, “Robo,” the husband of the Italian artist and photographer, Tina Modotti, writes to Edward Weston from Mexico City. The writer is visiting Mexico in [...]

This is a letter from Lívio Xavier—who, at the time, was the director of the MAUC (Museu de Arte da Universidade do Ceará)—to the architect Lina Bo Bardi, who was the director of both the MAMB (Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia) and the MAP (Museu [...]

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 document is the letter sent by eminent Peruvian intellectuals, writers, and artists to Benjamín Roca Muelle—president of the Corporación Nacional de Turismo—upon learning that the property that houses “Pacho Fierro,” a folk music venue [...]

In his article, Armando Castellanos interprets Raoul Deal’s work featured in the exhibition Las Esperanzas del Loro Verde [The Hopes of the Green Parrot]. Castellanos argues that Deal’s work confronts the duality, ambiguity, and tension between [...]

In this essay Pablo Macera states that although various anthropologists had studied the social organization of Sarhua (in the Departamento de Ayacuco), nothing was known about the quelcas or painted boards produced in this region until a few years [...]

This document is the cooperation agreement between the government of the State of Bahia, the Museu de Arte Moderno da Bahia (MAMB), and the Universidade da Bahia that establishes joint efforts in the sphere of culture and efforts to work on the [...]

This brief text is about the art of woodcut printing and its traditional use in the genre of “cordel literature” (or string literature) in northeastern Brazil. The author, Barboza Leite, notes its increasing recognition as an artistic language. [...]

This book is about Chico Tabibuia, the African-Brazilian artist whose sculptures are known for the tension they express between religiosity and eroticism. In Brazilian syncretism, Exú (the messenger of the gods) is a recurring theme, as is in [...]

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 [...]

This essay, which appeared in the catalogue produced with research support from Gilmar de Carvalho, introduced A Nova Gravura de Juazeiro do Norte, the exhibition curated by Dodora Guimarães at the Centro Cultural da Abolição in Recife (November [...]

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, [...]

This is a letter written by art critic Élida Román, who at the time was the director of the Museo de Arte Italiano,an art gallery dependent on the Instituto Nacional de Cultura, addressed to the leadership of said institution. The letter advises [...]

Perán Erminy discusses popular art in Venezuela during the II Bienal Nacional Salvador Valero de Arte Popular held in Trujillo (estado Trujillo) in 1988. He also looks back, to colonial times and the early twentieth century. Erminy recalls the first [...]

This essay was written by Elvira de Gálvez on the artist Alicia Bustamente on occasion of her death. The author highlights above all Bustamante’s work in the promotion and defense of Peruvian Popular Art. The author states that Bustamente “found [...]

Amalia Mesa-Bains’s essay proposes a historical lineage of heart imagery and the concept of “lo del corazón” [that which comes from the heart] that begins in the Mexico’s Aztec ritual of human sacrifice and culminates in public and popular [...]

This essay by Carlos Contramaestre, “Ancestros: tres tallistas populares venezolanos,” was among those published in his book Poética del escalpelo. Contramaestre briefly describes the careers of three traditional artists from the Andean region [...]

The first draft of a seven-part manifesto, this document declares that the aesthetic principles of the intellectuals and artists tied to the Centro Popular de Cultura (CPC) are based on the social problems facing Brazil, issues connected to material [...]

This text is the preface by Eduardo Menezes to the book Xilógrafos de Juazeiro, which addresses the use of woodcuts in northeastern Brazil, particularly in representations of the tension between dominant and subaltern cultures. The author briefly [...]

In this document, the art critic Willy Aranguren reviews the origins of the interest in popular art in Venezuela. He places it in the late 1940s, when the Taller Libre de Arte (TLA) took the initiative to show that side-by-side with art in 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 [...]

In this essay by Adolfo Halty, ideas are espoused about the controversial “social” sense of art and “folkloric art” at a time in Uruguay when debates about the notions of “cultural heritage,” “popular art,” etc., were beginning to be [...]

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 short unsigned article about the opening of the Museu de Arte Popular (MAP) in 1963 in Salvador (Bahia). The writer refers to more than 200 art and craft works by more than twenty artists and artisans. Regarding the exhibition held along [...]

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 [...]

The Brazilian art researcher Luciano Alves Duffrayer believed that thanks to the nationalism of the 1920s and the assimilation of the European avant-gardes led the way to overcoming the 19th century prejudices tacitly fostered by art academies. These [...]

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 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 [...]

Ana Mae Barbosa points out the consequence of the internal diaspora of visual artists from Northeastern Brazil toward the major centers (São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro) starting in the 1960s. In her opinion, those artists were better prepared for a [...]

Poet Cecília Meireles discusses native art; which in her judgment ideally tells “history on a small scale.” She explains that Brazil is not homogeneous, as can be seen through its activities and techniques, which can be difficult to discern [...]

In this article, José Sabogal discusses Peruvian traditional art, which in his opinion, is “the key point, in the Americas, where Hispanic America began. When indigenous cultural expressions were combined with the invasion of Mediterranean visual [...]

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 [...]