Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

The Union of Visual Artists was part of the structure of the C.T.I.U. (Confederación de Trabajadores Intelectuales del Uruguay [Confederation of Intellectual Workers of Uruguay]) federation created in Montevideo at the request of David Alfaro [...]

Marta Traba analyzes the special characteristics of Gego’s visual language by studying the public works rendered by the artist in Caracas. In her opinion, Gego’s work is based on an understanding of the structures that underlie nature and how [...]

In this article, Emilio Goyburu discusses public sculpture, specifically the monument to be built to aviator Jorge Chávez and the call for submission for it. Goyburu asserts that the jury’s clear lack of criteria is evident in their complete [...]

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 [...]

The article “Artista de inflar” [An Inflating Artist] provides a brief biography of the Colombian architect and artist Carlos Blanco. It lists the highlights of his art career: (i) the long and winding road that took him from architecture to art [...]

Gloria Posada presents an overview of the work of Adolfo Bernal, who like Posada, was a Colombian artist. Bernal’s work consisted of ephemeral urban art projects—created or installed in public spaces—that were different from “the concept of a [...]

The text “En asuntos de ciudad, la estética urbana sí tiene que ver con todo” by architect and urbanist Álvaro Suárez Zúñiga was originally presented at the opening ceremony of Arte para Bogotá (1995), a joint initiative of the Art School [...]

The text “El tren de los curados” was published in the catalogue of the 40 Salón Nacional de Artistas/11 Salones Regionales de Artistas (2006), in the section “Región Pacífico–7 (Salón) de Octubre 2005.” The article was written by the [...]

In 1983, a sculpture garden opened in Cerro Nutibara in Medellín, Antioquia, featuring works by international artists Manuel Felguérez (Mexico); Julio Le Parc (Argentina); Sérgio [de] Camargo (Brazil); Carlos Cruz Díez and Jesús Rafael Soto ( [...]

This document is the postcard produced to publicize the call for submissions organized by the Helena Producciones collective for the seventh edition of the Festival de Performance of Cali. It was released to the public on May 23, 2008 at an event [...]

This bound and offset printed leaflet reflects the joint efforts of two groups of Brazilian artists—Espaço Coringa and Projeto Aberto—whose goal was to stimulate activities targeting “Public Arts, Contextual Art, and the Social Artist,” as [...]

Nelson Brissac Peixoto’s introduction to the book Intervenções Urbanas, which he coordinated, presents the Arte/Cidade project, taking stock of the first three editions of the event held in São Paulo in 1994, 1995, and 1997. On the basis of a [...]

In 1979 the writer and actor Luiz Sérgio Raghy agreed to be interviewed by the alternative newspaper Oras, Pombas! about the Brazilian group Viajou Sem Passaporte. Raghy talks about the origins of the group and its earliest theatrical productions, [...]

In order to write this article, the architect Valdir Arruda had to make an effort to understand the phenomena of graffiti, and street painting and writing, which were on the rise in São Paulo in the 1980s. The text reproduces passages from various [...]

In her role as the director of the MAC-USP (Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo), Aracy Amaral praises the results of the first edition of Arte na Rua [Art in the Street], the project suggested by the artists Ana Maria Tavares [...]

This article by the art critic Stella Teixeira de Barros provides a general overview of Brazilian urban art presentations and performances since the 1960s. It also classifies the production of “street art” in three basic categories: 1. Anonymous [...]

This document outlines the development of the approach of the art group 3NÓS3 [a pun: both “Three Knots” and “We Three”] made up of Hudinilson Jr., Mário Ramiro, and Rafael França, that was in existence between 1979 and 1981. The writers [...]

The article by Cacilda Costa develops her ideas about “public art” as one of the possible links for creating an alliance between “power, politics and the image.” In other words, it is a “resource that governments and companies may deploy to [...]

Originally published in La Patria newspaper based in Manizales, Colombia, this text is a journalistic version of the two television programs aired in 1956 that critic Marta Traba dedicated to the work of sculptor Rodrigo Arenas Betancourt. Traba [...]

This text by Colombian artists Graciela Duarte and Manuel Santana, founders of the Echando Lápiz [Using the Pencil] Project (which has been in operation since 2000), describes the conceptual idea behind the initiative. Its goal is to reflect on the [...]

This document is Edgar Negret’s response to the press release from the Ministry of Public Works in which he set forth points related to the controversy generated about Abstract art in Colombia based on the monument to Bolívar, a sculpture the [...]

The sculptor, Edgar Negret, refuted the statements made by a group of historians from the Academia Colombiana de Historia [Colombian History Academy], led by Germán Arciniegas, on the Monument to Bolívar commissioned for the celebration of the [...]

Appearing in El Espectador, a Colombian daily newspaper with national circulation, this is an article on a press conference held by members of the Academia Colombiana de Historia [Colombian History Academy] through which they took their criticism of [...]

In the essay “Ciudad Kennedy: Memoria y Realidad. Proyecto colectivo de creación plástica” [Kennedy City: Memory and Reality. Visual Art Creation – A Group Project] (2000-2002) the artist and professor Raúl Cristancho discusses the Project [...]

In the text “Hacer arte público como memoria colectiva, como metáfora y como acción,” North American artist Suzanne Lacy develops her thesis on the community impact of an artistic strategy. In so doing, she analyzes the definition of “public [...]

The article written by the journalist Fabián Forero Barón and published in the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo (December 2007) reviews the visual artwork of the collective Excusado Printsystem, and its impact in Bogotá since 2003. It places major [...]

In this article, Colombian anthropologist Pilar Riaño Alcalá presents the concepts underlying her reflections on the connection between art and social processes, as well as between public art, art in general, and memory in Colombia.  On the basis [...]

This press release, written by the Minster of Public Works and Transportation (1980) Enrique Vargas Ramírez, was distributed to the Colombian media on the occasion of the controversy concerning the monument commissioned from the sculptor Édgar [...]

This article published in the “Lecturas Dominicales” or Sunday Readings section of the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo (April 1962) evidences the polemic surrounding abstract and figurative art in Colombia at the time. In the introduction to the [...]

In this article, Alice Piron considers the public art collection at the Chicago Harold Washington Library Center, notable for having the largest “Percent for Art Program” budget—at the time in excess of $1 million—and for having specific [...]

In this text, John Weber, a distinguished muralist and co-founder of the Chicago Mural Group, responds to a recent article about murals in Chicago and denies that Chicago’s mural scene is unique. He fears that such a term implies that the scene is [...]

The North American curator, Anne Umland, claims that the artist, Félix González Torres, who was born in Cuba and lives in New York, is questioning the meaning of private and public in his series of advertising proposals. The photographs in this [...]

In his essay, scholar and curator Chon Noriega explores the process of writing alternative histories through three case studies in Chicano visual arts. He presents each example as the result of an engagement with both identity politics and the [...]

El Puente, dos videoproyecciones [The Bridge, Two Video Projections] is the leaflet that was used in connection with the urban action event performed by Óscar Muñoz in November 2004. The document presents the photographic record of the event, some [...]

David Avalos recounts the installation of his sculpture San Diego Donkey Cart in front of the Federal Courthouse, and its subsequent removal by Chief Judge Gordon Thompson. The artist describes the piece as a reworking of Tijuana donkey carts where [...]

In this essay, Manuel J. Martinez discusses the origins of Chicano art and proposes that it is an art of social protest at all. According to him, Chicano art is influenced by three sources: indigenous, colonial Spanish, and modern Mexican (or mestizo [...]

In this text, John Weber speaks about his experiences and beliefs as a political artist, and summarizes the Chicago mural movement in which he participated. First, the author gives a brief overview of Chicago mural history from the 1930s Works [...]

In this essay, Shifra M. Goldman discusses the inextricable link between the politics and art of the Chicano movement. Political and social rifts of the 1980s were echoed within the Chicano art world. The main point of contention in both realms was [...]

In this essay, muralist Judy Baca details the development of the contemporary Chicano mural movement that began in the 1960s, focusing on Los Angeles as the site of some of the most prolific and innovative mural projects. Baca underscores the deep [...]

Artist, writer, and activist, Judy Baca analyzes the ideological function served by traditional forms of public art: monuments that commemorate dominant histories and confirm the power of the state and works that ultimately serve the interests of [...]

The essay provides a biographical overview of the career of mural artist Nitza Tufiño, the daughter of Puerto Rican printmaker Rafael Tufiño. In it, curator Susana Torruella Leval describes Nitza Tufiño’s process of creating a ceramic tile mural [...]

David Alfaro Siqueiros explains that he is working with other painters and sculptors in Argentina and Uruguay to create a monumental visual arts movement for the masses. His goal is to remove works of art from museums, cemeteries, and private [...]