Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

In this essay, Hans Neumann discusses José María Cruxent’s kinetic work. He describes the experience of first seeing Cruxent’s “parakinetic” work and analyzes the way the artist turns light—whether natural or artificial—into an integral [...]

In his essay, the museum designer Miguel Arroyo examines the range of art created in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He reaches the conclusion that the arrival of photography, film, and television led painters to abandon traditional [...]

The theoretician Frank Popper analyzes the Kinetic aspects of the artwork of Jesús Soto, whom he identifies by his repetition of both visual and plastic elements in one object to obtain vibration. Popper also notes that this reading of what is known [...]

In this essay, Jean Clay reviews Fisicromías, the series of works by Carlos Cruz-Diez, and analyzes them from various perspectives. Clay discusses the evolution of the artist’s techniques, examining them through a prism of aesthetic principles. He [...]

This article, written in the form of a poem, is about the series Excitáveis [Excitables] by the Brazilian artist Sérvulo Esmeraldo. The author, Erwin Leiser, pictures him walking through the back streets of Paris looking for images that will be [...]

The art critic and historian Frederico Morais discusses the Brazilian artist Abraham Palatnik’s career, describing him as a pioneer—even at an international level—in the creative blending of art and technology that he used to create his kinetic [...]

Flávio Motta acknowledges that the diverse biennials that took place in São Paulo established a new phase which sought out art from abroad; although they also resulted in the puzzling [concept of the] “happy native.” They [...]

Journalist Miyó Vestrini interviews Narciso Debourg for his first solo exhibition in Venezuela. The conversation covers the methods of expression used by the Venezuelan painter and sculptor (based in Paris); these include serial usage of elements, [...]

This essay by art critic and physicist Mário Schenberg is one of the first works written in Brazil on the impact of technology on artistic expression. His analysis looks back to the 18th-century industrial revolution, when the invention of the [...]

In this text, whose two brief paragraphs are separated by a line and illustrated with three sketches, the Venezuelan Kinetic artist Carlos Cruz-Diez explains the traditional way in which a viewer experiences a direct “reading” of a color plane. [...]

This essay by curator Freddy Carreño was written on the occasion of the Carlos Cruz-Diez exhibition held at the Museo Soto in Ciudad Bolívar in 1998 and 1999. Carreño argues that color is a primordial concern of this chromatic Kinetic artist. To [...]

Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza interviews Carlos Cruz-Diez in Paris. After providing a physical description of the Venezuelan Kinetic artist and a brief summary of his career, the Colombian author asks him for his opinions about art in general, and Latin [...]

This is the full-color leaflet for Didáctica y dialéctica del color, the traveling exhibition of work by the Venezuelan Kinetic artist Carlos Cruz-Diez that was organized by the Universidad Simón Bolívar (Caracas, 1980). The leaflet includes a [...]

In this didactic text, illustrated with thirty-four pictures, Carlos Cruz-Diez describes the step-by-step sequence he calls “the dialectic of color” in his works. He begins by presenting conventional color planes; these are followed by planes [...]

This text describes the interest among artists and critics in the Exposição Internacional de Esculturas Efêmeras [international exhibition of ephemeral sculpture] organized by artist Sérvulo Esmeraldo at Cocó, a large ecological reserve located [...]

This interview with Carlos Cruz-Diez by historian José María Salvador focuses on the way the artist’s work intengrates architecture, either as a general subject matter or regarding his urban productions. The interview addresses questions like the [...]

In this article, Alirio Rodríguez discusses the definition and scope of Latin American painting, and its universal exposure. He stresses the importance of Figuration and Abstraction, both of which influence current and future painting in the [...]

The Argentine critic Silvia de Ambrosini claims that there have always been “opponents” in the art field. In her opinion, these “opponents” are what revitalizes the creative atmosphere. She says that in Latin American art “we find [...]

In this essay, Carlos Cruz-Diez notes that the concept of “aesthetics” has traditionally been associated with the idea of “beauty” or “truth,” contrary to his view. He disagrees, suggesting that artists should not be guided by [...]

Marta Traba analyzes the entire body of artwork integrated with architecture in Caracas created by Gego, and contrasts them with those created by Jesús Soto and Carlos Cruz Díez, practitioners of Venezuelan Kinetic art. Traba observes that Gego’s [...]

Luis Enrique Pérez Oramas believed that as a foreigner in Venezuela, Gego gave her work the function of an “analytical process” by constructing a “neutral space” in a time saturated by Kinetic art and geometric abstraction. Her work resists [...]

This is an essay on Gego’s artwork published to accompany the exhibition, Desafiando Estructuras [Challenging Structures] (MACBA, Barcelona/Museu Serralves, Porto, Portugal, 2006) by Iris Peruga. It starts out with biographical information on the [...]

Curator Kaira Marie Cabañas argues that work by Gego (Gertrud Goldschmidt, 1912–1994), a Venezuelan artist of German origin, constitutes a “performative geometry” based on a primordial interest in the act of “making.” The configuration of [...]

In this introductory text, critic Inocente Palacios reflects on the precedents of Venezuelan Kinetic art and the changes it proposes in the relationship between the artist and the material, on the one hand, and between the viewer and the work, on the [...]

In this essay, the historian and critic Alfredo Boulton discusses the work of Jesús Soto, whom he places at the heart of Venezuelan Kinetic art and, in historical terms, within the realm of the world’s contemporary art. Boulton bases his comments [...]

The Brazilian artist Sérvulo Esmeraldo describes his interest in the phenomena of physics. He recalls some experiences in his childhood in northeast Brazil (Ceará), when he and his brothers turned ampoules into powerful lenses which they then used [...]

In this autobiographical essay, Carlos Cruz-Diez recounts key moments and experiences in his career, starting with his graduation from the Escuela de Bellas Artes de Caracas (at that time, Cruz-Diez was convinced that the artist’s task consisted of [...]

In this article, Alejandro Otero begins by describing some of the movements and artists that are representative of the global abstract avant-garde, principally Alexander Calder, in order to contextualize Venezuelan artist Jesús Rafael Soto. He [...]

In this text, Joaquín Aroztegui reflects on new tendencies in Uruguayan art, whether in the form of writings or exhibitions, such as happenings, concretism, Op Art, and kinetic art. Those new tendencies are described as new languages born of [...]

The Brazilian artist based in France at the time, Sérvulo Esmeraldo, introduces his well-known series, “Excitáveis.” The text includes practical step-by-step instructions explaining the functioning of these works, the artist’s methodical [...]

The art critic Olívio Tavares Araújo claims to see certain parallels and similarities between Sérvulo Esmeraldo’s “object-poems” and the kinetic works known as “Excitáveis” [Excitables] that the Brazilian artist was producing in the [...]

In this brief article, the artist Sérvulo Esmeraldo explains his works, which he calls “Excitáveis” [Excitables], describing them as “paintings that appear to be static” but that in fact are like natural phenomena in which everything is in [...]

In this critical essay, the historian Alfredo Boulton analyzes several of the elements he sees in the work of Jesús Rafael Soto, the great Venezuelan Kinetic artist, focusing here on space and time. Boulton mentions a number of Soto’s works in [...]

In Olinda (Pernambuco state), painter José Claudio uses an exceedingly colloquial tone to discuss the significance of artist Sérvulo Esmeraldo’s “return” to his native city (Crato, in the state of Ceará) after having resided in Europe for [...]

This article by the critic Víctor Guédez was written at the time of Carlos Cruz-Diez en la arquitectura, the exhibition at the Centro Cultural Consolidado (Caracas, 1991). In Guédez’s opinion, there are two facets to Cruz-Diez’s Kine-chromatic [...]