Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

This short newspaper article reports that, a day earlier, Carlos Cruz-Diez had received the 1971 National Prize for Visual Art, presented to him by Rafael Caldera at the Palacio de Miraflores (the official residence of the Venezuelan president). [...]

This article by the journalist Coromoto Álvarez is about the National Prize for Visual Art that was awarded to Carlos Cruz-Diez in 1971. The article is divided into two parts. The first part includes a report about the ceremony at the Palacio [...]

This newspaper article reports that Carlos Cruz-Diez has been awarded the National Prize for Visual Arts, a prize that was created by the INCIBA (Instituto Nacional de Cultura y Bellas Artes). This was the first time the prize was awarded to [...]

This newspaper article reports that Carlos Cruz-Diez has arrived in Caracas from Paris to receive the Premio Nacional de Artes Plásticas (National Visual Arts Prize) awarded by the INCIBA (Instituto Nacional de Cultura y Bellas Artes). The [...]

This newspaper article reports on the 1971 Premio Nacional de Artes Plásticas (National Visual Arts Prize), which was awarded to Carlos Cruz-Diez. The chairman of the INCIBA (Instituto Nacional de Cultura y Bellas Artes), Dr. Alfredo Tarre [...]

This newspaper article reports on the prizes awarded to Carlos Cruz-Diez and Jesús Soto at the First International Festival of Painting held in Cagnes-sur-Mer, in the south of France. Wearing his nationalist hat, the writer states that these [...]

This article, put out by the EFE agency and published in the Venezuelan newspaper El Mundo, informs its readers about the prizes awarded to Jesús Soto and Carlos Cruz-Diez at a painting festival in the south of France (Cagnes-sur-Mer, near [...]

This short article announces the awarding of the Grand Prize at the III Bienal Americana de Arte in Córdoba, Argentina. The text is divided into two sections: the first one reports the name of the prizewinning artist, Carlos Cruz-Diez, and the [...]

This short newspaper article announces that Carlos Cruz-Diez has been awarded the prize at the III Bienal Americana de Arte, the event sponsored by IKA (Industrias Kaiser Argentinas) in the city of Córdoba, Argentina. The article reports on [...]

This is a newspaper article that reviews the opening of the III Bienal Americana de Arte in the city of Cordoba, Argentina. The article reports that the Grand Prize was awarded to the Venezuelan Kinetic artist Carlos Cruz-Diez. It describes the [...]

In this article, Ernesto Ramallo writes about the Bienal Americana de Arte held in Cordoba, Argentina. He traces the history of the event, from its origins in 1958—as the Primer Salón de Artes Visuales Contemporáneas, organized by [...]

This short newspaper review about the prizegiving at the XIII Salón de Arte Venezolano (1952) names the winners (one of whom was the young Carlos Cruz-Diez), the members of the jury, and the dignitaries who presented the awards (the Venezuelan [...]

This article appeared in El Nacional, and refers to the 1960 XXI Salón Oficial de Arte held in the Venezuelan capital city. It focuses on the Premio Puebla de Bolívar awarded to Mercedes Pardo. The abstract modernist artist is [...]

This is an interview by the art critic Rosa Queralt with Yamandú Canosa in regard to his 2003 exhibition held in Spain, named La línea h (iceberg), at the Art Center of Salamanca. It was published in the catalogue Premio Pedro Figari (2007–08 [...]

In this article, the author speculates on the criteria adopted for judging artistic competitions and the difficulties encountered in having to provide critical judgement on the diverse and “contradictory” work presented by Joaquín Torres García [...]

This essay praises the uniform quality of the work presented during the eighth Salón Nacional de Bellas Artes of 1944 in Uruguay. It also analyzes the grand prize awarded in that annual exhibition to Joaquín Torres García for painting, as well as [...]

The critic Juan Calzadilla reviews the work of the participants in the Gran Premio Christian Dior de Artes Visuales (Caracas, 1987), after ranting about Venezuelan art critics and art salons. He describes that milieu—of what he calls partisan and [...]

Curator Cecilia Fajardo-Hill addresses the work of the artists featured in the ninth Premio Eugenio Mendoza in terms of a number of visual and conceptual issues. In her view, the event attempted to expand and question any possible definition of [...]

Curator Cecilia Fajardo-Hill reviews the tenth Premio Eugenio Mendoza exhibition, establishing relationships among the works that were exhibited. In this text she disclosed that the exhibition was not organized thematically, but the works were [...]

Venezuelan cultural journalist Mara Comerlati conducted this interview with Gego in 1980 soon after she had been awarded the Premio Nacional de Artes Plásticas in 1979. Comerlati provides biographical information about the artist: her arrival [...]

This newspaper article reproduces the letter from the Venezuelan visual artist Régulo Pérez in which he rejects the 1st Prize in Painting awarded at the Exposición Nacional de Artes Plásticas in 1972. In the letter, Pérez sets forth the reasons [...]

In this review, the journalist Ana María Mendoza discusses Licantropía—the work by Javier Téllez—which took the prize at the ninth edition of the Premio Eugenio Mendoza (Caracas, 1998). The journalist describes the exhibition and comments on [...]

This newspaper article reports on the roundtable discussion about Motocicleta No. 3, by Luis Zevallos Hetzel, which took first prize at the painting competition organized by the Festivales de Ancón (a resort on the outskirts of Lima). The forum took [...]

This is a brief selection of the opinions expressed by critics and artists at a round-table discussion about the jury’s controversial decision to award the first prize for painting to Motociclista No. 3, the work submitted by Luis Zevallos Hetzel [...]

This brief article discusses the exhibition of paintings by Miguel Ángel Cuadros at the Art Center gallery in Miraflores, Lima. The artist was asked for his opinions about the controversial reaction to Motociclista No 3, the painting by Luis [...]

This brief anonymous article addresses the debate on the subject of Motociclista No. 3, by Luis Zevallos Hetzel, winner of the first prize at the painting competition organized by the Festivales de Ancón (a resort on the outskirts of Lima). The [...]

Alfonso Castrillón weighs in on the controversy that erupted over Motociclista No. 3, the painting by Luis Zevallos Hetzel that won first prize at the Festivales de Ancón (a resort on the outskirts of Lima). The uproar began when the Lima magazine [...]

The first competition to create the official portrait of Túpac Amaru II was declared a “desert,” and in support of that declaration, the editor of Caretas magazine selected nine works by participating artists and sharply ridiculed them. Painter [...]

With this letter, Peruvian painter Milner Cajahuaringa rejects the honorable mention granted his work at the Concurso Nacional de Pintura [National Painting Contest] organized by the so-called Gobierno Revolucionario de las Fuerzas Armadas in 1970, [...]

This is a brief interview with designer José Bracamonte Vera whom in 1975 had won the National Cultural Award of Peru in the social communication category. He claimed he was an artist who designed posters because “graphic art, especially regarding [...]

This is an anonymous interview with Fernando de Szyszlo on his successful presentation at the III Salón Moncloa in Lima in 1955. The artist stated that it was the first artistic competition in which he had participated since 1951 due to his distrust [...]

This newspaper article discusses the opposing points of view expressed by Peruvian artists in the debate over the 1975 National Culture Prize. Speaking in favor of the decision, Ciro Palacios states that the award acknowledges “an urgent need to re [...]

In this article the art historian Alfonso Castrillón looks back at the debate over the jury’s decision to award the 1975 National Culture Prize for art to Joaquín López Antay, the altarpiece artist from the Andean region of Peru. There is a [...]

In this article the art historian Alfonso Castrillón looks back at the debate over the jury’s decision to award the 1975 National Culture Prize for art to Joaquín López Antay, the altarpiece artist from the Andean region of Peru. Following the [...]

In this article about the 1975 Premio Nacional de Cultura [National Culture Prize], the painter Teodoro Núñez Ureta recognizes the legitimacy of the award and praises the winning altarpiece artist, but also deplores the controversy sparked by the [...]

In this interview the painter Leslie Lee discusses the reasons behind the founding of SUTAP (Sindicato Único de Trabajadores en las Artes Plásticas) [Sole Visual Arts Workers Union], explaining the group’s disagreements and subsequent break with [...]

For the second time, the writer and journalist Luis Freire weighs in on the debate sparked by the jury’s decision to award the 1975 National Culture Prize for art to Joaquín López Antay, the altarpiece artist from the Andean region of Peru. In [...]

This is the journalist Juan Gargurevich’s second article about the debate sparked by the decision to award the 1975 National Culture Prize for art to Joaquín López Antay, the altarpiece artist from the Andean region of Peru. Gargurevich supports [...]

This is the founding statute, filed in Lima, Peru, of SUTAP (Sindicato Único de Trabajadores en las Artes Plásticas) [Sole Visual Arts Workers Union], an organization devoted to the recognition of the social function of art. The document states [...]

In this newspaper article Félix Álvarez, the Spanish historian who lived in Peru, discusses the divide between popular and elite culture from the perspective of Marxist social theory. He explains that this dichotomy is not a capitalist invention, [...]

In this text, Mirko Lauer (under the pseudonym “N. O. Sengai”) points out that only artists and intellectuals, not artisans, have participated in the debate around granting the Premio Nacional [award] to López Antay. He argues that that is due [...]

On the occasion of the decision to grant the 1975 Premio Nacional de Cultura [award] to Andean altarpiece maker Joaquín López Antay (1897–1981), journalist José B. Adolph reviews the categories of “high art” and “folk art.” While Adolph [...]

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 [...]

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, [...]

In this opinion column the writers and critics Mirko Lauer and Abelardo Oquendo, writing under the pseudonym “Pedro Rojas,” challenge the arguments made by the ASPAP (Asociación Peruana de Artistas Plásticos) [Peruvian Association of Visual [...]

This newspaper article includes the full text of the communiqué from the ASPAP (Asociación Peruana de Artistas Plásticos) [Peruvian Association of Visual Artists] in which the association’s board of directors expresses its “radical [...]

This is a report on the visit of the Andean altarpiece artist Joaquín López Antay—the winner of the 1975 National Culture Prize in the art category—to the INC (Instituto Nacional de Cultura). The report includes his statements as well as those [...]

This essay presents the basis and verdict of the Premio Nacional de Cultura [National Culture Prize] for art, awarded in 1975 to the Andean altarpiece artist Joaquín López Antay. It is said that in Peru two types of art coexist: one is the so- [...]

This article, published in the newspaper La Crónica (Lima, 27 December 1975), quotes the opinions expressed by a group of artists shortly after the announcement that Joaquín López Antay, the altarpiece artist from the Andean region of Peru, had [...]

This document brings together a group of minutes and reports pertinent to the awarding of prizes at the Primera Exposición Anual of the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes of Colombia, held on that institution’s premises (San Bartolomé building) [...]