Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

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 [...]

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 [...]

Critic Mário Pedrosa analyzes the work of Ruben Valentim and defines his “authentic Brazilian painting.” His work is removed from the well-known, anecdotal, and picturesque regionalism that abounds in the art of the state of Bahia, where [...]

This text by anthropologist Rita Amaral covers the collection of ritual art—specifically of the Afro-Brazilian cult Candomblé—which forms part of the collection of the Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia at the Universidade de São Paulo. She [...]

This is a catalogue for the collection of African art at the Museu Nacional de Belas Artes in Rio de Janeiro, which includes pieces from Nigeria and Benin (the former Republic of Dahomey). This document was produced by the anthropologist and [...]

This is a report on the 18 anthropomorphic sculptures of orishás (divinities of Afro-Brazilian religions) that have been restored to the national heritage and are now in the collection at the Museu Nacional in Rio de Janeiro. All 18 sculptures are [...]

This essay appeared in the catalogue for the exhibition that explored the symbolic cosmogony of Umbanda and Candomblé altars. The author, the Brazilian anthropologist Maria Lúcia Montes, describes these altars as an elaborate symbolic text to be [...]

This is the catalogue of ritual objects related to the Yoruba deity Xangô (written Changó in Cuba) in the collection of the Museu do Estado de Pernambuco in Recife. The 307 works are placed in the following categories: sculptures of [...]

The catalogue for the “Coleção Arthur Ramos” was organized by the anthropologist and museologist Raul Lody, who was with the Universidade Federal do Ceará. The pieces in the collection are made of the following materials: wood, Flanders sheet [...]

This catalogue for the Perseverança Collection refers to objects of Afro-Brazilian art connected to the Yoruba religion of the warrior-god Xangô [Changó]. Researcher Abelardo Duarte, organizer of the collection and catalogue, enumerates, describes [...]

This is the catalogue for the collection at the Museu Afro-Brasileiro in Salvador, the capital city of the state of Bahia. In it, the anthropologist Jocélio Teles dos Santos explains that this collection is an incentive to make comparisons, [...]

In this text, the anthropologist Vagner Gonçalves da Silva discusses the religious art used in the rites of Candomblé (a Brazilian cult originally brought from Africa) and Umbanda (an African-Christian syncretism). The author draws the [...]

This text by Clarival do Prado Valladares is a critical analysis of black culture in the visual arts in Brazil from the colonial period through the sixties. The author places emphasis on the crucial role of Brazilians of African descent in the [...]

The Brazilian artist Vicente do Rego Monteiro, who spent long periods living in France, establishes a difference between historical and modern art, mainly due to their “spiritual quality.” In his opinion, works such as the altarpiece in the [...]

In this article, the critic discusses the lack of Mexican innovation in the area of religious art: "we have erected veritable monuments to constructive technique—but not to faith—such as El Altillo [The Heights] or the Medalla Milagrosa [ [...]

Mathias Goeritz announces that this issue of the magazine Arquitectura México is dedicated to the examples of architecture and religious art current at the time. He argues that—even though in some works of secular art a greater “religiosity” [...]