Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

This newsletter announces the presentation of videos by Argentinean artists at the Bruges Triennial (from June to September 1974). The article includes still images from each video and a list of participating works. In the newsletter, the CAYC [...]

An article in this newsletter announces that the CAYC is participating in the III Bienal de Arte Coltejer, an event taking place in Medellín, Colombia. The Argentinean center will present Arte de Sistemas, an exhibition organized by Jorge [...]

An article in this newsletter invites readers to a screening of Reading Film from “Knots” by R. D. Laing, directed by David Lamelas, at the CAYC. The film was made with help from the CAYC to exhibit Art Systems during the Bienal de S& [...]

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 art magazine article reviews the 10th Bienal de La Habana organized around the theme “Integration and Resistance in the Global Era.” It exhibits works in all media that explore the effects of globalization on economies, natural [...]

This art magazine article reviews the 9th Bienal de La Habana and describes art works in its various venues. The biennial’s theme focuses on the dynamics and complexities of urban culture, exhibiting works in all media. Some works present the [...]

This foldout pamphlet for the III Bienal Internacional de Pintura in Cuenca, Ecuador, discusses the six artists of Latin American and Caribbean descent included in the biennial’s U.S. representation. The curatorial introduction by Julia P. [...]

In this newspaper article, Marta Traba asserts that Beatriz González’s art epitomizes the Colombian avant-garde. It describes the difficulty of introducing González’s oeuvre at the XI Bienal de São Paulo, and states [...]

This is Ferreira Gullar’s eulogy for his friend, the sculptor Franz Weissmann, whom he calls “one of the [Brazilian] inventors of the imagined universe.” The author remembers having met Weissmann in 1952 at Mário Pedrosa& [...]

Clever Lara’s work is reviewed by the critic Ángel Kalenberg, who was also in charge of Uruguay’s contribution to the XLII Venice Biennial (1986). In Kalenberg’s opinion, Lara’s work is representative of the kind of painting that was [...]

In this essay, Nelson DiMaggio reflects on the international changes in Latin America, especially in Brazil, that had taken place up until 1969. The art critic goes through several likely topics, from the severe censure of various artistic works by [...]

This is the Brazilian art critic and curator Walter Zanini’s official invitation to Clemente Padín, asking him to take part in the XVI Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, in 1981. The document created a “diplomatic” incident that was solved [...]

This is a critical review of the I Bienal de Artes Plásticas that was held at the Subte Municipal de Montevideo, an exhibition space in the capital city of Uruguay, in 1992. The author explicitly acknowledges Clemente Padín for his presentation of [...]

The Primera Bienal de Escultura was held in Uruguay in 1969. The controversial French critic Pierre Restany was one of the guests at the event. Nelson Di Maggio interviewed Restany, and this document reports on some of the latter’s thoughts [...]

This document is a confidential report, perhaps to be sent to the KGB, on the three Uruguayan artists selected to participate in the 1961 São Paulo Biennial. The text addresses other aspects of the art scene in Uruguay as well, among them the group [...]

In this text, architect and art critic Fernando García Esteban addresses the meaning as well as the repercussions of the sixth São Paulo Biennial. He discusses the problem of the criteria used to allocate awards and the difficulties faced by [...]

In this text, the painter, sculptor and art and music critic for the weekly Marcha, Pablo Mañé Garzón, criticizes the IX São Paulo Biennial and what he calls “the art of biennials” in general. He argues that art displayed on a mass scale in [...]

The first Bienal Internacional de São Paulo at the Museu de Arte Moderna en São Paulo (MAM-SP) was presented in 1951; it was a groundbreaking event outside of Europe, attracting the sort of attention usually reserved for the Venice [...]

In this opinion piece, Ana Tiscornia addresses the second Bienal de La Habana. Rather than describe specific works or artists, she assesses the objective of the event in relation to the political framework of the eighties. The notion of the “Third [...]

In this article, published in 1965, the Uruguayan art critic José Pedro Argul discusses the 4th Tokyo International Biennial of Prints and his own personal role in the selection of the graphic works by Uruguayan artists that were submitted at that [...]

One of the objectives of this article by the art historian Juan Carlos Palenzuela was to analyze the Venezuelan art world of the 1980s. The writer also established the guidelines applied to organizing the second Bienal de Artes Visuales Christian [...]

Abdel Hernández, the Cuban critic and writer, discusses the VII Bienal Nacional de Dibujo de Caracas (Museo de Artes Visuales Alejandro Otero, 1994) which, in his opinion, was an event that promoted “fragmentation and disciplinarity” in art, and [...]

In this essay, curator and researcher Eliseo Sierra argues that the seventh Bienal de Dibujo de Caracas is totally irrelevant because it no longer captures the reality of Venezuelan contemporary art. Sierra questions the reason for privileging one [...]

The critic and curator Ariel Jiménez begins this article deliberating on the role of jurors when they assess the work received in order to choose which artists should be awarded prizes. He goes on to set out his criticism of the Venezuelan system of [...]

In 1998, the Cuban art researcher and curator established in Venezuela, Félix Suazo, presented his review of the ninth round of the Bienal de Churuguara (State of Falcón). It was held in the Ateneo Casta J. Riera, and its purpose was to reconsider [...]

The critic Juan Calzadilla discusses the status of the system governing Venezuelan art biennials and salons in 1984, on the occasion of the II Bienal Nacional de Dibujo y Grabado at the Museo de Artes Visuales Alejandro Otero in Caracas. Calzadilla [...]

Historian Juan Carlos Palenzuela provides a detailed account of the first five editions of the Bienal Nacional de Escultura Francisco Narváez held at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Francisco Narváez de Porlamar (state of Nueva Esparta) from 1982 [...]

María Luz Cárdenas reviews Dystopia, the work by the Venezuelan artist Sammy Cucher that was shown in the Venezuelan pavilion at the XLVI Biennale di Venezia (June-October, 1995). Dystopia was jointly produced by Cucher and the North American [...]

In this article Alexander Mosquera discusses the participation of Venezuelan artist Henry Bermúdez—along with other recognized artists in the country such as Ángel Peña and Carmelo Nino— in the forty-second Venice Biennale (1986). The [...]

Venezuelan critic Roberto Guevara comments on the underlying concept of the Venezuelan representation at the XII São Paulo Biennial in 1973; it consisted of a collective work by Margot Römer, Ana María Mazzei, William Stone, Rolando Dorrego, and [...]

In this essay on the fourth Bienal Nacional de Escultura Francisco Narváez (Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Francisco Narváez, 1988), the critic Freddy Carreño introduces the reader to the history of sculpture from its beginnings. The writer points [...]

In this critical essay, Ruth Auerbach considers the challenges represented by the 5th Bienal Nacional de Arte de Guayana (Ciudad Bolívar, 1997). Here, the writer defines the theoretical foundation of the museological and curatorial vision of the [...]

The critic and curator Freddy Carreño seeks to present the structural underpinnings of the V Bienal de Guayana (Ciudad Bolívar, 1997), whose central theme focused on the Venezuelan region of Guayana, a vast region endowed with significant [...]

The synopsis and the annotations in English are coming soon. However, our bilingual readers can click on “Español” to access this information in Spanish [...]

In this text, Ruth Auerbach explains the curatorial guidelines behind the 3rd Bienal Nacional de Arte de Guayana (Ciudad Bolívar, 1993). She believes the salons were established in order to propose that they be a space open to experimentation. In [...]

In this essay, Ruth Auerbach—the art critic and curator of the IV Bienal de Arte de Guayana (Ciudad Bolívar, 1994)—reflects on the challenge of positioning the biennial as a space devoted to the promotion of emerging Venezuelan art. Auerbach [...]

In this essay, published in the catalogue for the first edition of the Bienal Barro de América (1992), the art critic Roberto Guevara discusses the concept of being uprooted and what that means in terms of a Venezuelan event that seeks to establish [...]

In this text, the curator Luis Ángel Duque exposes the reasons why the sixth Bienal de Artes Visuales Christian Dior (1999) is dedicated to hypermedia. In his view, each of the twenty-four participants in the exhibition used imagery and expressed [...]

In this text, curator Adolfo Wilson explains why the fifth edition of the Bienal de Artes Visuales Christian Dior featured solely painting and not other artistic media. He describes the obstacles he had to overcome to hold a painting salon in 1997, [...]

In this article, Yasmín Monsalve reports on Gego’s presence at the Twenty-third São Paulo Biennial in 1996, and on her exhibition Gego. Dibujos. Dibujos, grabados y tejeduras [Gego Drawings: Drawings, Prints, and Weavings] presented that same [...]

Venezuelan journalist and filmmaker Gustavo Báez reports that Venezuelan artists José Antonio Hernández-Díez, Jesús Rafael Soto, and Gego enjoyed a warm reception at the twenty-third São Paulo Biennial in 1996. Báez explains that the theme of [...]

The journalist Maritza Jiménez interviews the Venezuelan printmaker and illustrator Adrián Pujol on the occasion of the latter’s exhibition at the Sala Ipostel (Caracas, 1981). During the conversation, they discuss Pujol’s conceptual and formal [...]

The journalist L. D. wrote this text [in October 1989] about the selection of work by Gladys Meneses to represent Venezuela in the twentieth Bienal de São Paulo. He notes that there was a press conference attended by public figures from Brazilian [...]

In the first of the two parts of this essay, Elsa Flores provides a critical analysis of the work by Miguel von Dangel featured in the São Paulo Biennial. Flores’s premise is that von Dangel’s work is a model “Latin American response” to the [...]

In the second part of this essay, Elsa Flores concludes her critical analysis of the work of visual artist Miguel von Dangel featured in the São Paulo Biennial. Flores examines the underlying premise that the combination of elements in von Dangel’ [...]

In this interview, Oswaldo Vigas gives his opinion about young art in Venezuela, based on his participation as a juror in the 2nd Bienal del Dibujo y del Grabado. The Venezuelan painter states that he hates the word “search” because he believes [...]

This is the first extensive challenge to the artistic credentials of Motociclista No. 3, the painting by Luis Zevallos Hetzel that was awarded first prize at the painting competition organized by the Festivales de Ancón. The challenger is Augusto [...]