Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

This document is an essay by Jacinto Quirarte outlining key moments in the history of modern Mexican and Mexican-American art in the United States. It begins with a discussion of the Mexican School, detailing central figures, sociopolitical [...]

This document is a letter addressed to the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle and signed by Artists of the Fifth Sun Exhibition. It was written in response to the review of the exhibition The Fifth Sun: Contemporary/Traditional Chicano and Latino [...]

This document is a review by Alfred Frankenstein of The Fifth Sun: Contemporary/Traditional Chicano and Latino Art exhibition at the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum in 1977. Frankenstein begins by describing the show, detailing the [...]

In this document, curator and art historian Susana Torruella Leval considers works by several artists whose practices reflect an interest in articulating a particular historical consciousness that is tied to their cultural identity as Latin Americans [...]

This document by Jacinto Quirarte begins by proposing possible definitions for the terms “Hispanic” and “aesthetic” and their potential implications for a study of Chicano art. Quirarte states that the focus of his essay is an exploration of [...]

In this document Chon Noriega considers the process of developing a panel discussion organized in conjunction with a museum exhibition. As a scholar who is also a curator, Noriega notes the existing tension between museums and universities as [...]

In this 1992 conversation, artists Guillermo Gómez-Peña and Coco Fusco discuss the notion of Latino identity and the possibility of an intercultural dialogue between U.S.-born Latino artists and Latin American artists. As a Mexican who emigrated to [...]

This document is a short interview with photographer Andrés Serrano, conducted by Enrique Chagoya. Along with recounting his personal background, Serrano discusses how he got interested in photography, which he said was the result of his failure as [...]

This document is a brief article from the San Francisco Chronicle in which art critic David Bonetti considers new developments in Chicano/Latino visual art in recent years, so that he articulates the most notable, which is an increasing tendency on [...]

This document is an essay by Amalia Mesa-Bains in which she argues in favor of developing a new critical language for the evaluation of Chicano and Latino art rooted in the formative experiences of the artists throughout the communities from which [...]

This document is a proposal for a symposium on the state of Chicano/Latino art practices and education in California. According to the anonymous author, the conference would be organized around panels of visual artists, musicians, and various other [...]

This review by Washington Post staff writer Paul Richard is of the 1988 group exhibition, Ceremony of Memory: Expressions in Spirituality among Contemporary Hispanic Artists, organized by the Washington Project for the Arts, in Washington, DC. [...]

This a letter requesting support for the promotion of the first international conference of Chicano art, organized by Santa Barraza and Consuelo Avila in 1979. The stated objective of the conference is to provide an overview of the history and [...]

In this document, art historian and professor Margarita Nieto discusses the 1989 exhibition, Los Angeles Latino Artists, in which fifteen Los Angeles-based Latino artists reflect on the experience of the city in their production. She suggests that [...]

This is a transcript of the presentation made by the Panel on Hispanic Americans and the Arts to the National Council on the Arts in November 1977. The statement—published in English and Spanish—takes issue with the ways in which Hispanic [...]

This is a copy of the interim report of the Task Force on Hispanic American Arts presented to the National Council on the Arts in February 1979. It defines the function of the Task Force as a body concerned with determining the needs of the Hispanic [...]

This document is an announcement issued by the Comité Provisional del Mejoramiento de Nuestra Comunidad [Temporary Committee for the Betterment of Our Community] for a public meeting on March 28, 1978, at the Rockwell Baptist Church in West Town, a [...]

In this text, Guillermo Gómez-Peña declares the new dominant U.S. culture “border culture,” and assesses how Latino culture has infiltrated U.S. culture writ large. U.S. culture has, he argues, become fundamentally multicultural, and the “ [...]

In this preface and acknowledgements, John Beardsley and Jane Livingston explain what motivated them to prepare Hispanic Art in the United States: Thirty Contemporary Painters and Sculptors, the process by which the exhibition was formulated, and [...]

In this text, Octavio Paz contemplates the characteristics of “Hispanic” art in the United States. In a section entitled “Names and Constitutions,” he begins by describing what he argues is an archetype of all societies: the [...]

In this 1989 article published in the magazine/journal Newcity, art journalist and freelance writer, Jeff Huebner, explores the misconceptions of defining contemporary Latino art within the framework of an American art market. In his interviews of [...]

This exhibition catalog, Chicago Latino, was part of an intercultural dialogue initiated by two “socially-minded arts groups,” the 369 Gallery of Edinburgh, Scotland, and the Near Northwest Arts Council of Chicago, Illinois. The exhibition [...]

In this letter to Puerto Rican artist Lorenzo Homar, Argentine artist Mauricio Lasansky states that he resents the fact that the Bienal de San Juan del Grabado Latinoamericano y del Caribe [Latin American and Caribbean Print Biennial, San Juan] is [...]

In this document, scholar and curator Chon Noriega uses the model of identity articulated by José Martí in order to construct a more accurate understanding of U.S. Latino cultural expression and, more specifically, Latino installation art. He [...]

This is a bilingual exhibition brochure for the Association of the Latino Brotherhood of Artists (ALBA) Festival held at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago on April 2–5, 1974. In the brief text, ALBA members describe the history of the [...]

Denise Lugo, in this foreword to the exhibition catalogue Paul Sierra:  A Cultural Corridor, discusses what she calls “Latinismo,” which she explains as “the diverse American Latino aesthetic sensibility,” and its relationship to American [...]

This newspaper column comments on Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle’s works in the exhibition Los Encuentros at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago to mark the Colombian quincentenary. The author weighs how Manglano-Ovalle uses everyday artifacts to [...]

In this essay, curator and scholar Henry C. Estrada argues that despite the fact that Latinos are a heterogeneous cultural group, they share a history of colonialism, geographic displacement, internal exile, and racial discrimination. The experience [...]

According to curator Carolina Ponce de León, the recent focus on multiculturalism, identity, and difference has lent renewed visibility to Latin American art, although it is understood strictly in terms of otherness. Multiculturalism has also given [...]

In this essay, Arturo Lindsay documents the confluence of Post-modernism in the U.S. and the mestizaje [racial and cultural intermingling] of Latinos in order to create a “Latino aesthetic”—one that is grounded in syncretic spiritual beliefs. [...]

In this document, Sid White and Pat Matheny-White discuss the results of their field research study of Chicano/Latino art in the United States Pacific Northwest (states of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho), which they suggest is the first of its kind [...]

In this essay, Rita Gonzalez discusses the artwork of two Los Angeles artists, Salomon Huerta and Victor Estrada, within the context of U.S. West Coast artists and Chicano art. Gonzalez proposes that while these two artists are in dialogue with “ [...]

As the curator of Another Life Up Inside Her Head (1995), an exhibition of seventeen emerging Chicana/Latina artists, Amalia Mesa-Bains considers the precedents for their work, as well as the contemporary contexts in which it has been produced. She [...]

In this essay, curator and scholar Henry C. Estrada argues that despite the fact that Latinos are a heterogeneous cultural group, they share a history of colonialism, geographic displacement, internal exile, and racial discrimination. The experience [...]

In this issue of Caribe, dedicated to the New York-based activist group, the Young Lords Party, Dr. Marta Moreno Vega justifies their relevance to the mission of the Caribbean Cultural Center of improving the living conditions of Hispanics and people [...]

Art critic Lucy Lippard gives an overview of issues that have galvanized Latino artists in the United States to take action; the most notable causes being migrant workers rights in the 1960s and ‘70s, protests against United States interventions in [...]

The authors of this essay describe Coco Fusco as one of the most highly visible and vocal members of the Latino artistic community in the United States. The author, Mary Ellen Croteau, provides an overview of Fusco’s family background and academic [...]

This thirteen-point program, written in English, presents the Young Lords Party platform calling for the liberation of all oppressed people. Some of the points that stand out from the list, include a call for the self-determination of Puerto Ricans, [...]

Written at a time when the United States’ English-only movement was expanding, this article examines the construct of Latino identity in its social, political and aesthetic dimensions, through the struggle over language. The authors discuss [...]

This introductory statement, written by Kem Poston, and an interview with New York-born artist of Puerto Rican descent, James De La Vega, is from 1998 on the occasion of his first exhibition at the Caribbean Cultural Center. Poston explains how De La [...]

The authors of this essay describe Coco Fusco as one of the most highly visible and vocal members of the Latino artistic community in the United States. The author, Mary Ellen Croteau, provides an overview of Fusco’s family background and academic [...]

Written by Puerto Rican anthropologist Arlene Dávila, this article analyzes the reasons for the still subordinated position of Latin culture in New York’s artistic and cultural landscape, despite the relative popularity of Latin American art since [...]

Judith Brodsky, director of the Rutgers Center for Innovative Print and Paper, and Isabel Nazario, director of the Center for Latino Arts and Culture at Rutgers University, outline the reasons that led them to invite Latina artists to serve as [...]

Judith Brodsky, director of the Rutgers Center for Innovative Print and Paper, and Isabel Nazario, director of the Center for Latino Arts and Culture at Rutgers University, outline the reasons that led them to invite Latina artists to serve as [...]

In this feature on the Cuban-American artist Paul Sierra, Jeff Huebner writes the artist’s biography, his recent ascent in the mainstream art world, and the attendant conflicts that arose in relationship to his status as a Latino artist. Huebner [...]

In this essay, independent curator Berta M. Sichel explores Pepon Osorio’s proclivity toward excess, which she deems a “surprise” within the context of contemporary Latino art. A Puerto Rican living in New York City, Osorio has not experimented [...]

This is the transcript of an interview between Eva Cockcroft, writer of the journal Art & Artists, and Juan Sanchez—Nuyorican artist and curator of the exhibition Ritual and Rhythm: Visual Forces For Survival (1982)—as well as a couple of the [...]

In this essay, artist and cultural critic Amalia Mesa-Bains situates spirituality as part of an everyday struggle against domination by Latinos, a set of popular practices that offer critical, alternative histories and an important site of resistance [...]

In this essay, curator and art historian Mari Carmen Ramírez argues that demographic trends and the emergence of multiculturalism have generated renewed debate about the conditions for representation and identity among marginalized groups. While [...]

This document is a curatorial statement by Kathy Vargas, curator of the exhibition, Intimate Lives: Work by Ten Contemporary Latina Artists. Vargas notes the similarity of preoccupations reflected in the exhibition works but stresses the importance [...]