Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

Divided into eight chapters, this text by scholar Susana Benko is a study of contemporary Venezuelan art. The first part serves as an introduction, and consists of a brief overview of the Clara Diament Sujo collection. Afterward, she turns her focus [...]

In the book 11 tipos. Arte en Venezuela en los años setenta, the researcher Juan Carlos Palenzuela makes an exhaustive study of Venezuelan art in the1970s, a time when conceptual art was unquestionably being produced in that country. The author [...]

In this essay about the work of the sculptress Marisol, the gallery owner Clara Diament de Sujo provides a brief biographical sketch of the artist’s childhood and youth, and a list of the group exhibitions in which she has participated. She [...]

This text was written for the series Art of Latin America Today: Venezuela by the critic and art historian Clara Diament Sujo. The text historically summarized the development of contemporary art in Venezuela from the Pre-Columbian, colonial, and [...]

In this article, Argentine critic and gallerist Clara Diament Sujo—who lived in Caracas for a time before settling in New York—describes the activities that German-Venezuelan artist Gego engaged in during her one-year stay in the United States. [...]

In this text, gallerist Clara Diament de Sujo offers a poetic description of the work of Venezuelan artist Elsa Gramcko. She mentions specifically how the work transforms form and matter and uses light and color. Sujo places emphasis on the [...]

Gallery owner Clara Diament Sujo reviews the book Who’s Who in Graphic Art (Zurich: The Graphic Press, 1962), which gathers together the most renowned graphic designers and illustrators in the world. The author describes the characteristics of the [...]

In this translated and edited text by Ralph E. Dimmick for a monograph on Venezuelan art as part of the series Art of Latin America Today, the critic and art historian Clara Diament de Sujo offers an overview of the state of art in 1961. In her [...]

This is the script for a documentary about Jesús Rafael Soto, written by Clara Diament de Sujo—the noted essayist and gallery owner, who lived in Caracas at that time—and produced by Ángel Hurtado for National Television – Canal 5 (Venezuela [...]

In this essay, Iris Peruga analyzes most of the work created by Gego between 1955 and 1990. The curator examines the similarities between Gego’s artwork and that of her contemporaries. Examining the artist’s relationship with the trends of [...]

The fifth issue of the magazine CAL contains an array of articles on literature, the visual arts, poetry, philosophy, photography, and criticism relevant to the Venezuelan cultural scene of the day. Outstanding in this issue are the following [...]

In this text, Saúl Yurkievich examines how Latin American art has been affected by its context, arguing that even as art becomes increasingly autonomous it is still a means of communication and as such must be considered in relationship to the [...]

The researcher Federica Palomero reviews the history of Venezuelan art in the 1960s, which she describes as “the prodigious decade.” She discusses the major artists, movements, works, exhibitions, salons, biennials, and exhibition spaces of the [...]

This article argues that, despite multiple pronouncements to the effect that it is dead, Kinetic art is still very much alive and strengthening as a result of its achievements at an international level. The article points to the example set by the [...]

The critic Carlos Silva wrote a study of the work of the Venezuelan sculptor Edgar Guinand, pointing out two fundamental periods in his life in art. The first is defined by the writer in the visual arts context that follows the Latin American Post- [...]

In this essay on sculptor Marisol [Escobar], North American curator Roberta Bernstein provides a chronological description of her work, analyzing the vast majority of her creations and the different phases of her production. She describes the [...]

This essay by María Fernanda Palacios was for the Moradas del Color exhibition catalogue (Caracas: Galería de Arte Nacional, 1991) of work by Mercedes Pardo. The author delves deeply into the life and work of the Venezuelan painter through a series [...]

In her essay “Diego Barboza: El festín de la nostalgia,” published in the catalogue for the eponymous exhibition, curator Katherine Chacón, after providing information on the artist’s youth, studies, and his start in painting and drawing in [...]

In this essay the controversial Brazilian art theoretician Ferreira Gullar challenges the universality of the notion of an aesthetic avant-garde, as well as its relevance in underdeveloped countries. Particularly in Brazil, where the pursuit of avant [...]

Marta Traba begins the fourth chapter of her book Historia abierta del arte colombiano [Open History of Colombian Art] (1970) with a quote from the Colombian art historian Eugenio Barney Cabrera, from which she extrapolates the three points around [...]

This catalogue includes the writings of five Venezuelan researchers and critics who studied the works of the exhibiting artists at Confrontación 68 (Ateneo de Caracas, 1968). Juan Calzadilla introduces the architect Domingo Álvarez, and mentions [...]

Hannia Gómez provides an overview of Gego’s architectural/engineering training and how it influenced her work. The former outlines the latter’s academic education and describes the didactic style of most fashionable architectural schools in [...]

In 1971 Clemencia Lucena issued a statement of principles on what Latin American art has been and what it should be. According to Lucena, an active member of MOIR (Movimiento Obrero Independiente Revolucionario) [Independent Revolutionary Workers [...]

After a preface that addresses Mercedes Pardo’s painting [production], writer José Balza analyzes the Signes series. He explains that Pardo began that series by chance, owing to an impression of a nail cast on a piece of paper. Balza argues that [...]

Issued between August and September of 1963, this document is the first annual report of the activity of the Museo de Arte Moderno of Bogotá (MAM). A foldable brochure, the document consists of a list of actions undertaken and of individuals and [...]

This article—which appeared in the catalogue for Relieves en el espacio (Caracas: Galería Estudio Actual, 1970), the exhibition of works by the Italian graphic designer Nedo—discusses the last twenty years of the latter’s career as a painter. [...]

Curator Luis Ángel Duque describes each of the installations for the show Venezuela, nuevas cartografias y cosmogonías [Venezuela, New Cartographies and Cosmogonies] held at the Galería de Arte Nacional in Caracas. He describes the content, [...]

In this text, Carlos Rojas discusses the close relationship between art and the natural and social environment in which it is produced. Rojas asserts that every society has certain unifying notions that determine a collective personality. That [...]

In his essay about the work of Jesús Rafael Soto, Carlos Contramaestre mentions certain biographical details, such as Soto’s arrival in France in the early 1950s and his relationship to the Los Disidentes group (Paris, 1950). He names some of the [...]

In his essay on Víctor Valera’s Papeles Perforados [Perforated Papers] series, curator Juan Carlos López Quintero describes his stay in Paris during the 1950s and his connections to other Venezuelan artists; especially Jesús Soto, with whom he [...]

In this bilingual essay, Cuban-American artist César Trasobares reflects on the work of his late friend and fellow artist Carlos Alfonzo .Trasobares notes that Alfonzo developed different public and private personas, and throughout his life Alfonzo [...]

In a text about the work of Daniel Senise, critic Fernando Cocchiarale presents a reading of the retro tendency known as the “retorno à pintura” that took place in the eighties. Cocchiarale underscores the unique nature of the artist’s work. [...]

This essay by José Ramón Medina studies the production of artist Marisol [Escobar]. Medina discusses specific traits of the artist’s personality pertinent to her work, among them an incisive sense of satire, a spirit of protest, and an interest [...]

“Engenho e Arte. A Fala dos Gravadores” [Ingenuity and Art: The Speech of the Engravers] is one of seven chapters of a book by Gilmar de Carvalho entitled Madeira Matriz, a subject he developed in a doctoral thesis done at Pontifícia [...]

This is a text with a pronounced personal tone that was written for the purpose of erasing the line that divides an object from an interpretative reading of it. Frederico Morais pointed out a set of factors underlying the resurgence of painting at [...]

This is the catalogue for the event organized by the Venezuelan artists Yeni and Nan (Jennifer Hackshaw and María Luisa González), which included Integraciones en agua, the performance work they presented at the Galería de Arte Nacional (Caracas, [...]

The journalist Edith Guzmán interviews Alirio Palacios about his printmaking and the exhibitions he was involved in at the time. Palacios explains that he has taken up woodcut printing again and has been experimenting with that technique, using what [...]

The flier for the eighth edition of the salão paulista de arte moderna has been redesigned and relies mainly on lowercase letters, double-page spreads, and a simple cover design. Willys de Castro is a member of the jury responsible for the [...]

This essay, by the art historian Eugenio Barney Cabrera, discusses the work of the painter Andrés de Santa María in five distinct categories, as follows: (I) his social background; (II) his long absence from Colombia; (III) his connection to Europe [...]

This article is written in the form of an interview; it consists of a series of questions that the critic Juan Calzadilla asked the Venezuelan visual artist Elsa Gramcko. The questions focus on Gramcko’s artistic development and especially on her [...]

In this interview, Claude-Louis Renard seeks insights into the Venezuelan visual artist Jesús Rafael Soto’s thinking and character. Chronologically structured along biographical lines, the conversation begins with Soto’s early days as an artist [...]

This newspaper article by Carlos Díaz Sosa is about Jesús Soto—and Alejandro Otero and Víctor Valera—at the XXXIII Biennale di Venezia (1966). It talks about his career, from his early days in Ciudad Bolívar to [...]

In his review of the XIX Salón de Arte Venezolano (1958), the critic Perán Erminy notes the ingenious reliance on historical criteria in the arrangement of works selected for the event, from the old landscape masters to the new style of Abstract [...]

In this article, written after the final debate at the Ateneo in Caracas, Marta Traba reviews the controversy that was unleashed by her ideas in 1965. She comes to the conclusion that there was no controversy, just an ongoing rebelliousness, as shown [...]

The film director and screenwriter Chano Urueta reviews the group exhibition of the Liga de Escritores y Artistas Revolucionarios [LEAR, League of Revolutionary Writers and Artists] held at the former church of Santa Clara, which was later converted [...]

Alejandro Otero writes this article for Revista Cal to reflect on the work of fellow pioneer in abstract art (and his wife) Mercedes Pardo. It focuses on Pardo’s series of Signes, on view at the Sala Mendoza in Caracas. The Venezuelan modernist [...]

In this interview with Armando J. Florez, Jacobo Borges states that an artist should have a global perspective when it comes to politics and mankind’s real values, and should be free of any limitations imposed by ideologies. The painter believes [...]

The Aberlardo Rodríguez market was conceived as part of an urban development plan that would allow for the control of the itinerant commerce that encroached upon Mexico City downtown as well as the revaluation of the property within the zone. Its [...]

Curator María Elena Ramos interviews Antonieta Sosa in the framework of the exhibition of her installation Cas(a)anto at the Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas. Ramos introduces the dialogue with a brief description of the concept of “self-monitoring [...]

In this essay on Marisol [Escobar], Venezuelan curator and gallery director Águeda Hernández analyzes her creative concept by drawing relationships between the works that (at that moment) were in Venezuela, in both public spaces and museums, and [...]