Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

In this essay, Eugenia Brito discusses three works by the writer, poet, and artist Raúl Zurita: Purgatorio (Purgatory), Áreas verdes (Green Areas), and Anteparaíso (Anteparadise). Through these works, the author created an impact [...]

This exhibition essay by Julia P. Herzberg discusses twelve Chilean artists working in experimental and avant-garde modalities (from the late 1970s to early 1990s). These artists are lesser known outside Chile because they stayed in the country [...]

In this essay “El caso Simón Bolívar o el arte como zona de disturbios” (The Simón Bolívar Case, or Art as a Site of Civil Unrest), Nelly Richard addresses the outrage expressed in the Santiago press and by the general [...]

This book consists of research on and documentation of all the works carried out by C.A.D.A. (Colectivo Acciones de Arte) [Art Action Collective] during its existence, 1979 – 1985. The book includes interviews of Lotty Rosenfeld, Juan Castillo, [...]

The theorist Justo Pastor Mellado outlines his curatorial approach for the exhibition 1973–2000: Transferencia y densidad. He begins by defining concepts such as “curator,” discussing the term’s evolution in Chile and its [...]

In this article Pablo Oyarzún provides a critical review of the art produced over the course of three decades. He notes the lack of a tradition that could bear witness to and interpret art production in Chile. From the early twentieth century& [...]

In this article, which is one of the first formal written accounts of the history of Chilean photography, Mario Fonseca emphasizes the absence of history, criticism, and market. He talks about the arrival of the first daguerreotypes in Chile, in 1840 [...]

After the 1973 coup d’état in Chile, the country’s literature underwent a process of transformation that prompted a redefinition of concepts such as, among other things, the roles of writers and readers as well as their limits and [...]

This text is a letter from the painter, muralist, printmaker, and architect by training Nemesio Antúnez to his son Pablo. It is written in the first person, in an innovative narrative style that was in vogue in Chile at the time. In this sort [...]

In this essay Justo Pastor Mellado presents an extension of his theory concerning the vital contribution made by printing to the emergence of “modernity” in Chilean art. The text, arranged in 21 sections, describes the evolution of [...]

In his essay “Realismo y crisis de la representación pictórica” (Realism and Crisis in Pictorial Representation), Guillermo Machuca addresses several critical points regarding the visual arts in Chile during the 1960s. They include, [...]

This exhibition essay discusses the Chilean artist Catalina Parra’s collages on view in the exhibition Catalina Parra: It’s Indisputable. It includes seven series with seventy works, which comprise collages made of newspaper clippings [...]

Nelly Richard focuses on a number of artists as part of her assessment of the status of painting in Chile during the 1970s and 1980s. She discusses a selection of works by a group of artists who take a critical approach to the painting tradition, [...]

In her essay “La narrativa de Diamela Eltit: un nuevo paradigma socio-literario de lectura” (Diamela Eltit’s Narrative: A New Socio-Literary Paradigm for Reading), Eugenia Brito discusses Eltit’s “writing” (l&rsquo [...]

This is Nelly Richard’s critical review of La pintura en Chile: desde la Colonia hasta 1981 (Painting in Chile: From the Colonial Period to 1981), the book cowritten by Milán Ivelic and Gaspar Galaz. Richard takes issue with a number of [...]

This text is part of El gran solipsismo, Juan Luis Martínez. Obra visual (Santiago: Editorial Puntángeles, 2002), the collection of essays written by the researcher José de Nordenflycht. The author considers the work in question [...]

This essay is representative of the debate over art that divided Chile in the mid-twentieth century, pitting the figurative values of painting against modern painting and abstract art. That division was reflected in the art produced by two different [...]

Justo Pastor Mellado discusses Juan Downey’s work in the audiovisual series titled Transamérica and Ojo Pensante (Thinking Eye). He believes it is especially necessary to view the video Moving (1974) and draws attention to several shots [...]

José de Nordenflycht discusses Justo Pastor Mellado’s curatorial vision for Chile 100 Años Artes Visuales. He mentions the area that included five painters who all studied at the Universidad de Chile: José Balmes, Samy [...]

The art critic Justo Pastor Mellado examines the connections between politics and the visual arts in Chile from 1970 to 1983, from the election of Salvador Allende and the Unidad Popular (1970–73) to the tenth anniversary of the dictatorship [...]

   In her essay “Sobre arte y política(s): contraoficialidad, poder y lenguajes,” written for the exhibition catalogue Cirugía plástica (Plastic Surgery), Nelly Richard reflects on the socio-political and [...]

In this essay, Nelly Richard discusses some of the “art actions” that Lotty Rosenfeld—a member of the art action group known as CADA—created on public roads and highways in Chile. Rosenfeld altered traffic signage and lines on [...]

This article by Adriana Valdés is a continuation of “Escritura y silenciamiento” (Writing and Silencing) published in 1977 in Revista Mensaje, a text that would have been unthinkable at the height of the repression and censorship [...]

José Joaquín Brunner explains how the authoritarian regime that came into power after the 1973 coup d’état impacted cultural production in its various forms and, more specifically, what was going on in the Escena de [...]

The curator and researcher Alberto Madrid analyzes Historias de identificación (Histories of Identification), housed in one of the rooms at the grand exhibition held at the MNBA in Santiago, Chile, which uses portraits to record presence and [...]

In this interview, the poet Soledad Fariña asks Juan Downey about his video work and its exposure in the United States and Chile. The Chilean artist, who lives in the United States, talks about his interest in video, electronics in general, [...]

“The broadening of the critical space” represents one section of the book, Chile Arte Actual [Chile Art Today], written by the art historians, Gaspar Galaz and Milan Ivelic. In the book, the authors ask themselves why the late 1970s and [...]

Justo Pastor Mellado explains the reasons that motivated the Chilean submission to the X Mostra da Gravura, which was a desire to articulate a new artistic cartography. The hypothesis he lays out in this text points to formal movements in the field [...]

In this text Nelly Richard identifies some of Walter Benjamin’s ideas that, in her opinion, are relevant to works produced in Chile during the military dictatorship (1973–90) and the start of what was known as the “democratic [...]

Justo Pastor Mellado discusses the evolution of Chilean painting, from its roots to the 1980s. He divides his essay into six sections that explore the field’s history, from José Gil de Castro to the early twentieth century, remembering [...]

This letter from Mario Pedrosa, the Brazilian critic, stresses the importance of the gesture made by artists who donated their works to the Museo de la Solidaridad in a spirit of soladarity with the people of Chile, who were at that time on the road [...]

Justo Pastor Mellado’s essay “Breve nota sobre pintura chilena: 1950–88,” introduced the traveling exhibition Cirugía Plástica [Plastic Surgery] to Berlin audiences. Mellado mentions certain specific features of [...]

As part of his curatorial plan for the exhibition 1973–2000: Transferencia y densidad (1973–2000: Transfer and Density), Justo Pastor Mellado proposes that museums should reinstate works that, though ignored by the critical discourse of [...]

Ronald Christ mentions a number of events that influenced the Chilean artist Catalina Parra’s creative development over the course of her life. Christ begins by discussing Imbunches, one of Parra’s first solo exhibitions, held at the [...]

As President of the Artistic Solidarity Committee with Chile, Mário Pedrosa addresses then President Salvador Allende Gossens during the reception ceremony for the works that would make up the collection of the Museo de la Solidaridad in Santiago. [...]

This is the text of the inaugural speech given by President Salvador Allende of Chile, in which he expresses his gratitude for the donations that amassed the collection of the Museo de la Solidaridad, and agrees to maintain it. He also mentions his [...]

In her essay Chile en la XII Bienal de París (Chile at the Twelfth Paris Biennial), Nelly Richard compares the history of Latin American art to the history of art (in its most visible European and North American versions) on the occasion of [...]

In the document El arte en Chile: una historia que se recita, otra que se construye (Art in Chile: One Historical Account That Is Recited, Another That Is Constructed), Nelly Richard discusses the historical skullduggery involved in that particular [...]

In this article, the writer Gonzalo Muñoz discusses the art produced in Santiago, Chile, between 1974 and 1985, which he describes as being highly political and, therefore, very focused on the military dictatorship that was in power at that [...]

In “Gestos Críticos” (Critical Gestures) Diamela Eltit, a member of the group Colectivo Acciones de Arte (C.A.D.A), discusses the art actions that were performed during the military dictatorship in Chile (1973–90). According [...]

In this short text, members of C.A.D.A. (Colectivo Acciones de Arte) describe the group’s project, Residuos Americanos [American Residues]. They explain that the installation suggests a connection between “American clothes” ( [...]

Nemesio Antúnez shares his thoughts and discusses his printmaking experiences and his training under William Hayter. He recalls incidents with famous artists at the Atelier 17 and the circumstances that led him to set up the Taller 99 in his [...]

This text written by the Chilean architect, Carlos Feuereisen, is a folkloric meditation on the need to introduce the visual culture of the pre-Hispanic peoples into the design of decorative art and architecture made in Chile in the early 1930s. In [...]

The theorist and visual artist Francisco González-Vera describes his text as a “model” that can be used to help position the work of Pablo Burchard within the framework of Chilean painting. To that end, he suggests taking an [...]

The essay “Parpadeo y piedad,” which appeared in the catalogue for the exhibition Cirugía plástica (Plastic Surgery), held in Berlin, discusses art in Chile, specifically, the art produced in the wake of the 1973 fascist [...]

This essay, “Historias de recolección: bricolage, archivo y biblioteca” [Collection Stories: Bricolage, Archive, and Library], was written by Alberto Madrid on the occasion of the exhibition Chile 100 años de artes visuales [ [...]

Nelly Richard discusses the use of the human body as a support for a work of art. She refers to two art actions beginning in 1975. One of them was El perchero by Carlos Leppe; in the other, Raúl Zurita burned his face, photographed it, and [...]

Nelly Richard   discusses C.A.D.A. (Colectivo  Acciones de Arte), taking a critical look at the art action group’s relationship to what she called the Escena de Avanzada, a name she coined based on the group’s strategies [...]

This document was part of the action with the same name—¡Ay sudamerica! 400.000 Textos sobre Santiago—[Ay, South America! 400,000 Texts over Santiago] carried out by C.A.D.A. (Colectivo de Acciones de Arte) [Art Action Collective] in 1981 in [...]