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 [...]

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 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, [...]

   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 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 [...]

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 [...]

“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 [...]

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 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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

The author offers a critical, manifesto-style review of the situation in the field of Latin American art and, especially, culture. Alberto Pérez describes himself as an “American,” “Hispanic American,” “Indian [...]

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 [...]

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, [...]

In her essay “Trama urbana y fugas utópicas” (Urban Fabric and Utopian Flights), Nelly Richard discusses CADA (Colectivo Acciones de Arte) two decades after the group launched its program of urban actions in Santiago. She describes the [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 “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 [...]

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 [...]

Pablo Oyarzún, the Chilean essayist, discusses Quadrivium, the installation by Gonzalo Díaz. He begins by describing previous installations whose formal designs were also based on the Stations of the Cross and identifies components of [...]

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 [...]

This page done by the group C.A.D.A. (Colectivo Acciones de Arte) [Art Action Collective] was political commentary in the form of a magazine insert. Such an insertion was included among the activities specified in the art action, Para no morir de [...]

The author, Nelly Richard, suggests an analogy between Galería Metropolitana’s location in an outlying area of the city (Comuna Pedro Aguirre Cerda in Santiago) and its editorial approach. She uses symbolic opposites, such as center and [...]

In this essay Pablo Oyarzún explains that Chile lacks the critical space needed to accommodate a public and autonomous line of argument. He condemns the absence of an institution devoted to the production, circulation, and reception of [...]

This interview with Uruguayan artist Jorge Damiani addresses the Primer Encuentro de Artistas Plásticos del Cono Sur held in Santiago, Chile. As the Uruguayan delegate, Damiani took part in debates on art in Latin America, specifically in relation [...]

In her essay “Cada 20 años” (Every 20 Years), Diamela Eltit reviews the art activities organized by C.A.D.A. (Colectivo de Acciones de Arte; Art Action Collective) during the two decades since the group was started in 1979. She [...]

In this essay Justo Pastor Mellado discusses the autobiographical nature of Juan Downey’s work, referring to the links to that genre to be found in Chile and stating that this suggests the emergence of a lesser, secondary, and recently [...]

In this text, the CADA art action group appeals to artists all over the world, urging them to take part in a “collective art project.” This appeal grew out of a determined response to the violence and destruction caused by the imperialist [...]

This document presents the principles of the Colectivo de Acciones de Arte [Art Action Collective] (better known as C.A.D.A.) regarding the relationship between art and politics, their stance on the international art scene and on the tradition of [...]

This list contains information about the artists who donated works to the Museo de la Solidaridad in Santiago, Chile. It gives their name, country of origin, and a description of the works that, at the time of publication, were already in the museum [...]

This address was given by the Spanish-born, Chilean-based scholar José Victorino Lastarria in 1842 during a meeting of the recently formed Sociedad Literaria, a literary society of important Chilean scholars and politicians. In his speech to the [...]

In this text, Klenzografía; área movediza de la pinturita (Klenzography: The Shifting Area of Minor Painting), Victor Hugo Codocedo refers to the “Klenzo girl” painted by the Chilean artist Gonzalo Díaz. Codocedo [...]

Pablo Oyarzún wrote this short essay, Lectura de escena (Reading the Scene), about a book by Nelly Richard in which he identifies four main themes: (1) support for the artistic, poetic, and discursive practices that the Escena de Avanzada [...]

This document was written by the Colombian critic and historian Álvaro Medina by way of an introduction to Gustavo Zalamea’s 1975 exhibition El gran Burundún-Burundá, presented in the gallery Viva México, in the city of Caracas, Venezuela. This [...]

The art critic sent this letter to Ernesto Deira informing him about the Instituto de Arte Latinoamericano [Latin American Art Institute], which includes the Museo Latinoamericano [Latin American Museum], for which he requests the collaboration of [...]

The text, “Arte Suramericano” [South American Art], by Jean Emar, is one of his “Notas de arte” [Art Notes] written in the daily newspaper, La Nación between 1923 and 1925. In this text, Emar, in his capacity as an art critic, analyzed the [...]

Nelly Richard ponders the state of contemporary art in Latin American cultures, both in terms of its circulation and regarding its frame of references. She wonders whether international themes and subjects are repeated at a local level or whether new [...]

Regarding the show of Chilean painting on exhibit in Lima, Ricardo Grau states that “it can be calamitous to have an artistic past like Peru’s” since it often serves as a pretext behind which to hide defects or weaknesses. Because no such [...]

The text presents the work of Carmelo Carrá stating that they represent the real world seen by someone without prejudice. They deal with an anti-conventional reality, and the result is unpredictable, limitless and open to new discoveries. It is [...]

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 article announces the founding of the Bolivian AIAPE (Agrupación de Intelectuales, Artistas, Periodistas y Escritores) a few years after the founding of homonymous associations in Argentina and Uruguay. The Bolivian group basically embraced the [...]

María Izquierdo describes the customs of the inhabitants of the small mining village of Chillán, Chile, which was damaged by a strong earthquake in January 1939. Mexico declared its support for Chile, presenting Chillán with the construction of [...]