Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

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 [...]

Francisco Brugnoli reviews the work of Matilde Pérez in terms of persistence and discontinuity. In his essay, he theorizes about art’s role as a means of communication and provides a historical perspective on the evolution of a kind of [...]

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 [...]

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, [...]

Justo Pastor Mellado writes about the life and work of José Balmes, taking as his starting point an exhibition of two of the painter’s works that Mellado defines as paradigmatic: No (1972) and El luche (1994), both of which are [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

In this article, which appeared in the sixth catalogue for the Festival Franco-Chileno de Video Arte (1986), Nelly Richard discusses how video was used for artistic purposes in Chile. From a theoretical standpoint, she explores the experimental use [...]

Mary Sabbatino discusses Juan Downey’s work in depth, paying particular attention to the connection between his drawings and his videos. According to Sabbatino, drawing formed the basis of Downey’s methodology. She notes that he was [...]

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 text Justo Pastor Mellado discusses the concept of “theoretical transference,” an idea that is mentioned in several of his publications. He uses two fictional models: one refers to the origin myth in Chilean painting, the other to [...]

“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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Pedro Millar interviews Nemesio Antúnez, and they discuss printmaking based on their personal and group experience. The conversation touches on what prompted Antúnez’s interest in printmaking, the years he spent in the United [...]

In this essay, Patricio Muñoz Zárate discusses his curatorial approach to the exhibition Subversiones/Imposturas organized for the IV Bienal de Arte. He describes a likely scene in which young artists try to change what is “ [...]

In this historical review, prompted by the exhibition of contemporary Chilean art in Berlin, the artist and teacher Francisco Brugnoli reflects on the “impertinence” of (ethnic-geographical and artistic) otherness as seen from the [...]

This catalogue was published by the Banco de la República of Colombia in February 1963 in conjunction with the exhibition of twenty-three paintings from the bank’s Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango art collection. The exhibition was held in the [...]

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 catalogue La condición del video. 25 años de videoarte en el Uruguay provides a review of the major figures in the history of Uruguayan video art and describes the development of the movement in this region of Latin America from the time of its [...]

Justo Pastor Mellado writes about Los nómadas del mar, the selection of photographs taken by Paz Errázuriz. The text is divided into four sections, beginning with comments on the artist’s work as a whole, which Pastor Mellado [...]

Anthropologist Ronald J. Duncan analyzes work by 125 of the 315 artists that participated in the IV Bienal de San Juan del Grabado Latinoamericano [IV Latin American Print Biennial, San Juan] in an attempt to determine basic demographic patterns. In [...]

Roberto Merino writes about Unidos en la gloria y en la muerte, the installation by Gonzalo Díaz on display at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes. The work takes its name from a sculpture by Rebeca Matte located outside the museum that was [...]

Published in 1849, this text records the journey of Argentine intellectual and politician, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, as he traveled through Rome on a multicountry survey sponsored by the Chilean government. While this entry is dedicated to the [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

In this brief essay Gaspar Galaz discusses a series of landmark events that took place in the 1980s and 1990s. In his opinion this period was characterized by an economic boom in Chile (fueled by neoliberal policies) and by conceptual approaches to [...]

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 [...]

Justo Pastor Mellado wrote this introduction to El deseo de Antígona (The Desire of Antigone), the exhibition of works by Patricia Israel. In a review of earlier projects and exhibitions, the critic explains how the artist researches and [...]

In this text written for an exhibition of works by Patricio de la O, the art critic and curator Justo Pastor Mellado reviews the artist’s painting from his student days until his return to Chile after living in exile from 1974 to 1978 during [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

As the title implies, this is the response from Milan Ivelic and Gaspar Galaz to the criticisms that appeared following the publication of their jointly written book, La pintura en Chile desde la Colonia hasta 1981 [Painting in Chile from Colonial [...]

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 a series of eight notes, Nelly Richard discusses Chilean artworks and the artists who produced them during the late 1970s. Her use of “notes” indicates that she does not intend to present a uniform view of cultural projects or an all- [...]

This is a collection of sarcastic, occasionally humorous “definitions” of terms that help to understand Latin American art. Some are taken from research conducted into methods used in art production in the region (such as “cannibalism,” “ [...]

In his essay “Escultura chilena 1950–1973,” the critic Gaspar Galaz outlines the main criteria that influenced Chilean sculpture from 1950 to 1973. He also highlights watershed events and trends in art and identifies connections [...]

In this article Milan Ivelic discusses conditions in Chile for the benefit of Spanish visitors to the exhibition Chile Vive that was held at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid. One of the main things that stands out about Chile, as seen [...]

In this brief article, “Con Vicente Huidobro,” Jean Emar discusses art and records the thoughts that the avant-garde Chilean poet Vicente Huidobro shared with him in conversations. They discussed matters related to Huidobro’s theory [...]

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” ( [...]

María Eugenia Brito discusses Lotty Rosenfeld’s project Una milla de cruces sobre el pavimento [A Mile of Crosses on the Pavement]. She addresses the artist’s intervention of traffic lines painted on city roads from what she [...]

In this essay, Justo Pastor Mellado reviews Tránsito suspendido, an art action presented by Carlos Altamirano. The work consists of a number of moments that are referred to in a newspaper story that the author uses to explain the steps [...]

This article was written by Gaspar Galaz on the occasion of a retrospective exhibition of works by Claudio Bravo at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Santiago, Chile. Galaz refers to a debate about art and how it should be defined that was [...]

In “Destrucción, reconstrucción y desconstrucciones” (Destruction, Reconstruction, and Deconstructions), Nelly Richard critically reviews the cultural situation in Chile during the military dictatorship (1973–90). It was, in her [...]

In this essay Antonio Romera discusses the collection of works by Chilean artists that was sent to the Primera Bienal Americana de Arte in Argentina. He states that the roots of current Chilean painting in the 1960s can be traced back to three [...]

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 this chapter, Laureano Vallenilla Lanz exemplifies how from a sociological point of view Simón Bolívar’s idea—first articulated in the Constitution he gave Bolivia in 1825—had been applied by the leaders of several Latin American countries [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]