Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

The flier’s cover is illustrated with a work of geometric abstraction (with no mention of the painter’s name), but includes no title for the event. The eleventh edition of the salão paulista de arte moderna, organized by the state [...]

The country was awash in optimism that year, when Brasília was officially declared the new capital city. The tenth edition of the salão paulista de arte moderna was held at the Galería Prestes Maia, organized on this occasion by [...]

The ninth edition of the salão paulista de arte moderna (still written in lowercase letters) was held in June 1960 at the usual venue, the Galeria Prestes Maia de São Paulo. The flier carries over many elements from the previous year& [...]

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 flier, which announces the seventh edition of the Salão Paulista de Arte Moderna, has an excellent minimalist design on the cover. The (ordinal) “ o ” becomes one of the squares in the black and yellow composition, which uses [...]

After President Getúlio Vargas committed suicide in August 1954, Brazil embarked on a program of renewal focused on two basic areas: industrialization and development. The democratically elected government of Juscelino Kubitschek (1956-1960) [...]

In 1956, what proved to be a critical year in Brazilian art circles, the first Concrete art exhibitions were organized at a national level. But this development had no impact at all in terms of the participants or the type of works presented at the [...]

This is the official flier for the fourth edition of the Salão Paulista de Arte Moderna, organized by the Secretaria do Governo do Estado de São Paulo at the Galeria Prestes Maia in 1955. The organizing committee was headed by two well- [...]

This is the official flier for the third edition of the Salão Paulista de Arte Moderna, held in 1954 at the Galeria Prestes Maia under the auspices of the Secretaria do Governo do Estado de São Paulo. Mário Zanini was responsible [...]

This flier announces the first Salão Paulista de Arte Moderna, held at the Galeria Prestes Maia. The event was organized by the Secretaria do Governo do Estado de São Paulo during the same year it launched the Bienal de São Paulo [...]

In this brochure produced for the exhibition of works by prizewinners at the 1960 Prêmio Leirner de Arte Contemporânea, Gerardo Ferraz discusses how Anatol Wladyslaw’s work transitioned from the “mathematics and geometry&rdquo [...]

At an exhibition of works being considered for the Prêmio Leirner de Arte Contemporânea in 1959, this essay is about one of the artists whose work is part of the Adolpho Leirner Collection. Written by Theon Spanudis—one of the [...]

At an exhibition of works being considered for the Prêmio Leirner de Arte Contemporânea at the Galeria de Arte das Folhas in 1959, the art critic and businessman Wolfgang Pfeiffer discusses the parameters of Tomie Ohtake’s work. [...]

At an exhibition of works being considered for the Prêmio Leirner de Arte Contemporânea at the Galeria de Arte das Folhas in 1959, the Neo-Concrete art critic and theorist Ferreira Gullar discusses the dominant features of Maria Leontina& [...]

This group exhibition, held at the Galería de Arte das Folhas in November 1959, included works by Giselda Leirner, Maria Leontina, Tomie Ohtake, Hércules Barsotti, and Willys de Castro. The latter introduces Barsotti’s drawings [...]

At an exhibition of works being considered for the Prêmio Leirner de Arte Contemporânea, 1959, at the Galeria de Arte das Folhas, Pietro Maria Bardi, the art critic and director of the Museu de Arte (later the MASP), discusses Giselda [...]

In this pocket-sized catalogue for an exhibition of recipients of the Leirner Prize for Contemporary Art in 1958, Geraldo Ferraz describes the current work of Paulo Rissone, “a phase of great maturation.” Rissone, who had arrived in Santos, [...]

In this brochure produced for the exhibition of works by prizewinners at the 1958 Prêmio Leirner de Arte Contemporânea, José Geraldo Vieira describes Anatol Wladyslaw’s work as a “painting of separations.” Having [...]

In September 15, 1998, graphic artist Antônio Maluf writes to art historian Aracy Amaral regarding her book Arte Construtiva no Brasil Coleção Adolpho Leirner. Even before its release, in his view, the book was considered an [...]

This is Ferreira Gullar’s eulogy for his friend, the sculptor Franz Weissmann, whom he calls “one of the [Brazilian] inventors of the imagined universe.” The author remembers having met Weissmann in 1952 at Mário Pedrosa& [...]

In his introductory essay, Frederico Morais identifies the basic criteria underpinning the three retrospective exhibitions that were presented as part of the Ciclo de exposições sobre arte no Rio de Janeiro (1984). He briefly discusses [...]

In this letter, dated March 10, 1997, Raul Porto thanks Aracy Amaral for her visit, a “splendid surprise” that brought back memories of “good times as an artist participating in exhibitions, salons, and biennials.” Porto [...]

This flier—produced by the Galeria de Arte das Folhas for the Prêmio Leirner de Arte Contemporânea, 1960—names most of the members of the Concrete art Grupo Ruptura (with the exception of Judith Lauand). They are introduced by [...]

In this essay, printed in the brochure for the exhibition Efemérides: Judith Lauand, Gabriela Wilder writes that the works of Judith Lauand are an example of the best concrete art produced in São Paulo in the 1950s. “They also [...]

This article, published in the magazine of the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (MAM), highlights the artist Judith Lauand, the subject of the “anthological exhibition” Judith Lauand: Experiências. It begins with a [...]

In this newspaper article dated June 20, 1954, professor Walter Zanini reviews the exhibition of works by artists representing the Atelier Abstração at the MAM-SP (Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo). Despite the fact that, as a [...]

In this essay, which appeared in the brochure for an exhibition of the 1948–58 work of Samson Flexor, Luis Martins claims that the painter experienced a transitional phase in his career when he stopped producing figurative art. In fact, as the [...]

This brochure was designed in 1996 for the exhibition Desexp(l)os(ign)ição (a compound word meaning something like ignited-signs-that-do-not-explode-in-the-non-exhibition). This event was a historical celebration of the Exposiç& [...]

Artes, the visual arts magazine, devoted a portion of its fifty-seventh issue (December 1983–January 1984) to this lengthy article about Maurício Nogueira Lima, with photos of the artist and a number of his works. The magazine, which is [...]

This essay, by the Brazilian curator and art historian Aracy Amaral, appeared in the catalogue for the exhibition Modernidade: arte brasileira do século XX (Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, 1988). Amaral discusses the origins of the [...]

Professor Walter Zanini, the director of the Museu de Arte Contemporânea (an affiliate of the Universidade de São Paulo), begins his introductory essay by congratulating the graphic artist and painter Lothar Charoux on behalf of the [...]

This essay by the Brazilian art critic Wilson Coutinho appeared in the catalogue for the exhibition Ciclo de exposições sobre arte no Rio de Janeiro: 1. Neoconcretismo (Rio de Janeiro: Galeria de Arte BANERJ, 1984). The essay outlines [...]

In this essay, Ferreira Gullar describes the context in which the Neo-Concrete art movement was created by artists in Rio de Janeiro. He outlines the movement’s evolution as he identifies key developments in its history, such as the series [...]

This essay by the Brazilian art critic Ronaldo Brito appears in the catalogue for the exhibition Milton Dacosta Anos 50 (1988). Brito describes Milton Dacosta’s Constructivist work, produced in the late 1950s, as a paradoxical hybrid after the [...]

In her introductory essay for As Bienais e a Abstração. A Década de ’50 (1978), the exhibition organized by the Museu Lasar Segall in 1978, Lisbeth Gonçalves explains that the goal of the event was to review [...]

This essay, written by Gilberto Mendes, the Brazilian composer of experimental music, appeared in the catalogue for the exhibition Projeto Construtivo Brasileiro na Arte (1977). Mendes provides a brief description of how creators of Concrete poetry [...]

This essay, written by Wilson Coutinho, the Brazilian curator and art critic, appeared in the catalogue for the exhibition Projeto Construtivo Brasileiro na Arte (1977). Coutinho discusses the context in which Concrete poetry developed in Brazil in [...]

In this essay Luiz Antônio de Figueiredo discusses some of the parallel developments in the fields of Concrete poetry and Concrete art. In the 1950s “they both started to map out the routes of non-figurative art, which was exploring [...]

In this essay, written for the paradigmatic exhibition Projeto Construtivo Brasileiro na Arte, Júlio Katinsky discusses the relationship between the Concrete art movement in São Paulo and industrial design. He points out that, in both [...]

In this essay, written for the paradigmatic exhibition Projeto Construtivo Brasileiro na Arte, Roberto Pontual discusses the survival of the Neo-Concrete art movement that existed “officially” for “a little less than two years, from [...]

In this introductory essay, which appeared in the catalogue for the paradigmatic exhibition Projeto Construtivo Brasileiro na Arte, Aracy Amaral describes the “revelation” she experienced as she researched the period in question: “ [...]

In this essay Ronaldo Brito discusses Brazilian Constructivism as an integral part of an “organized cultural strategy” that was in effect from the 1940s to the 1960s and was closely aligned with “the country’s social and [...]

Frederico Morais uses an extremely long title to provide a précis of his essay. But it only complicates the simplified narratives of a movement—whose embrace of doctrinaire Constructivism was followed by a critical rift between Concrete [...]

Ferreira Gullar uses his newspaper column to reply to an article that appeared in the Correio da Manhã in which Waldemar Cordeiro challenged his review of an exhibition of works by Concrete artists from São Paulo at the MAM-RJ (Museu de [...]

In this essay, Ferreira Gullar critiques the exhibition of works by São Paulo Concrete artists at the MAM-RJ (Museu de Arte Moderna de Rio de Janeiro, 1957). He also critiques Waldemar Cordeiro’s introductory essay and its assertion that [...]

In this essay, Tomás Maldonado discusses modern art—and modern life—and claims that both offer an “institutionalized” kind of art education. His definition therefore includes “the education of the artist,” & [...]

In this essay, Ferreira Gullar offers a “panoramic view” of the developments and theoretical tenets of Neoconcrete art in Brazil. As in other essays [see in the ICAA digital archive “Da arte concreta à arte neoconcreta” (1315036)], Gullar [...]

In this essay, Ferreira Gullar articulates the position of the so-called Neoconcrete artists of Rio de Janeiro by tracing a shared history and points of divergence with the Concrete art movement. For Gullar, Concrete art begins in Brazil with the [...]

In this essay, Ferreira Gullar challenges the position taken by Rio de Janeiro’s so-called neo-Concrete artists in his account of the two movements’ shared history and disagreements. In his opinion, the genesis of Brazilian Concrete art [...]

This text includes a few excerpts from the six lectures that Jorge Romero Brest gave in São Paulo in 1948. At that time, Romero Brest held an academic position at the Universidad de Montevideo and was the director of the magazine Ver y estimar [...]