Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

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 [...]

This article, published in the Caracas newspaper El Nacional, announces the upcoming opening of the exhibition 1x9, serigrafia del color by the Venezuelan abstract painter Mercedes Pardo, held at the Museo de Bellas Artes in the capital city. The [...]

In this brief essay, which was published in the brochure for the 1960 Prêmio Leirner de Arte Contemporânea, Wolfgang Pfeiffer discusses the spontaneity and imagination he sees in the work of Niobe Xandó. A self-taught painter, Xand [...]

In this brief essay, which was published in the brochure for the 1960 Prêmio Leirner de Arte Contemporânea, Wolfgang Pfeiffer writes about a drawing of a fish on the sand by Moacyr Rocha that appears at the beginning of the essay. The [...]

In this brief essay, which appeared in the brochure produced for the 1960 Prêmio Leirner de Arte Contemporânea (Leirner Prize for Contemporary Art), Oswald de Andrade Filho—the son of the famous writer—describes Murillo [...]

This was the first time a national publication—the Lima newspaper El Comercio—had published the guidelines for the Festivales de Lima, an event of great importance in Latin America that took place in October and November 1966. The event consisted [...]

According to the Cuban journalist, there is “a rich tradition of indigenous art” behind the paintings by Fernando de Szyszlo that were exhibited in Havana: a form of popular art whose roots can be traced back to pre-Hispanic culture in the Andean [...]

For Marta Traba, the Fernando de Szyszlo exhibition in Bogotá (Colombia) evidences that “the mistake does not lie in wanting to be American, but in how one is American.” In her opinion, the series of works by the Peruvian painter inspired by the [...]

In this text, poet Emilio Adolfo Westphalen considers the series of paintings produced by Fernando de Szyszlo on the basis of the Quechua poem Apu Inca Atawallpaman written during the colonial era. Westphalen asserts that the relationship between [...]

In his remarks on the series of paintings Apu Inca Atawallpaman inspired by the colonial-era Quechua poem of the same name, Sebastián Salazar Bondy rejects criticism that “sets out to speak FROM painting” and, thus, marginalizes theme. He argues [...]

Juan Acha discusses the exhibition of Fernando de Szyszlo’s series of paintings inspired by the indigenous poem “Apu Inca Atawallpaman,” an event that was organized by the Instituto de Arte Contemporáneo (IAC) in Lima. Acha finds the [...]

In this text, Peruvian art critic Carlos Rodríguez Saavedra comments on a show of the series of painting by Fernando de Szyszlo based on Apu Inca Atawallpaman, a colonial-era Quechua poem translated into Spanish by writer and anthropologist José [...]

This is the catalogue for the exhibition of canvases and gouaches by Fernando de Szyszlo inspired by the series Apu Inca Atawallpaman, based on the colonial-era Quechua poem about the death of the Inca Atahualpa and the fall of the Tahuantinsuyo [...]

In this article written for the newspaper Jueves/El Nacional around 1961, Esteban Muro describes a party and performance in Caracas held by the Venezuelan avant-garde group El Techo de la Ballena. He farcically begins the letter as an oficial RSVP to [...]

The writer Adriano González León discusses the naming of the avant-garde group El Techo de la Ballena. His defense of the group’s use of the whale, a large animal that is not native to Venezuela, is really a pretext for a call for action in the [...]

La Escuela del Sur magazine was published by the TTG (Taller Torres García). The first issue appeared in 1958, five years after Removedor—the Taller’s previous journal—ceased publication. The article “Salutación a Torres García,” written [...]

This brief article by Alberto Methol Ferré, published in 1960, provides the first indications of a specific change in the painter Pedro Figari’s philosophy. For decades his fame as a painter had largely obscured his philosophical thinking. In this [...]

The title of the article published in Marcha, the weekly Montevideo newspaper, refers to the Bienal de Córdoba. But the artist Germán Cabrera and his interviewer actually discuss aspects that are common to all contemporary biennials anywhere in the [...]

In this text, Sergio Benvenuto, director of Artes journal, describes and analyzes the visual arts in Uruguay and its connections to the rest of Latin America; he points out cultural differences from Anglo-Saxon America. Benvenuto asserts that [...]

In this essay, Pierre Restany passes judgment on the Primer Jardín de Escultura Actual, a sculptured garden that was organized outdoors by the General Electric Institute of Montevideo in 1964. Due to the fact, that the exhibition was a collection of [...]

This essay was written by Luis Camnitzer, who was based in New York since 1964. He makes comments in this article on exhibitions presented in 1965 on multiple sculptors such as Alexander Calder, David Smith, Roberto Matta, and Louise Nevelson among [...]

In this text, Carlos Herrera Mac Lean, a member of the Comisión Nacional de Bellas Artes since the time of its founding in 1936, defends Uruguayan figurative art and opposes the inclination toward abstraction. He looks specifically at the case of [...]

The article by Amalia Polleri analyzes the process of integrating the happenings of Uruguay within an artistic context and referencing the interventions by another Uruguayan artist, Teresa Vila. Polleri points to the trend of Latin American [...]

This article analyzes the varied impact generated by the happenings in Europe and the United States and the repercussions on those taking place in Latin America, highlighting the ethical and political particularities of the latter. In this case, it [...]

In this article, art critic María Luisa Torrens explains the importance of Uruguayan performer Teresa Vila’s “actions with theme” as demonstrating her commitment as an artist at a juncture of intense social violence in Uruguay. Vila engaged [...]

This document refers to the artistic conflicts that, in Pablo Mañé Garzón’s opinion, are no longer relevant in the Uruguayan visual arts of the 1960s. The author explains that, in the years since the dispute that flared up between abstract and [...]

Pablo Mañé Garzón discusses some of the thoughts expressed by Umbro Apollonio, the director of the Biennale di Venezia’s Historic Archive of Contemporary Art. The Uruguayan critic refers specifically to the concept of “freedom” that [...]

In this article the critic Fernando García Esteban honors the photographer Alfredo Testoni, who pioneered an “abstract” painting approach to photography during the hey-day of the abstract and informalist movements in Uruguay [...]

The synopsis and annotations in English are coming soon [...]

This article describes the 1967 exhibition about objective art held in Montevideo at the General Electric Institute that included work by Carlos and Enrique Fernández Broglia, Amalia Polleri, Nelson Ramos, Washington Barcala, and Luis Alberto Solari [...]

Through an open letter to the president of the Comisión Nacional de Artes Plásticas published in the weekly journal Marcha, the Uruguayan printmaker Antonio Frasconi, who was residing in New York, expressed his solidarity with the Visual Arts Guild [...]

In this text, Uruguayan artist Luis Camnitzer—resident of New York since 1964 who was a correspondent from there for the Montevideo-based weekly Marcha—discusses the rising importance of “Latin American” art in New York art galleries and in [...]

In this essay, the Uruguayan poet and writer Ida Vitale interviews the Polish art critic Ryszard Stanilawski about his Latin American tour, during which he promoted contacts and artistic exchange with the People’s Republic of Poland. The article [...]

In this essay, Nelson DiMaggio reflects on the international changes in Latin America, especially in Brazil, that had taken place up until 1969. The art critic goes through several likely topics, from the severe censure of various artistic works by [...]

This essay is about the interview of the Uruguayan artist Luis Camnitzer by the critic Nelson Di Maggio, who at the time had been living in the United States since 1964. In the interview, Camnitzer conveyed his concept of “social transformation” [...]

This essay is about the article describing the opening of the Primer Salón de Pintura General Electric [The First General Electric Art Exhibition Hall] in October of 1963, highlighting the work of IGE (Instituto General Electric [General Electric [...]

This essay about the interview by Pablo Mañé Garzón with Ángel Kalenberg, the director of the IGE (Instituto General Electric de Montevideo [General Electric Institute of Montevideo), discussing the programs carried out by the institution that [...]

The article describes a cultural event held at the IGE (Instituto General Electric [General Electric Institute]) in Montevideo where the performances by the visual artists and the exhibition on the industrial artistic works were linked through rather [...]

This essay is on the informative publication by the newspaper El Plata on the II Salón de Pintura Moderna [Second Hall of Modern Art], organized in Montevideo by the IGE (Instituto General Electric [General Electric Institute]). It is with regard to [...]

The magazine Los Huevos del Plata founded in Montevideo by Clemente Padín, published the manifesto of the Brazilian group Maldoror that politically identified itself with revolutionary and antimilitaristic principles that were plainly active during [...]

In 1965, the original manifesto of the magazine Los Huevos del Plata was an avant-garde platform advocating against Uruguayan cultural dominance by the so-called Generación del ’45, a group of writers who exerted and promoted their strong [...]

This essay is on “Hachepiencia,” the manifesto produced by the Uruguayan group Los hachepientos, which was formed by Clemente Padín, Héctor Paz, and Juan José Linares. The principal objectives of the group were outlined in the manifesto [...]

The writer Mario Benedetti, representing the Montevideo weekly Marcha, reviews the seventh edition of the Exposición de La Habana (1968), an event that was organized by the Casa de las Américas, a Cuban institution founded in 1959. The Uruguayan [...]

This is Luis Camnitzer’s essay about his involvement in the NYGW (New York Graphic Workshop) presentation of prints inspired by the FANDSO [Free Assemblable Non-Functional Disposable Serial Object] Manifesto. Camnitzer’s goal is to re-define the [...]

The Primera Bienal de Escultura was held in Uruguay in 1969. The controversial French critic Pierre Restany was one of the guests at the event. Nelson Di Maggio interviewed Restany, and this document reports on some of the latter’s thoughts [...]

This document is a confidential report, perhaps to be sent to the KGB, on the three Uruguayan artists selected to participate in the 1961 São Paulo Biennial. The text addresses other aspects of the art scene in Uruguay as well, among them the group [...]

This document is a letter sent by two Uruguayan intellectuals to David Alfaro Siqueiros, who had been held at Lecumberri jail in Mexico City since 1960; the letter was sent through the artist’s wife, Angélica Arenal. It was a message of solidarity [...]

After spending four years in prison in Mexico for an obscure “crime of social dissolution,” Siqueiros was released in July 1964. He then wrote this letter to all the friends in various parts of the world who had demanded his freedom. In [...]

In an artistic “manifesto” published on a flier to be handed out to the audience, Teresa Vila explains the aims of her “action art,” also called “actions with theme,” which had political and media impact in Uruguay in the sixties. Her [...]

In this letter to critic Fernando García Esteban, José Cúneo celebrates the recent publication of the critic’s Panorama de la plástica contemporánea uruguaya (Montevideo: Editorial Alfa, 1965). Cúneo then explains his ideas about color in the [...]