Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

Critic Willy Aranguren provides a chronological account of the role of the Salón de Arte in the development of the visual arts in the Barquisimeto region of the state of Lara, where the biennial is organized. Aranguren makes use of historical [...]

The curator María Elena Ramos reflects once again on the role of “structure” in Alejandro Otero’s work on the occasion of an exhibition of works that address that theme. Ramos notes the Venezuelan painter and sculptor’s curiosity that leads [...]

In this text, critic Federica Palomero explores the development of Venezuelan painter Víctor Hugo Irazábal, from his formative period (the early sixties) and subsequent experimentation with various media and genres through his encounter with the [...]

Abdel Hernández, the Cuban critic and writer, discusses the VII Bienal Nacional de Dibujo de Caracas (Museo de Artes Visuales Alejandro Otero, 1994) which, in his opinion, was an event that promoted “fragmentation and disciplinarity” in art, and [...]

In this essay, curator and researcher Eliseo Sierra argues that the seventh Bienal de Dibujo de Caracas is totally irrelevant because it no longer captures the reality of Venezuelan contemporary art. Sierra questions the reason for privileging one [...]

The critic and curator Ariel Jiménez begins this article deliberating on the role of jurors when they assess the work received in order to choose which artists should be awarded prizes. He goes on to set out his criticism of the Venezuelan system of [...]

The subject of the essay, “Todo final es un comienzo” [Every End is a Beginning], is the Reticuláreas by the Venezuelan artist originally from Germany, Gego (Gertrud Goldschmidt, 1912–1994). The text emphasizes the developmental process of [...]

Mari Carmen Ramírez and the North American curator Edith A. Gibson curated Re-Aligning Vision. Alternative Currents in South American Drawing, the exhibition which was organized by the Archer Huntington Gallery in Austin, Texas. Gibson writes about [...]

This text, written by the anthropologist Juan Ignacio Castillo at the time of the 3rd Bienal Salvador Valero de Arte Popular (Trujillo, 1991), is a commentary on popular religious imagery and its use in different social contexts and strata. The [...]

In this text for the sixth Bienal Salvador Valero de Arte Popular (Trujillo, 1999), Aníbal Ortizpozo reflects on the status of folk art in Venezuela, where, in his judgment, it has been relegated to the second tier in comparison to the so-called “ [...]

In this text, critic Juan Calzadilla provides a concise analysis of art salons in Venezuela and how they evolved until 1991, the year when the I Bienal Nacional de Artes Plásticas de Mérida (state of Mérida) was held. Calzadilla describes the [...]

Based in Venezuela due to the 1973 Pinochet coup d’etat, Chilean artist Aníbal Ortizpozo presented this text at the III Bienal Nacional Salvador Valero de Arte Popular (Trujillo, 1991), reflecting on the arts beginning with the question: “What [...]

Here, Roberto Guevara presents the objectives of the First Camille Pissarro Biennial (Centro Cultural Consolidado, Caracas, 1992). The event was organized to strengthen the ties between Venezuela and France as well as stimulate the development of [...]

In 1998, the Cuban art researcher and curator established in Venezuela, Félix Suazo, presented his review of the ninth round of the Bienal de Churuguara (State of Falcón). It was held in the Ateneo Casta J. Riera, and its purpose was to reconsider [...]

The art critic Perán Erminy sets forth the standards for organizing the Third Bárbaro Rivas Biennial of Popular Art (Museo de Arte Popular de Petare, Caracas, 1992), explaining the changes in the conditions of the competition stated in the related [...]

The critic and curator Tahía Rivero outlines the objectives of the II Bienal Camille Pissarro, which was held at the Centro Cultural Consolidado in Caracas in 1994. As Rivero says, the biennial was unquestionably “a far-reaching, innovative event [...]

The curator and cultural promotor Tahía Rivero launches into her essay on the work of Pedro Tagliafico with a quote from Aristotle about agora [space]. After outlining this Venezuelan mixed media painter and artist’s career and his commitment to [...]

Ariel Jiménez interviews the painter Patricia van Dalen, asking her about her training, her personal view of art and painting, and the various experiences that led her to develop her own particular visual art language. The Venezuelan artist talks [...]

The Venezuelan writer José Napoleón Oropeza reviews the works exhibited at the 51º Salón Michelena in Valencia (in the Venezuelan state of Carabobo) in 1993, and groups them in the categories mentioned in the invitation: painting, photography, [...]

In her review of Ofrendas y otros encuentros, an exhibition ofJosé Antonio Dávila’s work held at Galería Freites in Caracas in 1994, Beatriz Sogbe analyzes and provides a formal description of the evolution of the Venezuelan artist’s painting [...]

In this text, curator William Niño Araque reflects on Fabiola Sequera’s sculpture on the occasion of the exhibition held at the Galería Astrid Paredes in Caracas in 1991. The curatorial essay proposes three approaches to a body of work that [...]

Researcher Anita Tapias authors the curatorial essay “El metabolismo simbólico de Mario Abreu,” which appears in the catalogue for Mario Abreu. Venezuela. 24th Bienal de São Paulo, Brazil, 1998. Tapias briefly presents the key aesthetic [...]

This essay “Énder Cepeda: color de familia” by Juan Carlos Palenzuela appeared in Venezuela 98, the magazine published by the Venezuelan Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The critic provides a detailed list of Cepeda’s major themes that include [...]

This critical essay—“Cristianismo y madera”—was written by the curator Eduardo Planchart Licea; it appeared in his book Juan Félix Sánchez. El gigante del Tisure. Planchart discusses the symbolic and aesthetic aspects of using wood in a [...]

In this statement, Arturo Uslar Pietri posits that the history of Latin America has been a process of raising awareness of the region’s evolution, which serves as the basis for the development of a new world born of the modern age. In an encounter [...]

The critic and curator Ariel Jiménez writes the introductory essay in the catalogue for the exhibition Clemencia Labin. In his essay, Jiménez discusses Labin’s exhibition, focusing on the most significant elements of her work. Jiménez highlights [...]

In this essay, the North American poet and critic Ricardo Pau-Llosa writes about the Venezuelan painter Luis Lizardo on the occasion of the exhibition of work by the latter in the United States (Miami: Ambrosino Gallery, 1992). The critic discusses [...]

By way of an open letter, Luis Enrique Pérez-Oramas (b. 1960) introduces the exhibition Pinturas, work by Luis Lizardo, organized by the Centro de Arte Euroamericano (Caracas, 1996). The letter is a meditation (of a poetic nature) on the ideas and [...]

The curator Axel Stein introduces the exhibition of works by Luis Lizardo at the Centro de Arte Euroamericano (Caracas, 1991). In his essay Stein talks about the artist’s early days, when he was just getting started, interspersing his own formal [...]

In connection with her exhibition in the Sala Mendoza (Caracas, 1990), the Venezuelan artist Isabel Cisneros wrote this [brief] introduction. In the essay, she explains how she entered into the world of ceramics, as well as her interests and [...]

The critic Juan Carlos Palenzuela reviews the acquisition by the Galería de Arte Nacional (GAN) of forty Leoncio Martínez drawings and caricatures. In addition to being a draftsman and caricaturist, this artist was also a poet and critic. The [...]

Historian Juan Carlos Palenzuela provides a detailed account of the first five editions of the Bienal Nacional de Escultura Francisco Narváez held at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Francisco Narváez de Porlamar (state of Nueva Esparta) from 1982 [...]

In her review of works by two contemporary artists—Anthony Aziz and Sammy Cucher—Ruth Auerbach writes about their output in general based on three collections: Fe, Honor y Belleza, Dystopia, and Discontinued… Now! (1992–96). Auerbach traces [...]

Plica was a group exhibition organized by the Galería Ars Forum (Caracas, 1997). The three participants were Venezuelan artists: Pablo Ballini, Dulce Gómez, and Luis Romero. The catalogue for the exhibition was created in the form of a poster that [...]

In this text, researcher Roldán Esteva-Grillet writes about the history of drawing in Venezuela from the pre-Hispanic era through the end of the 20th century. He begins by describing the practice of drawing in ancient indigenous cultures in [...]

María Luz Cárdenas reviews Dystopia, the work by the Venezuelan artist Sammy Cucher that was shown in the Venezuelan pavilion at the XLVI Biennale di Venezia (June-October, 1995). Dystopia was jointly produced by Cucher and the North American [...]

Analyzing the work of Venezuelan artist Diana López, critic Jesús Fuenmayor highlights the most salient features of her work from the beginning of the 1990s (when she began her artistic career) up to the moment that the exhibition he is reviewing [...]

In this text, Ariel Jiménez builds a framework of evidence and circumstances that describe the universal sentiments of the 1990s. In his opinion, that decade can basically be characterized by the prevailing fear and uncertainty that were not just [...]

Curator Cecilia Fajardo-Hill addresses the work of the artists featured in the ninth Premio Eugenio Mendoza in terms of a number of visual and conceptual issues. In her view, the event attempted to expand and question any possible definition of [...]

Ruth Auerbach introduces Landescape, the exhibition of works by Dulce Gómez at her first solo show, at the Galería Alternativa in Caracas in 1994. In her poetic essay, Auerbach describes the salient features of this Venezuelan artist’s paintings [...]

In this essay the curator Zuleiva Vivas writes about Claudio Perna. She mentions the difficulties involved in studying a body of (conceptual) work that is as vast and as varied as Perna’s. She lists the media this artist used and the series of [...]

Curator Jesús Fuenmayor explores the work of Venezuelan artist Diana López on the basis of her participation in an annual show at PS 1 Contemporary Art Center, in New York. The theme López presented for that show was the result of her experiences [...]

Curator María Luz Cárdenas writes about the work of Asdrúbal Colmenárez for the Transposición [Transposition] exhibition (Caracas: MAC, 1998). The author explains the themes explored by the artist in this show, highlighting his break with the [...]

The art critic and researcher Eliseo Sierra reviews a decade of the life and art of the Venezuelan painter Susana Amundaraín, from her beginnings in the 1980s through 1992. After reviewing the art world at the time she began to produce art, the [...]

The Venezuelan artist Asdrúbal Colmenárez wrote about his own installation, Preludio 7, fuga siete, on exhibition at the Galería de Arte Nacional (1991). He presents the objective of the installation, which is intended to raise viewer awareness of [...]

“Time” and its “behavior” are the ideas used by the Venezuelan curator Ernesto Guevara as a starting point for his analysis of the artwork of Alejandro Otero (1921–1990). After focusing on this concept and its relationship to life and other [...]

On the occasion of the publication of the book Mene Digital (1993), financed by the IBM Corporation of Venezuela, Pierre Restany writes on the work of the Venezuelan artist Rolando Peña. The French critic begins with a reflection on Neoprimitivism, [...]

Curator Lourdes Blanco presents the career of ceramic artist Seka Severin. The author analyzes her position on Eastern ceramic traditions and Western sculptural languages, affirming that Seka breaches the limits of both traditions, which allows for a [...]

In this text, critic José María Salvador examines Paul Klose’s career from his first abstract works, produced in the late fifties, to his most recent exhibition, held in 1992. Salvador identifies three distinct stylistic approaches in the work of [...]

In the first part of her essay about the work of the US-born Venezuelan artist Rafael Barrios, the curator María Luz Cárdenas identifies the aesthetic and philosophical parameters that influence the artist’s creative process. These include the [...]