Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

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 [...]

In this rare essay about “realist” artist Thomaz Perina, the Brazilian Concrete art theorist Waldemar Cordeiro discusses the importance of this kind of work, describing it as “an art medium that still [in the early 1960s] harbors [...]

The first Bienal Internacional de São Paulo at the Museu de Arte Moderna en São Paulo (MAM-SP) was presented in 1951; it was a groundbreaking event outside of Europe, attracting the sort of attention usually reserved for the Venice [...]

In Aracy Amaral’s view, the debate around the Etsedron group could give rise to reflection on a Latin American aesthetic insofar as it entails an expressionistic and primitivistic interpretation of reality from an environmental perspective. Amaral [...]

In addition to organizing and introducing a retrospective exhibition of the work of Alfredo Volpi, Olívio Tavares de Araújo discusses the focus of that show. The exhibition included works with a range of color variations on the same formal design, [...]

The controversial author Décio Pignatari visited the IX International Biennial of São Paulo in 1967, which inspired him to write a brief overview on the subject of “anti-art.” In one of his brazen statements he claims that “the Biennale is [...]

In this article, Mário Barata transcribes a manifesto written by a group of artists demanding that the São Paulo Biennial enact a number of modifications in its bylaws, particularly in relation to the selection of the jury and the artwork. It is [...]

This interview with Carlos Zilio was written in conjunction with the exhibition Carlos Zilio: Arte e política, 1966–1976 held at the Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro (MAM-Rio) in 1996. The questions put to the artists by a number of [...]

This is an article written by Marcos Santarrita, published in the form of a one-act play, with the lead parts played by Décio Vieira and Alfredo Volpi, along with a reporter (Santarrita) and a photographer. The scene takes place in the workshop of [...]

This text by Brazilian artist Willys de Castro was written for the pamphlet announcing the solo exhibition of painter Alfredo Volpi held at Galeria de Arte São Luiz in São Paulo in 1961. In it, de Castro argues that Volpi produces original work [...]

When he wrote this text, the Brazilian journalist and critic Ferreira Gullar was highly positive about the participation of the artists (painters and poets) in the Iª Exposição Nacional de Arte Concreta. In the article, the writer presents a [...]

This “study sketch,” as it is called by its writer, Theon Spanudis, performs an in-depth analysis of the artwork created by Alfredo Volpi. It provides a brief review of articles written as of that time (1956) by the critics Mário Schenberg, Sé [...]

In this article Mário Pedrosa discusses the differences between the São Paulo and the Rio de Janeiro versions of concrete art. In his (rather Manichaeisticly oversimplified) view, the former are a more theoretical, rigid response to the dogmatic [...]

The art critic Mário Pedrosa recalls that, on a visit to the Brazilian artist Djanira’s studio he was reminded of the landscape problem in Brazilian painting. In his opinion Alfredo Volpi came up with a “masterly” solution by capturing the [...]

According to the poet and critic Ferreira Gullar, the essential problem concerning the “national” nature of art is directly related to the cultural dependence of the country. By way of explanation, he suggests that this question would not arise [...]

In this article, the art critic Sérgio Milliet continues an ongoing debate with his colleague Luiz Martins. This debate had played out in installments in publications such as Arte e Polêmica, as well as in lectures on a couple of themes that were [...]

This essay was included in the catalogue for the Exposição de Pintura Brasileira held in London in 1944. Organized by the critic Rubén Navarra, the show presented a broad selection of Brazilian paintings that covered the transition from the 1930s [...]

In his essay, critic Sérgio Milliet analyzes the painting taking place in São Paulo at the end of the 1930s, with an eye toward two exhibitions: the first, at the II Salão de Maio and the other, at the Salão do Sindicato dos Artistas Plásticos ( [...]

This is an article about the founding of the Grupo Almeida Júnior in São Paulo in 1935, a group that was organized to host conferences and an annual exhibition of works by its members, who were: the painters Anita Malfatti, Georgina de Albuquerque [...]

After criticizing the selection made in the United States to represent Brazil at the Latin American Exhibition of Visual Arts that was held in New York during the 1939 World’s Fair, the great Brazilian polymath, Mário de Andrade continues by [...]

This essay posits the concept of “geometría sensível” [Sensitive Geometry] as one of the unitary characteristics of contemporary Latin American art, and notes the growing interest (within the region and further afield) in [...]