Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

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 [...]

Marta Traba, the Argentine critic who lived in Puerto Rico for some time, claims that there is a form of Puerto Rican art that can be understood and recognized elsewhere. As examples, she mentions portraits by the Puerto Rican painter Francisco Rodó [...]

Marta Traba, the Argentine critic who lived in Puerto Rico for some time, accepts that there is a political and cultural “art of resistance” in Latin America and in Puerto Rico. This “resistance” refuses to follow aesthetic models developed [...]

In this essay, Samuel Cherson, a Cuban critic living in exile in Puerto Rico, discusses the exhibition organized by the Hermandad de Artistas Gráficos [Graphic Artists Association] featuring the artists who refrained from participating in the Quinta [...]

In this essay, María de Mater O'Neill, Marimar Benítez, Julieta González, and Enrique Renta, who are all involved in art, join together to discuss their ideas about Conceptual art. O’Neill explains the development of Conceptual art, and suggests [...]

On the occasion of the exhibition La casa de todos nosotros: Antonio Martorell y sus amigos [A House for Us All: Antonio Martorell and Friends] held at El Museo del Barrio in 1992, Puerto Rican curator Susana Torruella Leval analyzes Antonio [...]

In “Pistas para un viaje,” Puerto Rican critic Celedonio Abad discusses the three exhibitions of Martorell’s work held in 1991: the first at La Casa del Libro in San Juan; the second at La Casa del Peón Caminero in Cayey; and the third at the [...]

In this text, Puerto Rican critic and artist José Antonio Torres Martinó asserts that despite the range of themes in Antonio Martorell’s graphic work, it actually revolves around a single and deeply felt concern with sociopolitical issues. To [...]

In this text, Puerto Rican literary critic and writer Arcadio Díaz Quiñones asserts that Antonio Martorell’s work analyzes and expresses a range of historical and social concerns. The breadth of Martorell’s artistic sensibility conveys a great [...]

Puerto Rican artist and art critic José Antonio Torres Martinó discusses the various media—event, installation, theater, print, poster, film—used by Antonio Martorell in his attempt to provoke and establish a dialogue with the viewer. Novel and [...]

In this essay, Puerto Rican artist Nelson Rivera Rosario provides a critical analysis of Antonio Martorell’s graphic work, discussing specifically its image, technique, and historical context. Regarding the political content of Martorell’s work, [...]

In this essay, Puerto Rican critic Enrique García Gutiérrez discusses the nine reduction woodcuts by Marta Pérez García included in the exhibition Huellas held at Casa Candina, San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 1991. The author asserts that there is [...]

Cuban journalist Florencia Báez Castro comments on “Gráfica y cartelística en nuestros días,” a roundtable on Puerto Rican art that took place in 1979 at the Centro José Martí. Puerto Rican artists Lorenzo Homar and Antonio Martorell, along [...]

[This document is] a confidential report, written by detective Enrique Torres for the Puerto Rican Intelligence Office, about an event at the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña [Puerto Rican Cultural Institute] (ICP) on January 29, 1972. The [...]

In the catalogue to the exhibition Juegos de manos held at the Galería Colibrí in 1968, historian and biographer Antonio Díaz Royo discusses “sleights of hands,” the title of the show in which Puerto Rican artist Antonio Martorell exhibited [...]

In 1963, a group exhibition of Puerto Rican graphic art was organized under the title: Exposición Colectiva de Grabados Puertorriqueños: Pequeña Retrospectiva [Small Retrospective]. Regarding the exhibition, the Italian art buyer Luigi Marrozzini [...]

José Antonio Torres Martinó, a Puerto Rican artist and critic, states that Rufino Tamayo is in Puerto Rico for a retrospective exhibition that will revolve around the work of the Mexican painter. This show is one of the main events of the VII [...]

In 1974, Ricardo Alegría was director of the Office of Cultural Affairs, as well as a member of the committee for the III Bienal de San Juan del Grabado Latinoamericano [Third San Juan Biennial of Latin American Graphic Art]. [In this letter,] Alegr [...]

In this brief essay, Puerto Rican writer Fernando Cros asserts that thus far artist Antonio Martorell’s major contribution to the graphic arts has consisted of three seminal works: the ABC de Puerto Rico [ABC of Puerto Rico] (1967–68), Juego de [...]

U.S. critic Shifra M. Goldman comments on the importance of the Bienal de San Juan del Grabado Latinoamericano y del Caribe [San Juan Biennial of Latin American and Caribbean Graphic Art] for Puerto Rico, Latin America, and the Caribbean. At the VII [...]

In this catalogue essay, Victor Alejandro Sorell considers the 36-year career (spanning 1964–2000) of the Chicano artist Carlos Cortez, praising him as the “quintessential artist-reporter,” and emphasizing his virtuosity as a master printmaker [...]

This article, written by the artist and essayist José A. Torres Martinó, explores the subject of regionalism in Puerto Rican art and its role in the early twentieth century, and discusses the regional-universalist expression of a group of artists [...]

The Cuban critic Samuel B. Cherson, who lives in Puerto Rico, interviews the Puerto Rican printmaker Antonio Martorell, on the occasion of his exhibition, Album de Familia [Family Album] at the Convento de los Dominicos [Dominican Convent], in Old [...]

Puerto Rican historian and curator Marimar Benítez discusses the importance of the print—particularly of the linoleum variety—to artists of the 1950s. Social commentary, condemnation of living conditions among Puerto Ricans, and criticism of the [...]

Puerto Rican historian and curator Flavia Marichal Lugo offers an overview of the history of the woodcut in Puerto Rico. She explains that the medium took hold on the island in 1950 and its influence continually grew from then on thanks to the [...]

This essay by Puerto Rican historian Teresa Tío discusses the historical development of graphic portfolios in Puerto Rico between the 1950s and the 1990s. The essayist’s thesis is based on the fact that Puerto Rico has a long tradition of creating [...]

Argentine critic Rafael Squirru writes a critical review of an exhibition of posters held at the Taller de Gráfica [Graphic Art Workshop] of the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña (ICP) [Institute of Puerto Rican Culture]. This workshop was led by [...]

This essay by Argentine critic Marta Traba discusses Salmos[Psalms], the folderof verses by Nicaraguan poet Ernesto Cardenal with woodcuts by Puerto Rican artist Antonio Martorell. Traba praises this work, which she believes voices protest in a [...]

In this essay, Marianne de Tolentino, the French critic and historian based in the Dominican Republic, tells about the Puerto Rican honoree at the VII Bienal de San Juan del Grabado Latinoamericano y del Caribe [7th San Juan Biennial of Latin [...]

In 1973, Andrew Stasik, director of the Pratt Graphic Center, assembled a collection of Puerto Rican prints later acquired by the Exxon Corporation, which also sponsored an exhibition of the collection that traveled to major cities in the United [...]

In this detailed review, the Puerto Rican critic Nelson Rivera Rosario discusses three works by Antonio Martorell: Catálogo de objetos [Catalogue of Objects] (1974); White Christmas (1980); and Simplicity Patterns (1981). Catálogo de objetos is a [...]

In this essay, independent curator Laura Roulet provides a biographical sketch of Rafael Ferrer, Papo Colo, and Antonio Martorell, all Puerto Rican-born artists who were the first generation of Puerto Rican artists to dedicate themselves to [...]

In this essay, independent curator Laura Roulet maintains that Puerto Rican artists Rafael Ferrer, Antonio Martorell, Papo Colo, Ernesto Pujol, Pepon Osorio, Dahara Rivera, Charles Juhasz, and Arnaldo Morales have advanced the practice of [...]