Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

In this prologue to the catalog on the Argentine artists who participated in the VII Biennial of São Paulo, Julio Llinás points out the profusion of abstract or informal works that are found alongside more current international trends. He believes [...]

Jorge Romero Brest introduces the artists Ernesto Deiro, Rómulo Macció, Luis Felipe Noé, and  Jorge de la Vega as a collective group. He points out the commonalities that the artists have with Informalism, such as a liberated approach to things [...]

Rafael Squirru wrote that the Argentinean artist, Kenneth Kemble was a restless artist, who worked ceaselessly in any of his aesthetic searches. Squirru considers that to talk about aa artwork is tantamount to discussing the man; therefore, he [...]

The jurors of the Premio Instituto Torcuato Di Tella 1963, Jorge Romero Brest, Jacques Lassaigne, and William Sandberg, awarded the Premio Nacional [National Prize] to Luis Felipe Noé for his work and in particular, Introducción a la esperanza [ [...]

The jury appointed to judge the 1964 Premio Instituto Torcuato Di Tella [Torcuato Di Tella Institute Prize]—whose members included the critics Jorge Romero Brest (Argentina), Clement Greenberg (United States), and Pierre Restany (France)—decided [...]

This text presents each of the artists who represented Argentina in the VII Biennial of São Paulo (1963). It briefly describes the characteristics of their work and identifies the variety of visual arts languages and the subtlety that “califica a [...]

Rafael Squirru wrote that Kenneth Kemble’s oeuvre exemplifies the artist’s struggle to develop within a hostile milieu, given that Argentina was not sufficiently contemporary to understand the work produced by this Informalist artist. Squirru [...]

Kenneth Kemble presents the works he created since 1956. He explains the collage from his point of view. arguing that the search for experimentation with application of new materials is fundamental in the new visual arts. Unlike the surrealist [...]

Luis Felipe Noé states that the work of Fernando Maza is connected to the rise of a vital artistic trens, and that it implies a maturing of expression in the visual arts of Argentina. In his opinion, Maza[both connects himself to and differentiates [...]

The critic considers that the relevance of Surrealism lies in the fact that it is not an artistic but an ideological movement; it is in art where it finds itself justified. Pellegrini analyzes, among others, several aspects such as humor, desire, [...]

Jorge Romero Brest describes Leopoldo Torres Agüero’s work by saying that it is clearly by someone who understands that contemporary creative output does not represent individual expression as much as a manifestation of reality. The critic also [...]

Ignacio Pirovano wrote a brief letter to Alberto Greco on the impact his exhibition Las Monjas [The Nuns] had had on him; he considered the works to be an eerie testimony of the current era. Furthermore, Pirovano considered that with this exhibition [...]

Mario Pucciarelli, the Argentine artist who won the Premio Instituto Torcuato Di Tella in 1960, writes to Guido Di Tella about his opinions on the new guidelines established by the 1962 Premio, with particular regard to the prize stipend and the [...]

Jorge Romero Brest begins his text with theoretical definitions about art’s meaning, perceived as an entity that has its own being. In his opinion, the artist becomes a trigger for an expression that is always being, in addition to the experience [...]

In this article, the Argentine critic Jorge Romero Brest compares and contrasts the work of two young artists—Luis Alberto Wells and Pérez Celis—and suggests that they both create something “innovative” and thus connect to what “is real [...]

Poet and essayist Saúl Yurkiévich identifies Nelson Blanco and Carlos Pacheco as two figurative artists who react against Informalism, although he tracks the influence of chromatic geometry in both. For Yurkievich, the dynamics of new painting [...]

Damián Bayón writes about the work of Argentinean-Japanese artist Kasuya Sakai by analyzing his different stages; that is, concerning the harmony of contrasting colors; the influence of Hartung and calligraphy; black forms in a more complex [...]

Kenneth Kemble is caustic in his article about the group exhibition involving Otra Figuración[Other Figuration] carried out by the Galería Peuser. Ironically, he proposes a game of counting heads amongst the paint spills, adding that children [...]

Kenneth Kemble praises the exhibitions of three artists: Pablo Curatella Manes, Carlos Squirru, and Kazuya Sakai, all from quite dissimilar generations, different racial origins and artistic influences. These differences make it possible to sketch a [...]

Dora de la Torre wrote about the exhibition Las Monjas [The Nuns] by Alberto Greco at the Galería Pizarro, pointing to the artist’s success; moreover, signaling him as head of Informalism, someone whose jeers were taken seriously by the critics. [...]

Rubén Vela writes about the relationship of Argentine artists to international art. He believes that Argentine artists are working on a purely aesthetic plane of creation. He studies the Juanito Laguna series in Antonio Berni’s work, previously [...]

The critic Ernesto Schóo points out the significant texts on Informal Art up to that time. Schóo undercores the contradictions between the authors’ concepts, for which art is defined by formal will, spurring Schóo to criticize the term “ [...]

Within the context of a journey through exhibitions open in Argentina at the time, Lorenzo Varela points out the singularity of an exhibition in which both the human figure and reality as a motive prevail, in overt opposition to the Informal art [...]

Kenneth Kemble tackles the authorship of an idea of destructive art, which is more an experimentation than an -ism. In his view, destructive art evokes the diversity of man’s essential needs: destruction as emotion, the pleasure and the [...]

Hugo Parpagnoli ponders both the Fifth Annual Exhibition of New Art at Galería Van Riel and the Informal Art trend show at Museo Sívori; both of which demonstrate how Informal art painting has captivated the new generation. Parpagnoli describes [...]

Mário Pedrosa establishes his position on non-geometric abstract trends in this text. Specifically, he is in favor of what he calls “arte signográfica” [art using graphic symbols], and he openly opposes the informal(ist) trend. In his judgment [...]

Art critic Alfredo Roland affirms that traditional painting required a certain degree of skill. In his judgment, Informal Art and other cultural expressions of the time seem to have completely done away with this element. Roland ponders this aspect [...]

This text by Hugo Parpagnoli analyzes the works presented by Luis Felipe Noé and Rómulo Macció. He states that the controversial atmosphere that arose from these works—awarded by the ITDT [Instituto Torcuato Di Tella]—proves that they were not [...]

Luis Felipe Noé highlights the work of architect Clorindo Testa: his conception of movement in space as well as his existential affirmation.  On the other hand, he points out Gertrudis Chale’s preoccupation with the existence of man in the Andean [...]

Hugo Parpagnoli comments on the works both by Argentinean artists and by Antoni Tàpies, presented by the Torcuato Di Tella Institute at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes [National Museum of Fine Arts]. In addition, the critic argues that, in regard [...]

This introductory text for Lea Lublin’s work emphasizes that the formal and informal universes are contrasted in her paintings, as are violence and lyricism in order to reflect the panic of a world populated by monsters and threatened by [...]

Hernández Rosselot writes about an interview he had with Kenneth Kemble at the artist’s exhibition at Galería Lirolay (December 1960). While interviewed, Kemble discusses his passion for music and points out the three paths of his work: collage, [...]

In this essay the noted Brazilian art critic Mário Pedrosa discusses the Informalist Abstraction, also known as “voga tachista” [Tachisme vogue or fashion], of the late 1950s. The critic deplores this style, complaining that tachist painters [...]

Germaine Derbeqc, the French artist, introduces Jorge de la Vega’s exhibition by acknowledging his ability to invent languages that translate what is real. She also refers to de la Vega’s earlier periods during which his work gradually changed, [...]

Brazilian art critic Mário Pedrosa writes this article in response to a text published in the press by Jaime Maurício, another critic who had expressed his “dislike” for the term “informal(ist),” which was used to designate some non- [...]

The critic reflects on Informal art by summarizing the different names that it has been given: art autre, action painting, art informel, art brut, etc. Romero Brest proposes to call it either Virginal or Un-constructive art, even though he deems [...]

Poet Julio Llinás writes about the works of Marta Peluffo (Galería Peluffo, 1958) by analyzing her desperation brought about by her “innermost explosion.” Most of all because it happens at the core of a modern art with its ongoing revolution [...]

In this article Pellegrini affirms that as long as artists perceive that the image conveys an instantaneous message, and the researchers remark that we live in a “visual era,” the visual arts will be at the pole of maximum attraction of a culture [...]

This is an introduction written by Juan Calzadilla for the first iteration of Espacios Vivientes (Living Spaces), a salón held at the Palacio Municipal in Maracaibo, Venezuela from February 14 to 28, 1960, that explored new currents in the [...]

Pellegrini's text remarks that during the nineteenth century, Argentine art mainly adapted to academic patterns. For the later evolution of Modern art, the critic adopts a division based on three fundamental periods: first, the artists who absorb [...]

This is of the checklist of the groups included in the Exposición de arte no figurativo [Exhibition of Non-Figurative Art] (1960): they were Asociación de Arte no figurativo [Association of Non-Figurative Art], Arte Nuevo [New Art], Grupo Buenos [...]

Enrique Azcoaga, a Spanish art critic, discusses the term informalismo. He defines that the quality of this type of painting is determined by its expressive power and its capacity to suggest an elevated sense of perception. Azcoaga carefully [...]

As an introduction of the exhibition on arte destructivo [Destructive Art], Aldo Pellegrini wrote about the meaning of destruction, a mechanism associated with construction, just as it is perceived through observable changes in nature. Destruction, [...]

Kenneth Kemble writes about the collective art exhibition at Galería Bonino (Buenos Aires) by artists Martha Peluffo, Jorge de la Vega, Juan C. Badaracco, and Rómulo Macció. He introduces them as the new academy of good taste, with the exception [...]

Toward the end of the 1950s, Julio Llinás defines the current times as ones of total convulsion, which implies the growth of a new state of awareness. He critiques Tachism, calling for an ongoing, always renewed experimentation that is alive and [...]

Kenneth Kemble writes about the exhibitions taking place in several galleries. By observing the works of five female artists, he is able to analyze the variables in Argentinean art at that moment. Based on a formal analysis of this production, he [...]

Luis Felipe Noé wrote on the difficulty of an artist understanding the work of another painter, which, in his opinion, required a relinquishing act. Noé’s interpretation of the works of Jorge López Anaya, seen within an Informalist trend context [...]

In this review, Ferreira Gullar describes the one-man show of works by Iberê Camargo at the Acervo gallery in Rio de Janeiro (1981). No invitation was issued, and no catalogue was printed for the exhibition that displayed a selection of the artist [...]

Barry James reported on Kenneth Kemble’s lecture of July 15, 1960, at the Society of British Artist of Buenos Aires: “Esquemas cambiantes sobre la apreciación del arte modern”[Changing Models on Modern Art Appreciation], in which the artist [...]

Hugo Parpagnoli wrote about the exhibitions of Informalist painting in Buenos Aires, defining Informalism as an irrational attitude. On the other hand, the author explained how the viewer must behave while facing this new approach to painting [...]