Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

In this article, journalist Rodolfo Gerschman responds to the questions raised in a press release against an award given to altarpiece maker Joaquín López Antay issued by the Asociación Profesional de Artistas Plásticos (ASPAP) that upholds a [...]

In this essay—a historical reflection on the Cuban landscape over the centuries—Cuban critic and historian Adelaida de Juan asserts that, starting in the second half of the nineteenth century, Cuban painters began to envision the natural [...]

In this essay Rodrigo Quijano describes the period as having “contributed to the consolidation of a specific direction in Peruvian contemporary art” that, in his opinion, was characterized by “a virtual fragmentation of subjectivities” and by [...]

In this lecture, Puerto Rican artist Lorenzo Homar asserts that the ideological content of art is determined by its stance on society since “art for art’s sake” is devoid of ideological content. For Homar, “socialist art” is a question of [...]

In this chapter from América Latina en sus artes Jorge Alberto Manrique begins by describing the artistic movements of the 1920s and comparing this period to a giant hinge that moved backward to the nineteenth century and forward to the twentieth [...]

In this text, Marta Traba argues that there is not really a unified [Latin] American aesthetic in the visual arts and calls for an honest investigation of the question of such an aesthetic approach, even at the risk of affirming that no common spirit [...]

Painter Aquiles Ralli rejects the comments made by Fernando de Szyszlo that became a national scandal: “there are no painters in Peru.” He juxtaposes the work of the “good artists,” those who diligently “work in silence and never advertise [...]

This text is Samuel Pérez Barreto’s response to the article by the Agrupación Espacio published as part of the debate that took shape around the polemic statements by Fernando de Szyszlo (“there are no painters in Peru”) published in La [...]

The art critic Perán Erminy reviews and analyzes the exhibition Testimonios organized by El Techo de la Ballena in the context of an international meeting of this group. In this text, Erminy points out what he finds interesting in this exhibition: [...]

The synopsis and the annotations in English are coming soon. However, our bilingual readers can click on “Español” to access this information in Spanish [...]

The artist, agent, and art critic Leonel Estrada discusses a series of paintings by Armando Villegas that were exhibited at the Chamber of Commerce in Medellín. These works, in Estrada’s opinion, reveal a departure from the artist’s earlier [...]

Lorenzo Homar begins these brief notes on Puerto Rican art and artists by discussing painter Francisco Oller. He goes on to state that art should be at the service of society and that artists should not be concerned with imitating avant-gardes who [...]

This text by Guillermo Meneses is a presentation of CAL magazine, which he founded. Published in the magazine’s first issue, Meneses’s text explains the meaning of the letters in the publication’s name: C refers to crítica (criticism), A to [...]

This document reproduces the speech given by priest and historian José Manuel Marroquín Osorio at the opening of the exhibition of fine arts on the occasion of the celebration of the centennial of Colombian independence—Celebración del Primer [...]

This is the preface of a book by Carlos Cruz-Diez, Reflexiones sobre el color (1989) in which the Venezuelan Kinetic artist uses short sentences to set forth the definitions and basic concepts of the art he creates. He also discusses the condition of [...]

The curator and cultural representative Jorge Jaramillo Jaramillo—who at the time was the director of the Galería Santa Fe at the Planetarium in Bogota—discusses several matters regarding the first edition of the Premio Luis Caballero [Luis [...]

In this prologue to the catalogue of the 3rd Coltejer Art Biennial, held in Medellín in 1972, the president of the sponsoring company, Rodrigo Uribe Echavarría, explained what he considered to be the double significance of the Biennial, the most [...]

This text by Carmen María Jaramillo discusses the exhibition, Colombia, años 70: Revista al arte colombiano (2002), curated by artist John Castles. Jaramillo presents the idea that some of the pioneering works of contemporary art in Colombia must [...]

Isadora de Norden—who was president of the Colombian-French Alliance’s Cultural Committee in Bogotá—wrote this introduction to the first publication of “Nuevas propuestas: arte colombiano 1999-2002” [New Works: Colombian Art 1999-2002]. [...]

This promotional pamphlet was produced by the MSA (Manifestación Sintetista Actualizada) group to announce the event “Poema del pueblo” held on the occasion of May Day or International Workers’ Day. The event took place at [...]

In this essay published in the 1992 exhibition catalog of Remerica! Amerika, Puerto Rican artist Enoc Perez discusses the effects of United States colonialism in the development of art in Puerto Rico. He observes that Puerto Rican artists have [...]

The book Artistas colombianos: Epifanio Garay, which was written by Colombian artist Coriolano Leudo Obando at an unknown date, is divided into two parts: a brief introductory essay on the life of academic artist Epifanio Garay Caicedo and twenty-one [...]

In this letter, Uruguayan artist and academic Luis Camnitzer tells printmaker Lorenzo Homar that he and the other artists at his New York Graphic Workshop had managed to get the Center for Inter-American Relations to suspend a New York exhibition of [...]

The document is an undated letter from Juan Carrillo, the interim board chairman of the Concilio de Arte Popular (CAP), to its members. Along with stating its founding history, purpose, names, and affiliations of the founding board members, the [...]

In this letter, Nitza Tufiño, the Mexican born Puerto Rican artist, and daughter of the printmaker Rafael Tufiño, tells Lorenzo Homar that the capitalist system gives artists exhibitions, biennials, and museum shows in exchange for their silence. [...]

This letter by Mariano Ibérico was written at the request of painter Antonino Espinosa Saldaña. More specifically, Ibérico was asked to share his opinion on the polemic surrounding the course on Incan art given at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas [...]

In this letter, Héctor Velarde responds to the artist Antonino Espinosa Saldaña, regardin the debate provoked by the establishment of a course on “Inca Art” at the ENBA (Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes). The author considers that humor [...]

This is a letter that was sent by José Sabogal in response to his colleague, Antonino Espinosa Saldaña, who requested his opinion on the polemics surrounding the course on “Inca Art” that was being offered at the ENBA (Escuela Nacional de [...]

Luigi Marrozzini, director of the Galería Colibrí in San Juan, provides H.D. Glicksman with information about the Portafolio Latinoamericano, which consists of twenty-two original prints, mostly etchings and lithographs produced in signed, limited [...]

This a letter requesting support for the promotion of the first international conference of Chicano art, organized by Santa Barraza and Consuelo Avila in 1979. The stated objective of the conference is to provide an overview of the history and [...]

This letter was written by UCLA professor Chon Noriega to Elisabeth Sussman, a former curator of the Whitney Museum of American Art. Written in 1993, the letter addresses several concerns about the museum’s upcoming Biennial Exhibition with [...]

Alberto Beltrán, a Mexican printmaker, writes to Puerto Rican artist Lorenzo Homar to discuss recent art events and news in Mexico. Beltrán tells Homar that he has heard that art critic Raquel Tibol is in Puerto Rico, and mentions the recent [...]

The controversy stirred up by the decision to organize the VII Salón Atenas around the themes of young, experimental art, and Conceptualism is addressed in the introduction to the catalogue for the exhibition VIII Salón Atenas written by the art [...]

This curatorial essay for the VII Salón Atenas [7th Atenas Salon] is, to some extent an evaluation of the program created by Eduardo Serrano. The curator and art critic claims that an examination of the various editions of the Salon provides an [...]

This is Antonio Berni’s critical review of Latin American art during the last ten years, in which he identifies other problems that, in his opinion, “are still ignored by the critics.” The Argentinean visual artist refers to categories and [...]

Puerto Rican artist Myrna Báez congratulates the organizers of a conference on literature for having included the visual arts. She states that because art is not given due importance in education, people are not taught to distinguish between “the [...]

In his article, Armando Castellanos interprets Raoul Deal’s work featured in the exhibition Las Esperanzas del Loro Verde [The Hopes of the Green Parrot]. Castellanos argues that Deal’s work confronts the duality, ambiguity, and tension between [...]

This document includes the introductory chapter to the book Cuerpo gramatical: cuerpo, arte y violencia [Grammatical Body: Body, Art, and Violence], in which the Colombian artist José Alejandro Restrepo considers the (human) “body” as an area [...]

An analytical piece in which Carmelo Arden Quin uses dialectical materialism to explain the transition from representation to the phase of “invention” and pure creation in art [...]

In this panel presentation at the 1992 Women's Caucus for Arts, artist Bibiana Suarez spoke about how her images reflect her reality as a Puerto Rican living in the United States who feels caught between two cultures and who insistently searches for [...]

In this introduction to the catalogue of the 1959 exhibition The United States Collects Pan-American Art held at the Art Institute of Chicago, curator Joseph Randall Shapiro addresses the issue of the inadequacy of the term “Latin American art” [...]

This document is a short handwritten entry from the journal of Carlos Almaraz. He begins with a discussion of how his art should be a product of daily practice. He then comments that his aim is to achieve a sense of poetry in his work but at a visual [...]

This document is the transcript of an interview between Chicana visual artist Carmen Lomas Garza and Anne-Louise Marquis, curator of Directions, a 1995 exhibition of her works. The interview covers a wide range of topics, including Lomas Garza’s [...]

This is the fourth chapter of En blanco y negro: Marta Traba en la televisión colombiana, 1954–1958 [In Black and White: Marta Traba on Colombian Television, 1954–1958], in which the author, the artist and researcher Nicolás Gómez Echeverri, [...]

This document includes a number of texts by the organizers of the Segundo Festival de Arte de Vanguardia [Second Festival of Avant-Garde Art], presented in the city of Cali, Colombia from June 16 through July 1, 1966 by members of the nadaísta [ [...]

With his manifesto, David Alfaro Siqueiros sought to position the avant-garde project anew, doing away with belated modernism and impressionism, in favor of Cubo-Futurist expressions and the incipient eruption of Dadaism. This eagerness for [...]

Hilton Kramer reviews the exhibition Latin America: New Paintings and Sculpture. Juan Downey, Agustín Fernández, Gego, and Gabriel Morera, presented at the Art Gallery of the Center for Inter-American Relations in 1969. Kramer mentions the fact [...]

This landmark manifesto by architect and intellectual Ricardo Severo da Fonseca e Costa (1869–1940) was delivered in São Paolo, Brazil, at the 1914 conference, A Arte Tradicional no Brasil: a Casa e o Templo [Traditional Art in Brazil—The House [...]

This document is the transcript of an interview between arts writer Meredith Tromble and Chicana visual artist Amalia Mesa-Bains. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship awardee, Mesa-Bains talks about her motivations as an artist, and her particular [...]

The Brazilian critic Frederico Morais suggests that the discovery of artistic production emerging from peripheral locales in nations on both sides of the Atlantic is leading to a process of cultural decentralization. This outward movement from the [...]