Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

In 1952, Daniel Mont invited Mathias Goeritz to construct “whatever he wanted.” Given such freedom, the sculptor developed the idea of Arquitectura Emocional [Emotional Architecture]: a structure that would contain the arts with the purpose of [...]

Carlos Mérida sets forth eleven tenets on the development of painting in relation to the integration of the arts; these function both as a manifesto and as an introduction to the catalog. For the artist, functional painting is equivalent to [...]

Through diverse photographs, Mathias Goeritz shows the development of what he calls the “problem” of Integración Plástica [Plastic Integration], a dogmatic movement in which the architect Mario Pani actively participated together with several [...]

In the judgment of the author, Mário Pedrosa, Brasilia is not “a synthesis of the arts,” it is a simple promise. For him, synthesis cannot be achieved through occasional collaborations but rather through a prominent practice that creates a “ [...]

This text by writer Murilo Mendes addresses the connections between the work of Brazilian painter Nery and the Surrealist movement. It contains an account of when, in 1927, Nery met Russian painter Marc Chagall and remarks on certain affinities [...]

Pablo Curatella-Manes presents an exhibition dedicated to sculpture, painting, and urban, as well as architectural projects by Martín Blaszko, Juan Kurchan, Juan Melé, and Simón Ungar, pointing out the relationship among the three media. The [...]

In an article written in 1951 entitled “Depoimento de um arquiteto carioca” [Testimony of an Architect from Rio de Janeiro], Lúcio Costa describes Le Corbusier’s visit to Brazil in 1929, his plan for the city’s urban layout, and what he [...]

The Italian journalist and art dealer Pietro Maria Bardi describes the organization and construction of the MASP (Museu de Arte de São Paulo) during the first two decades of its existence, from 1947 to 1967. This was no easy task in the provincial [...]

The art critic Mário Barata believes that architecture should be seen as art, rather than being viewed purely in terms of its technical aspect, which would tend to group it with engineering rather than with art and, in fact, condemn it to be taught [...]

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 [...]

Flávio de Carvalho proposes that, in the twentieth century, man’s dwelling be transformed in response to a new reality. In de Carvalho’s view, man spends most of the day in the urban universe—that is his primary dwelling—and hence it should [...]

This speech by Mário Pedrosa regards the city of Brasilia, which he examines as a work of collective art, believing it presents an experimental and practical problem. He defends the connection it represents between utopia and planning, a profound ( [...]

In this lecture, Lúcio Costa discusses the crisis facing contemporary art as a result of the changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution. He explains the intense nature of the reproduction and circulation of a work of art and discusses its audience [...]

In this article Bruno Zevi discusses the crisis facing modern architecture as a result of its inability to strike a balance between the dynamics of urban structures on the one hand, and human and social structures on the other. In his opinion, [...]

This anonymous article reports on the lectures given by the Swiss architect and urban designer Le Corbusier during his visit to Rio de Janeiro in 1929. Sponsored by the Instituto Central de Arquitetos (in what was then the capital of Brazil), Le [...]

In this essay, the architect and visual artist Sérgio Ferro outlines the first part of his theory about the contradiction that exists between an architectural drawing and a jobsite. Approaching the subject from a Marxist perspective, he discusses [...]

Aracy Amaral discusses certain characteristic features of Spanish culture that she identifies in buildings that were constructed in the state of São Paulo in the seventeenth century. She notes some telltale cultural details in the bull ring, in [...]

This is a lecture delivered by Renato Almeida in Salvador (capital of the state of Bahia) on October 26, 1926. He praised the reformist line of thought that arose in Brazil as “a riot” against everything that was “sterile imitation.” He saw [...]

In this article, Meyer Schapiro asks a number of questions about the arts, as follows: Why is it rare to find painting and sculpture incorporated into modern architecture? Is it because of the autonomy of the arts? Is it possible to get architects [...]

An architectural project by Henrique Mindlin for an American bank in Recife, Brazil, presents Gilberto Freyre with an opportunity to analyze the idea of “nationalism.” Mindlin was an important theorist on Brazilian architectural modernism, and [...]

The synopsis in English are coming soon [...]

This document is a technical description of the architectural solution put into effect by the implementation team working on the Ministério da Educação e Saúde (MES) project designed by Lucio Costa, Oscar Niemeyer, Affonso [...]

This essay, is on the art critic Fernando García Esteban and on his noted intellectual presence in Montevideo during the fifties and the sixties. The art critic echoes the difficulties encountered when critiquing local art and the differences in [...]

Margarita Nelken reports on the Torres de Ciudad Satélite [Satellite City Towers] project that had been designed in tandem by Mathias Goeritz and the architect Luis Barragán. Although the art critic celebrates the innovative sculptural design of [...]

The 1859 article by Peruvian painter Francisco Laso on the history of Peruvian architecture, sculpture, and painting is primarily a critique of the lack of support for artists in Peru. Laso contends that the inferiority of Peruvian artistic [...]

In this article, Peruvian artist, photographer, and art critic Teófilo Castillo describes the architecture of Lima as deficient, proposing a structure he calls “el Palacio Posnanski” [sic], a home built by the Austrian engineer, amateur [...]

This is an article by José Sabogal on the civil architecture of the Peruvian city of Arequipa. He highlights one of the most original constructive solutions of the Spanish during the colonial era. Given the lack of wood in the environment, the [...]

In this article written for The Architectural Forum, a New York City publication, in January 1934, the muralist Diego Rivera made public his point of view about the necessary link between architecture and painting. The purpose of the link was to [...]

Gregori Warchavchik, the Ukrainian architect based in Brazil, defends functionalism within the context of modern architecture and, in his judgment, that definitions should be restricted to the potential and means of the materials used. He states that [...]

According to the author of this text, Mário Pedrosa, at the onset of the modern architecture movement restriction to the strictly functional was necessary in order to combat the aesthetic or visual approach that predominated in others styles and in [...]

In this article, the architect and visual artist Sérgio Ferro criticizes the state of Brazilian architecture, especially in São Paulo, during the period in the 1960s, known as post-Brasilia. He takes a radical and critical approach by exposing the [...]

 The Colombian poet Juan Gustavo Cobo Borda talks about the Argentine critic Damián Bayón and his passion for Latin American art. He mentions some of Bayón’s books, such as: Aventura plástica de Hispanoamérica [Hispanic America’s Visual [...]

In his essay about the Venezuelan sculptor Víctor Valera’s synthesis of the arts, Ariel Jiménez discusses the concepts of “artistic integration” and “the synthesis of the visual arts,” highlighting the social and collective ramifications [...]

Sebastián Salazar Bondy replies emphatically to the article in which Luis Miró Quesada extolls the virtues of architects as champions of abstract art. Salazar Bondy suggests that painting becomes unnecessary when it eliminates any reference to “ [...]

Luis Felipe Noé analizes the work of Argentinian set designer Gastón Breyer as the manifestation of the contemporary visual arts experience. Regarding the work of Kantor, Noé affirms that it possesses classical rigor and freedom of line, similar [...]

In the paper he delivered at the Congresso Internacional Extraordinário de Críticos de Arte (CIECA), Polish critic Werner Haftmann addresses Brasilia, the new capital of Brazil, as a way to discuss the broader question of the content and form of [...]

The architect Attílio Corrêa Lima presents the book, Avant-projet d’aménagement et d’extension de la ville de Niterói au Brésil[Draft Proposal for the Development and Expansion of the City of Niterói, Brazil], which includes the thesis he [...]

This article by poet Manuel Bandeira condemns the forced resignation of architect and urbanist Lucio Costa as the director of the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes after he had implemented reforms in instruction and in the Salão de 1931, widely known [...]

Mário de Andrade begins this text by questioning the term “architecture” and its meaning. In his view, architectural laws obey both the laws of nature and the laws of humans that lead to arbitrary personal impulses. He establishes a difference [...]

In this article, the sculptor Alfredo Ceschiatti examines Brazilian modern sculpture. It is his belief that between the artistic manifestations produced by the Semana de Arte of 1922, sculpture was the least affected. However, he considers it to be [...]

Bertram Wolfe, Diego Rivera’s biographer, states that the period from the late 1930s through the early 1940s was a solitary, confusing time for the painter due to the fact that his name was appearing constantly in newspaper headlines as the [...]

In this essay, Antonio Muiño Loureda reviews artistic syntheses that have occurred throughout history up to the industrial era, mentioning some of the most significant collaborations of this period. He describes different aspects of the project [...]

In "Comentarios sobre el nacimiento de la arquitectura hispano-americana," Argentinean architect, art historian, and writer Martín Noel asserts that colonial architecture represents the foundation of the Latin American architectural styles that [...]

In this brief article, “Con Vicente Huidobro,” Jean Emar discusses art and records the thoughts that the avant-garde Chilean poet Vicente Huidobro shared with him in conversations. They discussed matters related to Huidobro’s theory [...]

This text by Lucio Costa discusses the “unpredictable” nature of Brazilian architecture. In it, Costa develops a far-reaching theory of modern art and architecture to which the visual form is the sine qua non. The visual-formal component [...]

In this periodical article on the Parisian International Exposition [of Art and Technology in Modern Life] in 1937, the engineer Alberto Jochamowitz questions the “nudism” found in the modern styled architecture. In his opinion, the pavilions of [...]

In this text, French-Swiss architect and urbanist Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, known as Le Corbusier, recounts the experiences he had during his first trip to Brazil (1929). He describes the aerial view of Rio de Janeiro and the “favelas”—the [...]

In this text, Mário Pedrosa remarks on the crisis different art forms are experiencing, a topic that surfaced in the debates at the “Congresso dos Críticos” in 1959. In Pedrosa’s view, the only disciplines deeply affected by that crisis are [...]

In this article Sylvio de Vasconcellos discusses the trend among Brazilian critics (from Edgar Graeff to Mário Pedrosa) to see architecture as art, on a par with other forms of artistic expression. This is, in his opinion, due to the fact that [...]

In this text, art critic Mário Pedrosa argues that reason and logic can interfere with appreciation of a work of art or, even, a work of architecture. Citing architecture critic Geoffrey Scott, Pedrosa advocates “simple and immediate perception [...]