Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

This text is an introduction to the exhibition of oil temperas on canvas, paper, and fiberglass by Juan Carlos Distéfano. In the text, Pellegrini emphasizes that the images taken from the real world do not contradict his achievements in the purely [...]

Diego Rivera reaches out to photography, including it as one more technique within the field of plastic creation. In his view, it was photography that liberated painting from the need to express an objective reality. He also equates the technical [...]

Atilio Chiappori writes about the current time in Argentinean painting from his authority as the director of Argentina’s Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes [National Museum of Fine Arts] in order to critique the development of modern art. And this in [...]

This article discusses the various ways in which the question of space has been addressed in sculpture, architecture, and painting over the course of time, and reflects simultaneously on how space is portrayed in abstract and concrete painting [...]

Tomás Maldonado responds to the Letra y Línea [Letter and Line] survey by stressing that the cultural validity of a work is realized by means of new artistic ideas. He goes on to clarify that the concept of “artistic ideas” does not refer to [...]

This document relates the response of artist Miguel Ocampo to the survey sponsored by Letra y Línea [Letter and Line], in which he states that research and communication are fundamental to painting. Given that Ocampo considers painting the “desire [...]

This document relates the response of artist Víctor Magariños “D”. to the survey sponsored by Letra y Línea [Letter and Line]. His opinion stresses that creation is the fundamental gist; he believes that if form and content are not the fruit [...]

This document relates the response of artist Sarah Grilo to the survey sponsored by Letra y Línea [Letter and Line], in which she states that the fundamental to be considered in painting is its expressive power. With regard to her predecessors or to [...]

This is a critical review of the Arte abstracto, del arte figurativo al arte abstracto [Abstract Art, from Figurative Art to Abstract Art] exhibition, which was organized by Léon Degand, the Belgian critic, and presented at the Instituto de Arte [...]

In this article, Atalaya points out that of all the artists represented in the Salón Florida, only the works by Héctor Basaldúa, Nora Borges, Del Prete, and Xul Solar are worth seeing. As such, he goes on to analyze the characteristics of each of [...]

In this prologue, Jorge Luis Borges defends his position that Pedro Figari’s work belongs to the lyrical genre in the way it paints Argentinean remembrance and memory: both the Criollo man and his world yielding before the “new man,” in whose [...]

Kenneth Kemble reviews the exhibition by sculptor Carlos de la Motta at Galería Pizarro. It involves his metal sculptures, whose inventiveness and quality surprised the critic. The same gallery exhibits the Uruguayan painter Jorge Páez with [...]

In this document, Kenneth Kemble writes in defense of Argentinean art and counters the negative opinions made by art criticism in Scotland on a contemporary Argentinean painting and sculpture that were shown in Edinburgh. He states his rebuttal of [...]

In this article, Damián Bayón deals with the pictorial production of Jorge Larco. He analyzes his use of materials (oil as well as watercolor), motifs and color, among other elements. Bayón concludes that he is “a great painter” for he [...]

The text informs about the curatorial characteristics, artists, and works that are presented at the exhibition organized by the Centro Cultural Recoleta (Buenos Aires), which is sponsored by Página/12 (Buenos Aires), under the title La vuelta al [...]

In this text, which is the foreword to the catalogue for the exhibition 22 Contemporary Argentine Painters, Damián Bayón establishes the exclusive relationship with Europe of the visual art culture in Argentina, since there was “no relationship [...]

This article is an interview with artist Pablo Suárez in which he is questioned regarding his actions within the Argentinean artistic scene of the 1960s. Among the diverse events he relates, he mentions the realization of the happening called La [...]

Hernández Rosselot writes about the perishable quality in art, emphasizing the deterioration of contemporary artworks. One of the goals of Rómulo Macció is that his works survive for future observers. The critic mentions the impact of [...]

The critic writes about Marcelo Bonevardi’s artworks, comparing them to the fragments or the friezes on the walls of an immemorial temple, stating that they propose a profound contemplative attitude. Aldo Pellegrini mentions the importance of the [...]

Rafael Squirru introduces María Elena Sieburger’s exhibition of paintings (Galería Lirolay, Buenos Aires, August 21–September 2, 1961), noting that?following a period during which she hewed closely to Joaquín Torres García’s legacy?she is [...]

This article states that Madí has become a style—as can be seen in the drawings, paintings, sculptures, and architecture that are shown in the catalogue—among the plethora of lines and surfaces, liberated planes and colors, articulated [...]

The article describes the characteristics of the works by Fabián Burgos, Jorge Gumier-Maier, and Graciela Hasper presented in Nadar sobre la superficie [To Swim Over the Surface] (Buenos Aires: Espacio Giesso, November 6–23, 1991) and, at the same [...]

Manuel Mujica-Láinez presents Nicolás García-Uriburu’s exhibition (Galería Rubbers, Buenos Aires, August–September, 1964), highlighting themes and climates associated with what does  “Argentinean-ness” involves. The critic also points [...]

This essay by the Spanish writer Guillermo de Torre presents an interesting comparison between avant-garde literature and painting in Argentina. The writer describes the new painters with precise commentaries on the visual arts, as well as touching [...]

Kenneth Kemble writes with praise of the exhibition of prewar American painters. He establishes the reasons for the artworks’ worth and—given the public’s conditioned French taste—the exhibition’s instructive relevance. Kemble even examines [...]

The author maintains that a particular form of visual expression corresponds to each historical era. Because of this, today’s painting has been freed from the bottega [el bodegón / still life] of antiquity [...]

Xul Solar, after analyzing and interpreting the works of Argentinean painter Emilio Pettoruti and reviewing his biographical information, perceives him as “fathering” the impending Criollo art. Xul understands that his work is still in its “ [...]

Luis Felipe Noé considers the critic’s function to be the comprehension of the “artistic will” of an artwork, without positing a value judgment. The aforementioned act of understanding requires something of intuition. Noé offers an example, [...]

Act by means of which the Di Tella Institute Prize is instituted. Yearly, it will be conferred to painters, sculptors, engravers-printers, ceramists, and other artists, to be decided. Likewise, in this document it is also established that the [...]

Presentation text for the Primer Salón de Pintura Argentina Joven [First Salon of Young Argentinean Painting] (1953), organized by Ricardo Caillet-Bois and Osvaldo Svanascini. This show came about as an initiative of the Galería Peuser with the [...]

Pellegrini places Bruno Venier in an intermediate trend, between the extremes whose priority was the object and the purely visual elements. The critic states that his painting–more static than in the previous stage–started becoming freer as [...]

This article characterizes the work presented byRamón Gómez Cornet at Chandler Hall in 1922 as “personal,” in keeping with the means of understanding the “ismos imperantes” [“prevailing –isms”] of that era. At the same time, Atalaya [...]

In this article, Damián Bayón analyzes the work of Argentine painter Ramón Gómez Cornet. He states that coming to a just “judgment” of the work will be difficult because he is one of “those [artists] who goes directly to the sensibility of [...]

In comparison with the general art milieu of Argentina at the time, this article presents Martín Malharro as a true master—a genuine “spiritual guide” for the youth. It describes both the integrity and the sincerity of his judgment with regard [...]

Manuel Mujica-Láinez presents Ricardo Garabito’s exhibition, pointing out that his work has been focuses on the commonplace atmosphere of objects, people, and neighborhood. He also singles out the quality of the drawing and the richness of his [...]

Presentation of Rómulo Macció’s work in which the critic maintains that Macció’s most valuable contribution is creative liberty, a stance the artist kept from his first Surrealist paintings to his Free Abstraction period. Although, when Macci [...]

This is a text that analyzes the interferences among the arts. It relates music to painting by noting, in the first place, the correspondence between the application of the tonal scales and the laws of perspective to be followed between dodecaphony [...]

Kenneth Kemble writes about the architect and painter Clorindo Testa, focusing on his ability to work with the essential. Kemble discusses Testa’s exhibition of abstract paintings at Galería Bonino (Buenos Aires) and is taken aback with the use of [...]

David Alfaro Siqueiros critiques the paintings of the 23rd Fine Arts Salon (Buenos Aires) as works imitative of past European painting. The artist defines the event as a colonial art show, with gullible themes and devoid of technique, as well as with [...]

José Alberto García Martínez introduces Pedro De Simone’s exhibition (Galería Lirolay, May– June, 1963), pointing out that the artist’s oil paintings achieve qualities reminiscent of water- colors. He also mentions that the Constructive [...]

In this article, Fabián Lebenglik reviews the Agustín Inchausti. Pinturas exhibition (Buenos Aires: Espacio Giesso, April 28–May 17, 1992). He describes the main traits of Inchausti’s work and compares it with what the painter had been doing up [...]

This presentation by Alan Bowness takes world conflicts as a starting point in order to demonstrate that they have led to a rupture in the evolution of art. He believes the 1950s can be thought of as a decade of “transition.” In his judgment the [...]

This article by Atalaya (Alfredo Chiabra-Acosta) analyzes the visual works of Aquiles Badi, Juan Del Prete, and Emilio Pettoruti, which were exhibited at the 13th Salon of Watercolor, viewing them as the only ones worthy of mention, since they are [...]

The text analyzes Xul Solar’s career, keeping in mind that his life was an ongoing effort to penetrate the unknown. Pellegrini’s essay proposes a periodization of his artwork, even though each phase does not necessarily mean a total rupture with [...]