Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

This exhibition essay by guest curator Julia P. Herzberg addresses two major long-term projects by Leandro Katz. The Catherwood Project (1985–1995, 2001) is a photographic reconstruction of the two mid-nineteenth century expeditions of John [...]

This exhibition brochure, written by guest curator Julia P. Herzberg, explains the ideas behind Leandro Erlich’s installation Neighbors. The brochure contains her curatorial statement and a brief artist’s biography. It describes Neighbors [...]

The experimental poem by Olivero Girondo “Topatumba” is characterized by a strong rhythm that results from the frequent use of alliteration and proliferation of compound neologisms based on the same semantic roots, lack of punctuation, and the [...]

In 1943, an exhibition of one hundred and seven Argentinean artists, consisting of late 19th- century and early 20th-century painters and sculptors, was held in Montevideo under the auspices of the National Commission of Fine Arts of Montevideo and [...]

This article reports on the destruction of a theater set made by Antonio Berni at the Teatro del Pueblo in Buenos Aires. The report mentions the situation that artists were facing under the repressive measures of the G.O.U. (a group of Argentinian [...]

This article reveals the bonds that existed between the two AIAPE organizations in the Río de la Plata region (in Montevideo and Buenos Aires). This relationship helped to foster gatherings and exhibitions of works by artists with similar aesthetic [...]

The (unknown) author of this article reports and comments on the exhibition of works by the Argentinian painter, printmaker, and muralist Demetrio Urruchúa at the Ateneo de Montevideo. The article specifically mentions certain iconographic aspects [...]

This essay notes the bonds of friendship and ideological affinity that existed between the multifaceted Antonio Berni, whose paintings are steeped in realism and social awareness, and his fellow travelers in Uruguay. This friendship between the AIAPE [...]

This letter from the Asociación Estímulo de Bellas Artes (AEBA) in Argentina to the Federación de Estudiantes Plásticos del Uruguay (FEPU) invited the Uruguayan students to attend the opening of the exhibition Arte argentino del pasado y del [...]

The researcher Irma Arestizábal comments on the placement of Argentinean avant-garde art, (always at the margin) in relationship to the hegemonic art centers. She writes based on a selection of works of Argentinean artists that appear in [...]

This document is a short manifesto written in 1959 by the Argentinean collective, Grupo Espartaco. The writers denote the importance of art as revolutionary and state that their mission is to integrate the visual arts with political action and social [...]

Despite the title “Del patrioterismo en el arte,” in this article the Argentinean painter Martín Malharro rejects the idea of a narrowly prescribed and defined national art school. He partially does so in opposition to the influence of the [...]

This article was written by Argentinean artist Martín Malharro in 1903 in the first issue of Ideas magazine. In the article, Malharro investigates the notion of an Argentinean national art, and insists that artists should pursue the creation of a [...]

This exhibition catalog, Chicago Latino, was part of an intercultural dialogue initiated by two “socially-minded arts groups,” the 369 Gallery of Edinburgh, Scotland, and the Near Northwest Arts Council of Chicago, Illinois. The exhibition [...]

This short essay was written for the 1969 exhibition catalog of lithographs by Argentine artist Antonio Seguí held at the Galería Colibrí in Puerto Rico. In it, French writer André Pieyre de Mandiargues (1909–1991) asserts that Seguí is an [...]

This article written by the Argentine critic, Rafael Squirru, takes a position on the antinomy between figurative and nonfigurative art as debated in the current era (1958). The writer states that, first and foremost, he allows matters that may be [...]

This text introduces the work of Víctor Chab, stating that the theme of his paintings has always been the world of marvels. Starting with the magic of geometry, Chab moved toward mythic animals until he achieved complete refinement of the image. The [...]

Based on “the tradition of the national”—described as the assemblage of historical reflections regarding said subject on Latin American culture—the Argentina-born but Colombia-based critic, Marta Traba, performed a review of the documentary [...]

The Puerto Rican historian Margarita Fernández Zavala describes what Marta Traba accomplished during the year and a half she spent in Puerto Rico. She stresses how important Traba was to her students, and explains how she critically reviewed, [...]

This brief but thorough review by the Argentine critic Damián Bayón explores the development of Argentine art from the eighteenth century to the present day. He mentions artists, architects, and sculptors who have helped to define the concept of [...]

After receiving a Guggenheim fellowship to travel to the United States in 1943, Buenos Aires-born Mauricio Lasansky spent eight months working at Stanley William Hayter’s Atelier 17 in New York City. In this essay, Creighton Gilbert examines how [...]

This article defines the magazine Martín Fierro using criticism sent to Roberto Mariani in this publication; it was published by this same journal under the title “Martín Fierro y yo” [Martín Fierro and I]. His text emphasized four aspects [...]

Prologue by Tomás Maldonado included in the catalogue for the Exposición Arte Concreto: Pinturas / Esculturas / Dibujos [Concrete Art Exhibition: Paintings/ Sculptures/Drawings], which took place at Instituto de Arte Moderno in 1950. The artists [...]

Antonio Berni writes about Nuevo Realismo [New Realism], which he defines as an aesthetic identity that, in Latin America, vacillates between form and content [...]

In order to provide a clear explanation of his great interest in New Realism, Antonio Berni speaks out against the War and fascism [...]

Antonio Berni writes about the Primer Salón de Arte Plástico [First Salon for the Visual Arts], the Uruguayan art exhibition organized by Latitud magazine in 1945. He also reviews paintings by Cesáreo Bernaldo de Quirós, comparing them to the [...]

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 [...]

Jorge Luis Borges points out the cultural distance that separates the Americas from Madrid, which then makes evident the impossibility of Guillermo de Torre’s proposal. Borges states: “Madrid does not understand us”; he enumerates a list of [...]

Mario Canale criticizes a campaign organized as much by institutions dedicated to arts education, such as the Mutualidad de Estudiantes de Bellas Artes [Society of Fine Arts Students], as by Communist activists under the influence of David Alfaro [...]

Evar Méndez’s text brings about a critical balance of the Martin Fierro journal’s actions and what they meant to the Argentinean literary renewal throughout its entire publication span. He points out that the journal gathered, from its founding [...]

As its title suggests, this article is an introduction to Ver y estimar. Cuadernos de crítica artística. The text explains that these notebooks were created “so that a group of scholars might fill their pages . . . with the results of the [...]

Damián Bayón provides a far-reaching reading of Cubism on the basis of an exhibition held at the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris that ran from February to April 1953. Before delving into specific concerns, he explains the overall perspective of his [...]

 Damián Bayón reviews an article by J. M. Richards that appeared in the magazine Architectural Review in March 1950 that questioned some aspects of modern architecture. Bayón analyzes its development within the discipline and believes it is the [...]

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 [...]

Damián Bayón begins with a brief characterization of the conflicting personalities of Van Gogh and Gauguin, and then characterizes their respective pictorial qualities—drawing, composition, color, impasto, and light—always examining them from a [...]

In this article Damián Bayón comments on an exhibition of work drawn from museums in Berlin, which was held at the Petit Palais in Paris. Based on his observations of the European public, Bayón states that the way “to recognize the superior [...]

David Alfaro Siqueiros explains that he is working with other painters and sculptors in Argentina and Uruguay to create a monumental visual arts movement for the masses. His goal is to remove works of art from museums, cemeteries, and private [...]

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 [...]

Antonio Berni is interviewed by María Esther Gilio, and talks about his training, art criticism, hyperrealism, and the essential Argentine nature of his work [...]

This is an account of the occasion when Admiral Emilio Eduardo Massera, a member of the ruling military junta, visited the Galerías Pacífico in Buenos Aires in 1978, to observe the mural restoration project in which Antonio Berni was engaged [...]

The article reports on the public demonstration of the families and close friends of the students at the Escuelas Nacionales de Artes [Fine Arts Schools]—both the Prilidiano Pueyrredón and the Manuel Belgrano (Buenos Aires, Argentina)—who at [...]

This text reports that the students at the Bellas Artes schools, both the Prilidiano Pueyrredón and the Manuel Belgrano (Buenos Aires, Argentina), were detained and accused of usurpation; they had been meeting to guarantee the continuance of the [...]

The article reports on the continuing detention of the students from both the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes Prilidiano Pueyrredón and the Manuel Belgrano (Buenos Aires, Argentina); they had been arrested while attending an assembly within the [...]

Jorge Glusberg authors this text about postfiguration, mentioningthe precedents of this aesthetic viewpoint, along with other historical movements. Moreover, the theoretical aspects of representation, reality, and appearances are analyzed [...]

Guillermo Whitelow explains the origin of the La postfiguración exhibition at the Museo de Arte Moderno (Buenos Aires, 1982). He also aesthetically defines “postfiguration” by exploring the nexus between appearances and reality [...]

Jorge Romero Brest, the art critic and director of the Centro de Artes Visuales [Center for the Visual Arts], writes about the style and attitude he sees in Antonio Berni’s work, discussing the changes that can be observed in the artist’s [...]

Leonardo Estarico critiques the seven artists (Antonio Berni, Lino Enea Spilimbergo, Horacio Butler, Ramón Goméz Cornet, Héctor Basaldúa, Aquiles Badi, and Emilio Pettoruti) who exhibited at Amigos del Arte [Friends of Art [...]

This flyer denounces the situation of the Escuela de Bellas Artes Manuel Belgrano (Buenos Aires, Argentina), which was then closed by military orders with no possibility of re-opening. It likewise repudiates the takeover of this institution, and [...]

This article reports on the student demands at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes Prilidiano Pueyrredón [National School of Fine Arts] in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It also discusses the dismissal of twelve professors and the recognition of the [...]

This article reports on the pressure exerted by the assembly of teachers and students whose goal was to ask for the resignation of the administrator appointed by Argentina’s Ministry of Education and Culture, after he had announced that he would [...]