Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

In its bulletin, GRUPO 8, created in Montevideo in 1959, exposed the need to organically and institutionally tie national industries to those Uruguayan artists affiliated with modernity. The objective was to promote labor sources for Uruguayan modern [...]

This lecture was given at the last exhibition of Joaquín Torres García’s paintings, shortly before he died. The speaker, a Uruguayan writer who was very close to JTG, had long been a prominent figure in intellectual circles in Montevideo. [...]

The year 1945 witnessed the founding of the journal Removedor, the published vehicle for the Taller Torres García (TTG) and its practices. From the beginning, it set out to be a journal “in combat,” willing to dive headlong into [...]

“No sean majaderos” [don’t be idiots] is an example of the hostile, scornful tone that Joaquín Torres-García adopted in the latter years of his life to address colleagues and art critics who rejected or objected to the [...]

This article by Sarandy Cabrera, which appeared in Removedor, the journal published by the TTG (Taller Torres-García), is an example of the magazine’s colloquial—and aggressive, “from the trenches”—discourse. This [...]

“Reflexiones” is just that, a collection of thoughts related to the essence of the constructivist doctrine and the concrete strategies to be adopted in an environment that was not particularly receptive to the doctrine. The intent is to [...]

In this brief article, written in a colloquial, essay style, Guido Castillo expresses the hope that the essence of modern art will be reborn from its own ashes in both the emblematic figure of Joaquín Torres-García and in Universalismo [...]

The article “Universalidad del Constructivismo” is essentially a monologue about a painting by Joaquín Torres García. The author of the article, Francisco Lanza Muñoz, muses on the subject of abstraction and its metaphysical underpinnings, [...]

In this article, which appeared in the final number of the magazine Círculo y Cuadrado (December 1943), J. Luis San Vicente discusses the spirit of cooperation among members of the TTG (Taller Torres-García). The writer also provides a [...]

This article by Héctor Ragni—one of Joaquín Torres García’s “devout” disciples—reveals the author’s profound understanding of the maestro’s doctrinaire corpus of constructive universalism [...]

In this brief essay Joaquín Torres-García outlines the goals he developed at the AAC (Asociación de Arte Constructivo) and explained in the association’s magazine. He describes the difficulties he had in trying to make [...]

This article, “El arte naturalista y el arte geométrico,” includes a discussion of Joaquín Torres-García’s main theoretical ideas. Here he restates his metaphysically-inspired philosophical approach and his [...]

“The plane on which we should place ourselves” is one of the most synthetic statements Joaquín Torres García makes in his lectures on the theory and practice of “modern classicism.” In it he casts some doubt on the very idea of “modernity [...]

Carmelo de Arzadun stresses the importance of creating intellectual groups in Montevideo, explaining that their conversations about their various aesthetic preferences would enrich the debate in local art circles. On the whole, the article does not [...]

In this article, the Argentinean-Uruguayan artist Héctor Ragni expresses his admiration for Joaquín Torres-García’s ideas and work. Ragni lauds the maestro’s motivational skills and recalls the first time he saw his [...]

Joaquín Torres-García wrote this editorial for Círculo y Cuadrado, the journal published by the Asociación de Arte Constructivo de Montevideo that seeks to follow in the footsteps of Cercle et Carré, the magazine co [...]

This brief article by Alberto Methol Ferré, published in 1960, provides the first indications of a specific change in the painter Pedro Figari’s philosophy. For decades his fame as a painter had largely obscured his philosophical thinking. In this [...]

Clever Lara’s work is reviewed by the critic Ángel Kalenberg, who was also in charge of Uruguay’s contribution to the XLII Venice Biennial (1986). In Kalenberg’s opinion, Lara’s work is representative of the kind of painting that was [...]

In this letter, Joaquín Torres-García declares his intention to promote contemporary Uruguayan art to European audiences. The objective is to create a program designed to provide scholarships or grants from the Uruguayan government for [...]

This letter from Joaquín Torres García to his Uruguayan compatriot, the renowned writer José Enrique Rodó, suggests that both men agreed on the need to encourage the emerging art in their country by exposing young Uruguayan artists to what was [...]

In this letter to the writer José Enrique Rodó, Joaquín Torres García discusses the affinity they share for the Greco-Latin tradition, and expresses his wish to be in touch with contemporary Uruguayan art because, though living in Spain at the [...]

Luis Camnitzer discusses Joaquín Torres García’s exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York and assesses reactions to his work among North American audiences and intellectuals. The Uruguayan artist and critic, who lives in New [...]

In this essay, the art critic Alicia Haber analyzed the 1995 exhibition Bye Bye Yaugurú by Nelbia Romero at the Centro Municipal de Exposiciones, Subte de Montevideo. The exhibition linked the conceptual aspects of the artistic ideas and concerns of [...]

In this article, a New York art critic whose signature is the initials H. R. discusses the first version of Uruguayan artist Luis Camnitzer’s work Leftovers on exhibition in a new gallery in Manhattan. The work consists of a neat arrangement of [...]

Upholding the need to theorize his practice—Joaquín Torres García once again explains the basis of his Constructivist art; in his view, all artists should engage in permanent reflection. This text is primarily aimed at pointing out the confusion [...]

In this text, Joaquín Torres García (JTG) briefly clarifies his statement that “the abstract” is the same as “the concrete.” On the basis of his Platonic notion that the material object and its “Idea” as transcendental essence [...]

“The liberation of the artist” is the title of one of Joaquín Torres García’s “lessons.” In it, he discusses the geometric foundations of Constructivist Art and calls for “setting oneself free” from what has been learned about the “ [...]

In this lecture, Joaquín Torres García (JTG) asserts that groups of artists that are not joined by theoretical ideas or stand behind a distinct ethical platform are pointless. He therefore repudiates the schools and groups in Uruguay, supporting [...]

This “lesson” given by Joaquín Torres García (JTG) is a manifesto of sorts. It is the first in which the artist formulates the idea of “inverting the map” of South America and asserts the existence of a local cultural identity that should [...]

This document is a transcription of one of the last lectures Joaquín Torres García gave at the Escuela Taller de Artes Plásticas (ETAP) in Montevideo. In it, he paves the way for cutting short the series of lectures he had been giving at that [...]

By means of an overview of modern art and its development, Joaquín Torres García lays out his Constructivist theory as the culmination (or convergence) of various strains of Western art. In his view, the moral value of the artist’s position lies [...]

This document is a transcription of a lesson that Joaquín Torres García (JTG) gave in January 1935, nine months after his return to Uruguay. It may have been given at Estudio 1035 or at the Escuela Taller de Artes Plásticas (ETAP). JTG attempts to [...]

His extensive preaching in favor of spiritual rectitude led Joaquin Torres García to reject the “superfluous” in art and keep the fundamental elements that make up the concept and structure of Constructivist art. The resulting logic of this [...]

In this essay, Joaquín Torres García speaks about “Lesson 50,” which was later published in his book Universalismo Constructivo (1944). In it there are some comments referencing selected paragraphs from another conference under the same title [...]

Joaquín Torres García expresses his support for geometric thinking (“which should dominate our art and our life”) based largely on the pre-Hispanic tradition in the Americas. He thus contradicts those who called for a [...]

This essay is on another new text about American art by Joaquín Torres García that addresses the distance from Europe after a harsh judgment about the “delay” in aesthetic concepts in Uruguay in which he tries to explain his concept of “ [...]

Following harsh criticism of positivism (and eclecticism) of the intellectual environment of Montevideo, Joaquín Torres García presented his ideas about metaphysics, ethics, and religiosity in art. This text makes several important points about the [...]

In this essay, Joaquín Torres García attempts to link this sociopolitical doctrine with that of modern art after presenting a succinct historical review starting from “primitive communism” up through the Marxist doctrine. He does so by [...]

This essay is on an interview [conducted] by Gabriel Peluffo with the sculptor Germán Cabrera, the artist and performer Teresa Vila, and the painter and engraver Anhelo Hernández. He questions them on the role of the visual arts within the social [...]

In the Montevidean press, the controversy between the writer Juan Carlos Somma and the art critic Fernando García Esteban developed and was published in installments. It revolved around the governmental and private decisions that were made in [...]

This article by Fernando García Esteban appeared in the weekly journal Marcha and is part of a controversy with the writer Juan Carlos Somma. All in all, the critic’s rant revealed behavior and decisions, both governmental and private, when he was [...]

This essay is about the interview of the Uruguayan artist Luis Camnitzer by the critic Nelson Di Maggio, who at the time had been living in the United States since 1964. In the interview, Camnitzer conveyed his concept of “social transformation” [...]

The Spanish author and art critic Manuel Abril was widely known as an admirer of the work of Uruguayan artist Rafael Barradas. This essay, originally written for the Catalan magazine Vell I Nou, outlines the artist’s predisposition for modernism. [...]

The essay by Vicente Basso Maglio was intended for the catalogue for the exhibition Rafael Barradas, organized by the Comisión Nacional del Centenario in Montevideo in 1930, a year after the death of the Uruguayan artist. [The artist was seen as] a [...]

The catalogue of the exhibition Exposición Barradas, organized by the Comisión Nacional del Centenario in Uruguay in 1930, included an essay on Artur Perucho that had already been published before by the Barcelona-based magazine Joia. The article [...]

This essay is on “Hachepiencia,” the manifesto produced by the Uruguayan group Los hachepientos, which was formed by Clemente Padín, Héctor Paz, and Juan José Linares. The principal objectives of the group were outlined in the manifesto [...]

This is the Brazilian art critic and curator Walter Zanini’s official invitation to Clemente Padín, asking him to take part in the XVI Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, in 1981. The document created a “diplomatic” incident that was solved [...]

In the Montevideo-based weekly Marcha, writer Juan Carlos Somma condemns a series of confused decisions the Uruguayan government made about the preservation and restoration of murals by Joaquín Torres García and members of his workshop at the [...]

In this text, artist and essayist Francisco Tomsich interviews Clemente Padín about his artistic career and the performance he did at the Boxing Club de Barrio Sur in Montevideo in 1987 in which he condemned the forced disappearance of individuals [...]

In this text, Alicia Haber analyzes how a large and complex installation by Nelbia Romero shows the toponymic-linguistic legacy of Guarani culture in a country as European as Uruguay. From the mid-eighties to the mid-nineties, there was a social [...]