Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

Art critic Roberto Guevara states in El Nacional that Venezuelan plastic arts are facing “one of the most difficult periods of their history.” According to him, there is, in spite of their talent, a lack of “creative determination& [...]

The prominent literary figure Ida Gramcko writes for El Nacional on the work of the abstract painter Mercedes Pardo. In her text, the role played by art creators is duly taken into consideration: their individualities, and their tendencies in [...]

In this 1977 article, Roberto Montero Castro discusses the work of the Venezuelan abstract painter Mercedes Pardo regarding her exhibition at Galería Adler/Castillo in Caracas. The author introduces her by reflecting on the proneness in [...]

In this 1979 article in El Nacional, María Josefa Pérez interviews Mercedes Pardo regarding her retrospective exhibition Color: piel, presencia meditada. Mercedes Pardo Exposición antológica at the GAN ( [...]

In this 1991 article written for El Universal, María Ramírez Ribes presents the Mercedes Pardo retrospective Moradas del color, on view at the GAN (Galeria de Arte Nacional) in Caracas. The works on show span from 1941 to 1991 and [...]

In 1991, María Fernanda Palacios analyzes the work of Mercedes Pardo. In “Landscapes: Soul and Geography,” the first section, she reflects on the role that they take in Pardo’s œuvre, arguing that her work is “ [...]

In this newspaper article dated June 20, 1954, professor Walter Zanini reviews the exhibition of works by artists representing the Atelier Abstração at the MAM-SP (Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo). Despite the fact that, as a [...]

In this essay, Ferreira Gullar challenges the position taken by Rio de Janeiro’s so-called neo-Concrete artists in his account of the two movements’ shared history and disagreements. In his opinion, the genesis of Brazilian Concrete art [...]

This text includes a few excerpts from the six lectures that Jorge Romero Brest gave in São Paulo in 1948. At that time, Romero Brest held an academic position at the Universidad de Montevideo and was the director of the magazine Ver y estimar [...]

This document is a statement issued by the Montevideo-based GRUPO 8. Although diverse, all of the group members produced “abstract art”; in the late fifties, it was a sort of avant-garde functional to local industry insofar as the group connected [...]

In this response to Fernando de Szyszlo, well-known critic Sebastián Salazar Bondy points out how dynamic the Peruvian art scene is; against all odds, “there are people working tirelessly, with no pointless nostalgia as they undertake the creation [...]

According to the Cuban journalist, there is “a rich tradition of indigenous art” behind the paintings by Fernando de Szyszlo that were exhibited in Havana: a form of popular art whose roots can be traced back to pre-Hispanic culture in the Andean [...]

In this text, poet Emilio Adolfo Westphalen considers the series of paintings produced by Fernando de Szyszlo on the basis of the Quechua poem Apu Inca Atawallpaman written during the colonial era. Westphalen asserts that the relationship between [...]

Juan Acha discusses the exhibition of Fernando de Szyszlo’s series of paintings inspired by the indigenous poem “Apu Inca Atawallpaman,” an event that was organized by the Instituto de Arte Contemporáneo (IAC) in Lima. Acha finds the [...]

Javier Sologuren reviews the abstract oil paintings by Fernando de Szyszlo exhibited at the Instituto de Arte Contemporáneo (IAC) [Institute of Contemporary Art] in Lima. The author praises the quality of the works, whose values express “visual [...]

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 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 [...]

This lengthy article discusses the main doctrinaire questions that concerned Joaquín Torres García, stressing his personal view of the “American race” as a transplant with no roots, for which he proposes the development of a collective, “ [...]

José Cúneo’s text entitled “Arte Abstracto” was read at a lecture that he gave in Montevideo. Although the exact date when it was written is unknown, the lecture appears to have been given in 1956 or 1957 at the Escuela de Bellas Artes in [...]

This article describes the artists’ occupation of the Montevideo city exhibition venue of el Subte in August 1963, which continued through December of that year. The ironic title of the text, “Abstractos concretan” (Abstract Artists Concretize [...]

This unsigned article in the weekly Marcha, founded in 1939 and published through 1974, analyzes the occupation of the Subte Municipal exhibition space by visual artists that started on August 21, 1963. The article questions the arbitrary designation [...]

The article was motivated by the book published by Michel Seuphor, a year before in 1949, in Paris, the spirit that integrated magazine Cercle et carré two decades prior. The book aimed to formulate a brief history on European abstract art. The [...]

This article is by Hans Platschek who was living in Montevideo between 1939 and 1953. The German artist makes a self- analysis on the resulting situation of postwar modernism, specifically the debated notion of “Art Nouveau or young art” both in [...]

In response to the hypotheses of an “integral art” proposed by Alejandro Romualdo, the writer states his belief that Modern art trends entail a progressive “destruction of reality.” This is why art’s síntesis cannot entail a return to [...]

This text is Alejandro Romualdo Valle’s final round in the debate he carried on with Luis Miró Quesada Garland about the first prize at the Second Salón Moncloa, awarded to the painting Pan by Alfredo Ruiz Rosas. The writer considers the [...]

In this interview, Romano Espinoza Cáceda classifies Peruvian art into three major periods: ancient (decorative, with its own characteristics), colonial (marked by “natural” European influences) and modern (attempting to pinpoint what makes art [...]

In this article, the writer responds to the comments of Luis Miró Quesada Garland, defending the use of the category “integral art.” He defines this term as a fusion of different trends into “a new creative orientation” structured under a [...]

In this interview with Fernando de Szyszlo, the painter states that he is misunderstood within the Lima arts scene. He refutes the notion that an artist must be socially engaged because, in his judgment, “a painter’s only duty is to be a good [...]

Alejandro Romualdo Valle critiques the III Salón de Pintura Manual Moncloa which, in his judgment, posits “abstract art as a complete substitute for art,” arguing that abstraction divides man from art, thus debilitating the latter. [He states] [...]

Fernando de Szyszlo was interviewed following his success at the III Salón Moncloa. After presenting a brief biographical sketch of the artist, the anonymous interviewer records his opinions on the subject of contemporary art: “the fruit of a [...]

This time the argument is about the expression “significant painting,” which the author Francisco Miró Quesada Cantuarias contrasts with the term “abstract painting.” He claims that the former has a logical or scientific meaning, which his [...]

This catalogue accompanied the 1959 exhibition of twelve oil paintings by Elsa Gramcko, an abstract artist from Venezuela, at the Pan American Union of the Organization of American States in Washington, D.C. This exhibition marked Gramcko’s [...]

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

This informative and didactic article, published by the CGM (Club de Grabado de Montevideo), describes and explains a range of art styles that emerged and were developed in the United States and Europe after the Second World War. Referring to the [...]

Walter Engel wrote the review “David Manzur. En la Biblioteca Luis-Ángel Arango”, which was published on October 1, 1961, in the daily newspaper El Espectador. This article analyzes important aspects of the visual arts in Colombia in the 1960s. [...]

In this second piece about Abstract painting, the historian and politician Mario Briceño Iragorry revisits some of the ideas he expressed in his first article, “Abstraccionismo y carillones,” and takes a new, more sociological approach to [...]

In this text, critic Carlos Silva places emphasis on Hugo Baptista’s skill as a painter. Baptista’s work is characterized by a lyrical use of color and an expressive approach to painterly material. It is with good reason, Silva asserts, that [...]

The collector Hans Neumann discusses the Informalist movement’s connection to the emotions, transcendent universes, and what he describes as a “prophetic” nature. He sees Informalism as mankind’s logical reaction to the inexplicable nature of [...]

In this essay, Juan Calzadilla discusses Alejandro Otero’s contribution to the field of visual art instruction. Calzadilla acknowledges Otero’s leading role in the promotion of Abstract painting and sculpture, and education, by noting the support [...]

The critic Juan Carlos Palenzuela interviews the visual artist Luis Alfredo López Méndez. The conversation yields information about the latter’s work as a painter, teacher, diplomat, congressman, TV program producer, journalist with the Cí [...]

In this text, critic José María Salvador examines Paul Klose’s career from his first abstract works, produced in the late fifties, to his most recent exhibition, held in 1992. Salvador identifies three distinct stylistic approaches in the work of [...]

In this critical essay, Roberto Guevara reviews Elsa Gramcko’s geometric abstraction work. Guevara discusses the importance of the abstract movement (to which he belongs) in Venezuela in the 1950s, which he sees as a new and vigorous expression of [...]

In this essay, Juan Calzadilla provides a chronological overview of the life and work of Venezuelan artist Maruja Rolando. He begins with her artistic training in the fifties, mentioning her most important teachers and influences, as well as the [...]

The critic Juan Calzadilla wrote one of the introductory essays for the exhibition Armando Barrios: Retrospectiva (Caracas: Galería de Arte Nacional, 1977). He discusses the painter’s evolution and the artistic language he consistently uses to [...]

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 [...]

The Venezuelan curator Tahía Rivero writes an analysis of the works of José Luis López-Reus, a local visual artist, in the exhibition Vacivus (Caracas, Sala RG, 1993). Rivero points out that the work of this painter is substantiated by [...]

Entitled “Pascual Navarro: de la abstracción a la figuración,” this essay by researcher Cruz Barceló (b.1953) was featured in the catalogue to the show Pascual Navarro. Imágenes y percepciones de un tiempo. Exposición antológica 1945-1965, [...]

In Venezuela, curator Katherine Chacón reviews the work of Colombian artist Beatriz González, particularly in reference to her re-creation of artistic masterpieces, in painting, drawing, and objects, since 1962. To do so she establishes connections [...]

Juan Calzadilla provides an overview of abstract sculpture in Venezuela in the mid-20th century, placing emphasis on a group of promising young artists, chief among them Pedro Briceño. He discusses in particular Briceño’s most recent sculptural [...]