Books and Catalogues

Beginning in 2001, the ICAA established a rigorous publishing program that serves as the foundation for the research, scholarship, and exhibition initiatives of the ICAA and the Latin American Art Department of the MFAH. 
 

CRITICAL DOCUMENTS OF 20TH CENTURY LATIN AMERICAN AND LATINO ART

An essential part of the ICAA Documents Project is an anthology series titled Critical Documents of 20th-Century Latin American and Latino Art, which is dedicated to providing access to essential resources related to Latin American and Latinx art and culture.

BEATRIZ GONZÁLEZ: A RETROSPECTIVE , PUBLISHED BY THE PÉREZ ART MUSEUM MIAMI

(2019)

Beatriz González: A Retrospective is the first large-scale U.S. exhibition dedicated to the work of Colombian artist Beatriz González. 

CONTESTING MODERNITY: INFORMALISM IN VENEZUELA, 1955-1975

(2018)

A fascinating and radical exploration of Venezuelan Informalism, Contesting Modernity charts the provocative movement’s history from its beginnings in the mid-1950s to its last manifestations in the 1970s.

HOME—So Different, So Appealing, co-published by the MFAH, the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Press and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art

(2017)

“Home”—signaling a dwelling, residence, or place of origin—embodies one of the most basic concepts for understanding an individual or group within a larger physical and social environment.

CONTINGENT BEAUTY: CONTEMPORARY ART FROM LATIN AMERICA

(2015)

Encompassing a variety of media—including painting, drawing, sculpture, and video—the majority of the innovative works included in the exhibition (and its corresponding publication) were culled from the holdings of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, which possesses an exceptional collection of contemporary Latin American art.

UNTANGLING THE WEB: GEGO'S RETICULÁREA, AN ANTHOLOGY OF CRITICAL RESPONSE

(2013)

Gego (born Gertrud Goldschimdt, 1912–1994) pioneered a clear new direction in art with her innovative sculptures of the 1960s and 1970s. Born in Germany, she fled the Nazi regime and emigrated to Caracas, Venezuela, where she absorbed modernist trends but ultimately forged a personal and singular artistic path.

 

ANTONIO BERNI: JUANITO AND RAMONA

(2013)

Written by leading scholars of Latin American art—led by Marcelo Pacheco and ICAA founders Héctor Olea and Mari Carmen Ramírez—this volume presents the first comprehensive survey of the internationally acclaimed Juanito and Ramona series by Argentinean artist Antonio Berni (1905–1981).

INTERSECTING MODERNITIES: LATIN AMERICAN ART FROM THE BRILLEMBOURG CAPRILES COLLECTION

(2013)

Tanya Capriles de Brillembourg has assembled a refined collection of modern Latin American art. Including masterworks by some of the most inventive artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, this profusely illustrated volume offers insightful essays that provide context for these rarely exhibited works from her collection.

MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY MASTERWORKS FROM MALBA - FUNDACIÓN COSTANTINI

(2012)

In 2001, Eduardo Costantini, the founder of the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (Malba), began collecting artworks from across Latin America. Today, the renowned Costantini Collection consists of more than 200 works, encompassing drawings, paintings, sculptures, and objects by artists from various countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

CARLOS CRUZ- DIEZ: COLOR IN SPACE AND TIME

(2011)

This monumental volume traces the full career arc of one of the most prominent artist-theoreticians, not just in Latin America but in the 20th century. Half a century of exhaustive work and research into how color exists in time and space, positions Cruz-Diez beyond the known Kinetic boundaries of “retinality.”

BUILDING ON A CONSTRUCT: THE ADOLPHO LEIRNER COLLECTION OF BRAZILIAN CONSTRUCTIVE ART AT THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, HOUSTON

(2009)

Against the backdrop of the acquisition by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, of the Adolpho Leirner collection in 2007, this volume assesses the state of research on avant-garde artists and groups that constituted the Concrete and Neo-Concrete tendencies in postwar Brazilian art and seeks to generate updated frameworks and new lines of research for the interpretation of these interrelated tendencies.

HÉLIO OITICICA: THE BODY OF COLOR

(2007)

Drawing on new research that explores the Brazilian artist’s sources and his (generally undisclosed) “modernist” concerns, the exhibition provides the resulting insights through previously unseen works.

CONSTRUCTING A POETIC UNIVERSE: THE DIANE AND BRUCE HALLE COLLECTION OF LATIN AMERICAN ART

(2007)

This examination of the Diane and Bruce Halle Collection considers, through the lens of issues such as introspection and identity, theatricality and performance, and the rise of multiculturalism and globalism in contemporary art, works by artists from Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean, as well as those by American and European artists based in Latin America and Latin American artists based in North America and Europe.

DIMENSIONS OF CONSTRUCTIVE ART IN BRAZIL: THE ADOLPHO LEIRNER COLLECTION

(2007)

This richly illustrated book salutes the 2007 acquisition by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, of the Adolpho Leirner Collection of Brazilian Constructive Art, one of the most perceptive, selective, and complete collections in the world devoted to modern Latin American art of the 1950s and 1960s.

VERSIONS AND INVERSIONS: PERSPECTIVES ON AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA

(2006)

This third bilingual edition of the ICAA-MFAH scholarly colloquia book series brings together texts and commentary by leading critics, curators, and artists who gathered together at a symposium in 2004 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, in conjunction with the critically acclaimed exhibition Inverted Utopias: Avant-Garde Art in Latin America (2004), which focused on the development of avant-garde art in Latin America from 1920 to 1970.

GEGO: ENTRE LA TRANSPARENCIA Y LO INVISIBLE/ GEGO: BETWEEN THE TRANSPARENCY AND THE INVISIBLE

(2006)

German-Venezuelan artist, Gego (Gertrude Goldschmidt, 1912–1994), produced a huge range of line-based abstract work, including drawings, prints, and wire sculptures.

SABIDURAS Y OTROS TEXTOS DE GEGO/SABIDURAS AND OTHER TEXTS BY GEGO

(2005)

Five years after the death of the German-born, Venezuelan artist Gego (Gertrude Goldschmidt, 1912–1994), a folder was found among her belongings in a storage trunk; the word Sabiduras (loosely translated as “Words of Wisdom”) were written on the cover.

INVERTED UTOPIAS: AVANT-GARDE ART IN LATIN AMERICA

(2004)

In the 20th century, Latin America’s avant-garde artists created a dialectic of theory and practice such as had seldom been seen in the history of art, implementing it through a series of extraordinary and highly innovative paintings, sculptures, assemblages, mixed-media works, and installations.

QUESTIONING THE LINE: GEGO IN CONTEXT

(2003)

Though once little known outside Latin America, Gego (Gertrude Goldschmidt, 1912–1994) enjoyed a dialogue with 20th-century artists and movements active not only in Venezuela, but also worldwide. Her creative evolution, however, leaves no doubt concerning the independence and radical nature of her proposals.

COLLECTING LATIN AMERICAN ART FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

(2002)

This first publication of the ICAA-MFAH scholarly colloquia book series explores the radical quality of the shifting profile of Latin American collections at the dawn of a new century.