Origin Stories of Latin American and Latino Art, Shared through a Newly Expanded Online Archive April 7, 2020
This 1970 brochure begins with a part-dictionary, part-humorous definition of the words Con Safo, followed by an anonymous short essay that functions as a manifesto for the Con Safo artist collective. In it, the group outlines the reality of a Chicano sensibility, yet given its hybrid nature, also argues for its universality.
Courtesy of Mel Casas, San Antonio
Victor A. Sorell, “Some thoughts concerning the exhibit of Arte Hispano-Americano en Chicago (Hispanic American Art in Chicago). Chicago State University Gallery, 1980.
The 1980 exhibition Arte Hispano-Americano en Chicago (Hispanic-American Art in Chicago) challenged Chicago-area art critics to pay attention to the work of “minority” artists they often chose to neglect. It also touched upon the function of “labels” with regard to Latinos, particularly in the sense of what was then referred to as “Hispanic-American” art. The exhibition included works by Carlos Cortéz Koyokuikatl, Arnaldo Roche, and Pablo Sierra, and was supported by the Illinois councils for arts and for humanities. The exhibition catalogue featured an essay by Chicago-based critic and activist Victor A. Sorell titled “Some thoughts concerning the exhibit of Arte Hispano-Americano en Chicago.” The catalogue cover image was commissioned from Cortéz.
Courtesy of the private archives of Victor Alejandro Sorell, Chicago
In the essay “El marco: un problema de plástica actual” from Arturo: Revista de artes abstractas (summer 1944), Rhod Rothfuss discusses the limitations of the standard, regular picture frame. Thinking beyond the traditional “window” effect, Rothfuss suggests that the work must be done by means of a frame rigorously structured according to the painting composition. This highly original idea had a profound impact on the program proposed by Concrete art groups operating within the orbit of Arturo magazine. Arturo was published in Buenos Aires during the summer of 1944, with Carmelo Arden Quin, Edgar Bayley, Gyula Kosice, and Rhod Rothfuss on the editorial board. The original plan was to publish the magazine four times a year, at the end of each season. However, the first issue turned out to be the last. In addition to the articles contributed by the editorial staff, the single issue of Arturo also featured poems by Murilo Mendes (from Brazil), Vicente Huidobro (from Chile), and Joaquín Torres-García (from Uruguay).
Courtesy of Fundación Espigas, Buenos Aires
In the 1977 essay “Conditions for Producing Chicana Art” from ChismeArte, art historian and curator Sybil Venegas discusses the social and economic conditions that led to the public emergence of Chicana artists in the 1970s. According to Venegas, by the 1970s Chicanas had developed both the economic means and a new consciousness that defied traditional Mexican feminine roles.
Courtesy of the private archives of Victor M. Valle, professor of ethnic studies California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
The typewritten statement Tucumán Arde (Tucumán Is Burning) is the most famous collective production of emerging vanguard art in Argentina, both in Buenos Aires and Rosario, and it took place at the turning point of the artists’ political and artistic radicalization in 1968. Its design implied a complex process of research and counter-information as well as a mass-media campaign. Given the fact that they were an integral part of the investigation, roughly 20 artists (mostly from Rosario) traveled to Tucumán for a second time.
Courtesy of the personal archives of Irene Taíbi de Rosa, Buenos Aires
The MFAH and its research institute, the International Center for the Arts of the Americas (ICAA), have launched the redesigned and enhanced website and database for the Documents of Latin American and Latino Art Digital Archive.
The archive offers access, free of charge, to more than 8,000 primary source materials that are the essential building blocks for the study and understanding of these major fields of 20th- and 21st-century art.
Full, Free Access
The first—and still the only—digital humanities initiative within Latin American and Latino art, the archive offers full access to letters, manifestos, newspaper and journal articles, exhibition reviews, and other key theoretical, critical, and art-historical texts. This wealth of materials comprises writings by artists, critics, and curators from Mexico; Central and South America; the Spanish-speaking Caribbean; and Latino communities in the United States.
Invaluable Insight
The digital archive establishes a comparative history of art in this region, presenting invaluable evidence about how artists, writers, and intellectuals sought to define or challenge notions of national art; how art movements emerged in response to changing local political situations; and how Latin American and Latinx artists contributed major theoretical insights to early stages of avant-garde movements and initiated novel tendencies.
Selected Highlights
Among the documents is the most significant cache of materials related to Brazilian Constructive painting and sculpture from the collection of Adolpho Leirner. That collection was acquired by the MFAH in 2007 and is featured on the Google Arts & Culture platform.
Additional highlights include a 1944 essay by Rhod Rothfuss from Arturo magazine; the collective statement Tucumán Arde (Tucumán Is Burning) from 1968; the 1970 brochure “Con Safo”; the 1977 essay “Conditions for Producing Chicana Art” by Sybil Venegas in ChismeArte; and the 1980 essay “Some thoughts concerning the exhibit of Hispanic-American Art in Chicago” by Victor A. Sorell.
► Explore the ICAA Documents of Latin American and Latino Art Digital Archive
