Conversaciones/Conversations
The bilingual Conversaciones/Conversations series, launched by the Fundación Cisneros/Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros in 2010, is dedicated to preserving firsthand accounts from leading Latin American artists and intellectuals.
Responding to the urgent need to compile primary-sourced information on the historical and contemporary conditions in Latin American art, this illustrated series of reading books features dynamic, in-depth dialogue between artists and their interlocutors.
The Conversaciones/Conversations e-book series—a joint collaboration between CPPC and MAPP Editions, UK—disseminates these important publications in a digital format. These e-book versions contain exciting features such as video and audio recordings that bring the artist’s voice to life; previously unpublished and rare materials; zoom/detail functions; and newly commissioned materials exclusive to the electronic editions, among many other enhancements.
Series Titles
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Carlos Cruz-Diez in conversation with/en conversación con Ariel Jiménez distills over three decades of wide-ranging conversations between preeminent Venezuelan artist Carlos Cruz-Diez and then FC/CPPC Chief Curator Ariel Jiménez. A pioneer in color theory and perception, Cruz-Diez and such artists as Alejandro Otero and Jesús Rafael Soto launched the abstract movements that placed Venezuelan art among the international avant-garde during the 1950s. Born in Venezuela in 1923, Cruz-Diez traveled in Western Europe throughout the 1950s, absorbing Bauhaus color theory and trends in geometric abstraction. He returned to Venezuela in 1957 to help initiate a massive wave of experimentation in Abstract, Concrete, ... -
This second publication in the Conversaciones/Conversations series contains a collection of interviews between the Argentine artist, industrial designer and theorist Tomás Maldonado and writer María Amalia García with an essay by Alejandro Crispiani. Maldonado discusses his early work with the avant-garde art movements in Argentina during the 1940s and 50s and his search for a rationalist approach that would later lead him to the world of architecture, design and aesthetic theory. Tomás Maldonado, born in Buenos Aires in 1922, achieved international recognition for his work at the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Ulm, Germany, one of the most important European schools of ... -
Jac Leirner in conversation with/en conversación con Adele Nelson presents an extended dialogue between the Brazilian conceptual artist, Jac Leirner (b. 1961), and writer and art historian Adele Nelson, with an introductory essay by Robert Storr. Leirner’s meticulously constructed works carve out a place for commonplace objects, from cigarette packs and plastic shopping bags to cutlery and currency. In this, the first in-depth study of Leirner’s creative process, Nelson interviews the artist about more than two decades of production. Jac Leirner, born in 1961 in São Paulo, emerged in the early 1990s at the forefront of a new transnational generation of ... -
Jesús Soto in conversation with/en conversación con Ariel Jiménez, the fourth title in the Conversaciones/Conversations series, records the dialogues between the renowned Venezuelan kinetic artist Jesús Soto (1923–2005), and art historian Ariel Jiménez. Based on Conversaciones con Jesús Soto, originally published by the Fundación Cisneros in 2001 and 2005, this book has been expanded and revised with the inclusion of illustrations of key artworks by the artist. The product of nine years of interviews, these conversations offer an insight into the fascinating career of Jesús Soto. Jesús Soto was born in Venezuela in 1923 and is well-known for his participation in ... -
Ferreira Gullar in conversation with/en conversación con Ariel Jiménez, the fifth book in the Conversaciones/Conversations series, presents a vivid portrait of Ferreira Gullar, an art critic, political essayist, playwright and poet who has been a key and controversial figure in the Brazilian cultural scene for the past 60 years and includes an introductory essay by Weydson Leal. Ferreira Gullar was born in 1930 in São Luís, Maranhão, Brazil. His poetic production has been closely intertwined with his work as an art critic. From his first major collection of poems, published in 1954, to his Concrete and Neoconcrete work, published from 1957 ... -
Gyula Kosice in conversation with/en conversación con Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro, the sixth title in the Conversaciones/Conversations series, presents a riveting exchange between Gyula Kosice, one of the key figures in the history of abstract art in Latin America, and Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro, the chief curator and director of the CPPC. This publication records conversations conducted over 20 years, which began shortly after Pérez-Barreiro first encountered Kosice’s work in a 1991 retrospective and includes an introduction by Andrea Giunta. Gyula Kosice was born in 1924, in the town of Kosice in today’s Slovakia. When he was four years old, he immigrated to Argentina, where ... -
Liliana Porter in conversation with/en conversación con Inés Katzenstein, the seventh book in the Conversaciones/Conversations series, presents an engaging dialogue between Liliana Porter and Inés Katzenstein with an introductory essay by Gregory Volk. Porter describes with clarity and humor the ways in which her work blends the real with the representational, often in hypothetical yet convincing mini-dramas using mass-produced, kitsch objects that elicit both our compassion and our laughter. Liliana Porter, born in Buenos Aires in 1941, has been exhibited internationally and is represented in many public and private collections. Using a wide range of media—including sculpture, printmaking, works on canvas, ... -
Luis Camnitzer in conversation with/en conversación con Alexander Alberro is the eighth book in the Conversaciones/Conversations series. In this volume Camnitzer explores his unique approach to Conceptualism and art as pedagogy with Latin American art scholar Alexander Alberro. The book also includes an introductory essay by Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro. German-born Uruguayan, Luis Camnitzer (b. 1937) has been an influential artist, theorist, teacher, and curator for nearly five decades. He was at the vanguard of 1960s Conceptualism, working in printmaking, sculpture installation, and other media. Camnitzer’s work challenges our perception of reality and the status quo, and is characterized by its humorous, often ... -
Waltercio Caldas (born 1946) is one of Brazil’s most recognized and respected contemporary artists. He occupies a key role in the generation that bridges the historical innovations of the Concrete and Neo-Concrete artists of the 1950 and ’60s and today’s younger artists. In this ninth volume of the Conversaciones series, writer, curator and art historian Ariel Jiménez engages Caldas in a lively dialogue covering more than five decades of artistic production, exploring the connections between perception and history, and the way in which artist, viewer, context and history all play roles in how art is seen and experienced. Combining a formal ... -
Jaime Davidovich (1936–2016) was an Argentine-American video/television-art pioneer and conceptual artist who was at the very forefront of many innovations that we now, through the lens of history, recognize as well-established forms in art and mass media. As a fixture of the SoHo-based experimental art scene of the 1970s and 1980s, Davidovich worked in a broad variety of media throughout his long career, including video, painting, and installation, while also establishing himself as an activist and public-access television producer. His weekly variety program, The Live! Show (1979–1984) featured performances, appearances, and interviews with artists such as Laurie Anderson, Eric Bogosian, ... -
A controversial figure working in installation and performance, Cuban artist Tania Bruguera (born 1968) has consistently blurred the lines between art and activism. Defining herself as an initiator rather than an author, she often invites spectator participation and works in a collaborative mode, working with various organizations, institutions and individuals to challenge political and economic power structures and the control they hold over society. She researches and executes the ways in which art can be applied to everyday life, and how its effects can translate into political action. From offering Cubans one minute of uncensored time in Havana’s Plaza de ...
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