South American artists in the central Giardini pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale

Colombia

Romulo Rozo (1899-1964)

Romulo Rozo was a Colombian sculptor who was associated with the Indigenist movement created to encourage artists to move away from European artistic traditions.

His granite sculpture, “Bachué Diosa Generatriz de los Chibchas”, depicts the creation of the Muisca myth native to central Colombia.

Bachué is the mother goddess, wearing a crown made up of nine slug tails, one for each month of pregnancy.

Above her, a child is nestled in a cone; this child created humanity from a lagoon before Bachué turned into a snake.

Romulo Rozo Bachué Diosa

Argentina

Juana Elena Diz (1925-?)

Juana Elena Diz was an Argentine ceramic painter who dedicated her art to the work of indigenous women.

Juana Elena Diz, Lavandera

Raquel Forner (1902-1988)

Raquel Forner, Self-portrait, Venice Art Biennale

Raquel Forner, Self-portrait In her “Self-Portrait”, Raquel Forner denounces the Spanish Civil War and presents herself with three paintbrushes.

On the world map, Africa and Europe are partially hidden by bloody newspaper pages that read "la Guerra... Europa" and "invasion".

A dead dove lies on the palm of a hand.

In the background, two women implore a bust of a woman with her arms cut off, her breast pierced by a bullet hole, her torso showing a long vertical gash while blood flows from her mouth and two hands grasp her while at her feet lies the body of a child.

Two other women in mourning are positioned behind the hand holding the dead dove.

Other bodies lie at the back of the painting, lined up in front of another representation of the artist, standing in front of a canvas with a palette in his hand.

Above her, in a desolate landscape where only a few pieces of broken wall remain, parachutists are in the process of landing.

In contrast to these desolate images, the left-hand side of the painting is calmer, showing her country, a map of Argentina, a sheaf of ripe wheat and a portrait of the artist with her husband.

Emilio Pettoruti (1892-1971)

Emilio Pettoruti was an Argentinian son of Italian parents.

He studied art in Europe from 1913 to 1924 and participated in many avant-garde groups.

His painting “La del Abanico Verde” shows a geometrically shaped woman holding a fan.

While influenced by Cubism, Pettoruti at the same time distances himself from it by moving away from the grey and brown colours of Cubism and introducing bright colours into his painting.

Emilio Pettoruti, La del Abanico Verde, Venice Art Biennale

Emilio Pettoruti
Bolivia

Armodio Tamayo (1924-1964)

Armodio Tamayo's painting “Imilla” which means “daughter” in the Aymara language used in certain indigenous communities in southern Bolivia and Peru shows the young woman in a striped cloak in the colours of the earth.

Armodio Tamayo, Imilla, Venice Art Biennale

Armodio Tamayo, Imilla
Brazil

Tarsila do Amaral (1886-1973)

Tarsila do Amaral was one of Brazil's greatest modernist artists of the twentieth century.

Her painting “Estudo” reveals the Cubist influence in its volumetry and geometric construction, but with the luminosity that characterises her work.

Tarsila do Amaral, Estudo

Emiliano Di Cavalcanti (1897-1976)

Emiliano Di Cavalcanti's painting "Três Mulatas" refers to the three Graces, none of them looking at the other.

This choice of construction for this work shows the individuality of each while forming part of the same unity.

Mulata is a racist and degrading Brazilian term meaning mulatto, those of mixed race. By transforming them into Graces, Emiliano Di Cavalcanti combats the elitist vision of his time in Brazil.

Cavalcanti, Três Mulatas

Maria Martins (1894-1973)

Maria Martins was a Brazilian surrealist sculptor.

Her work features numerous sculptures of goddesses and monsters in which she incorporated eroticism and desire.

This is well expressed in the sculpture exhibited in the central pavilion of the Giardini, which shows this woman surrounded by snakes, one of which encircles her legs while another compresses her chest and breasts.

Her mouth is open to show her cry of pleasure or pain.

Maria Martins, However

Ione Saldanha (1919-2001)

The work “Bambus” by Ione Saldanha occupies the centre of the central Giardini pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale.

Bamboos that the artist left to dry for over a year, then sanded before painting with acrylics in luminous colours.

Ione Saldanha, Bambus

Chile

Laura Rodig (1896-1972)

Laura Rodig, Retrato de Gabriela Mistral, Venice Art Biennale

Rodig, Gabriela Mistral Laura Rodig is a Chilean artist and women's activist who has supported the Mapuche cause.

She has fought for queer rights and has been in contact with many intellectuals, including Gabriela Mistral, whose portrait she painted and exhibited at the Venice Art Biennale in the central pavilion of the Giardini.

Her relationship with Gabriela Mistral was as much intellectual and professional as it was sexual.

She accompanied Gabriela Mistral to Mexico in 1922 to work with her on José Vasconcelos's education project.

Camilo Mori (1896-1973)

Camilo Mori, La Viajera, Venice Art Biennale

Camilo Mori, La Viajera Camilo Mori was one of the precursors of the avant-garde movement in Chile.

“La Viajera”, the traveller, is a portrait of his wife, the painter Maruja Vargas Rosas, who was also his muse.

She is shown on a train in Valparaiso, a train that became a place of appropriation for women at the time, allowing them to travel freely as they fought for the right to vote.

Maruja Vargas holds a book to signify women's access to culture.

Camilo Mori was also a member of the Communist Party and director of the Santiago de Chile Art Museum.

Peru

Miguel Alandia Pantoja (1914-1975)

Miguel Alandia Pantoja, Imilla, Venice Art Biennale

Alandia Pantoja, Imilla Miguel Alandia Pantoja's artistic work is associated with Mexican muralism.

In this painting “Imilla” a young girl sits in the evening light and is wrapped in the typical garb of members of the female militia.

In perfect symmetry, her face is as calm as her body; no movement is perceptible.

She stares at us through her barely ajar pupils, her eyes hidden in shadow.

She is neither asleep nor a romantic allegory, she is a vigilant sentinel watching in the night, she is there to defend her people.

Uruguay

Joaquin Torres-Garcìa (1874-1949)

Joaquin Torres-Garcìa was one of the leaders of abstraction in Uruguay.

In this painting “Retrato de VP”, he incorporates structural elements of the constructivist style while adhering to the golden rule in the construction of this work.

Joaquin Torres-Garcìa, Retrato de VP, Venice Art Biennale