(...) ""the subtly dramatic paintings by Balzi, whether people at the Opera or at the windows of their homes, are sad social comments on the loss of individuality in a bureaucratic society (...)
(...) He transmits his natural sadness without loosing any of plastic, chromatic and pictorial values in his canvases. His smaller pictures "Uma janela"(A Window), are influenced by Italian painters of the first half of this century and reveal more maturity than his "multiple windows". The quality of the line on his drawings is strong, confident and surprisingly delicate."
Sheila Anne de Barry, Herald Tribune, Paris, 1970
 
(...) "Juan José Balzi exhibits at the El Xot Gallery about 20 drawings with fine and incisive lines. They put in evidence an inexorable expressionist rigor, a fact which includes him among the best current Spanish and Spanish-American artists. Balzi's graphic work goes beyond mere illustration. Attaining deeper and profound human and social resonance (...)
Angel Marsá, Correo Catalán, Barcelona, 1970
 
(...) "all his work is basically a sole picture. Lack of communication between men, their abandonment is a recurrent obsession in the artist's mind. Thus, his painting always expresses the worrried stance of the man submitted to his doubts. To his isolation (...)
(...) Luckily, for his painting- carried out by means of an expressionism that has an accurate lyrical side to it- is the burden of truth it contains. It is this burden which saves it from so many vacuities to which the false prophets of protest treated us for so long. The tragedy consumed in his canvases becomes a symbol. It is thanks to this that Balzi can express the loneliness of Man, "his humiliation"and is able to overcome - maybe the artist is not aware of this- the lack of communication between human beings. Nobody can stand before his paintings and remain aloof. Man has to stop and reflect about them. Is there anything odd in the fact that people, watching his paintings, understand as they are targeted to them ? Is it odd that we cannot find a house or a wall to hang them as Balzi's painting request a museum for everybody to see them!
Francesc Gali, Diario Femenino, Barcelona, 1974
 
(...) Seeing the paintings he produced while living in Argentina, Carlo Carrá told him once: "How would you manage to paint if there were only three colours available ?" Balzi accepted the challenge and thus finds the colours that express his depression : the colours of Milan. And there, in the capital of Lombardia, he would craft that obsessive series of windows which, say many people around here, is the clearest expression of the deshumanization we are currently going through (...)
(...) The difference between Balzi's painting and the pictures of these young expressionists is the gap we find between a dirty and a dark colour, between a literary panphlet and a poetic picture. It is such a subtle and dangerous difference that it seems like a razor's edge. A thread on that Balzi flows like a professional juggler, from Kafka to Poe and from expressionism to metaphysics."
Giovanni Varsi, Istituto Italiano di Cultura, Barcelona, 1976
 
(...) "the reformulation of the visual aspect of the figure in his canvases put us face to face with the problems of the human being in the world. It is an important subject in the fine arts images of our century, the most important due to the change in the concepts of space which characterize our historical moment."
Wolfgang Pfeiffer, director of the São Paulo Museum of Contemporary Art, 1982
 
(...) The outstanding issue in the work of this artist can be found in the firmness with which he masters the technique without any restriction dictated by different artistic schools and in the deliberate withdrawal of an indiscriminate use of colours. The result is one of the most serious set of works and as such, worthy of special attention both from the public and the art theoreticians".
Ivo Zanini, Associação Brasileira de Críticos de Arte, São Paulo, 1990
 

(...) His curious, penetrating , dramatically naive way of seeing seems to wish to assess the current human condition using a pictorial technique which consciously remakes the proposals of the traditional and modern higher artistic moments which despite reminding the fierce passion of Goya and the dramatism of Bacon convey a personal touch of gentleness and caustic irony when presenting both the common and significant moments of daily life (...)
Prof. Ivano Marchi, director of the Istituto Italiano di Cultura, São Paulo, 1990
 
(...) "Juan José Balzi, one of the greatest expressionist artists of these days (...)
Lenita Mirando de Figueiredo, Jornal Zona Sul, São Paulo, 1990
 
(...) all these good choices of models- which also include the Spanish Diego Valásquez (l599-l660) would not be meaningful if Balzi did not add to them a personal synthesis. And it is on this subject that this retrospective of Balzi's works reveals another fine characteristic: the creative account between the older and the more recent production does not raise nostalgic feelings. Balzi, although modest and unpretentious, is now carrying out the best part of his work. Something that can cause jealous feelings from many a consecrated artist".
Angélica de Moraes, Veja, São Paulo, 1990
 
(...) Balzi's esthetic roots are found in European art. His "small retrospective"of Tubingen (Pachnicke) starts with a landscape in Kandinsky style. The italian-argentinian painter is influenced by the metaphisic italian paintings of De Chirico and Carrá, Francis Bacon and Gerhard Richter, whose work he saw during a Venice Biennial. Many times Balzi's graffiti over photographs strongly recall Arnulf Rainer, that he only noticed, however, as analogue, much later : "Rainer's message is esthetical, mine is social! (...)"
(...) Since l994 he created in São Paulo the workshops Balzi and the "Artistic Children" in which he tries to reveal the creative strength of teenagers from the poorest sectors of the population. Some paintings of his pupils are exhibited side by side to his works. Balzi does everything he can to help these children. Despite the fact the pubblic finantial support of the project is very precarious, this painting is beginning to achieve a reputation in the art circle of the city. The teenagers learn how to deal with the sad and miserable situation in which they live, and try to fight back with the weapons of art. Balzi insists in telling them - "a painter is not only one who can paint, but is the one who knows how to look at (...).
(...) The exhibition will be inaugurated by Gabriele Steffen, mayor of the town and Dinah Flussen, council of Brazil in Munich, will make the presentation. Next january 25th and 26th there will be a free workshop with the artist, sponsored by the University.
Martin Bernklau, Schwabisches Tagblatt, Tubinghen, 1998