♯11 second semester 2017 : 144-151 ISSN 2313-9242

Isabel Cristina Ramírez Botero (Universidad del Atlántico, )

Latin American Art in the Colombian Caribbean. The Inter-American Modern Art Salons of Cartagena (1959) and Barranquilla (1960 and 1963)

Latin American Art in the Colombian Caribbean… / Isabel Cristina Ramírez Botero ♯11 second semester 2017

contexts. The inter-American salons provided an opportunity to further those processes and to legitimize them through internationalization.

Interplay of interests

Latin American Art in the A number of factors were at play in the close Colombian Caribbean. relationship between the OAS’s Music and Visual Arts Units and the cities of Cartagena The Inter-American Modern Art and Barranquilla, among them Gómez Sicre’s Salons of Cartagena (1959) and interest and affinity with local artists like Alejandro Obregón and Enrique Grau, whom he Barranquilla (1960 and 1963) repeatedly called the central figures in groundbreaking modern art in Colombia Isabel Cristina Ramírez Botero (Gómez Sicre, 1963).4 Furthermore, Gómez Sicre’s counterpart as the head of the OAS’s (Universidad del Atlántico, Colombia) Music Unit from 1951 to 1975 was Guillermo

Espinosa (1905-1990),5 a musician from

Cartagena. At the same time, both Cartagena

and Barranquilla were port cities undergoing

processes of modernization. During the first half

of the twentieth century in particular, they were

very attractive to North American investment In the mid-twentieth century, three editions of and as locations for multinational companies. the Salones Interamericanos de Arte Moderno were held, one in Cartagena (1959) and two in If, as stated above, the art institutions in those Barranquilla (1960 and 1963). Artists and cities were incipient and erratic in their intellectuals very active in the inter-American operations, a process of modernization had circuits of the time were involved in the salons. been underway in both since the forties, one The events led to, for instance, the opening— that entailed a series of concerns and initiatives premature in the Colombian context—of on the part of artists, writers, thinkers, and local modern art museums in Cartagena (1959) and cultural administrators.6 Those players were the in Barranquilla (1960).1 engine behind new art venues; they attempted

to put in circulation and to legitimize, in their Latin American art history has pointed out on local contexts, new visual languages and the many occasions the reinforcement of ties idea of the “modern” and professional artist.7 between the United States and the region after

World War II. Due, in part, to ideological The inter-American salons, then, were not an interests, art circuits took shape and inter- isolated project, but part of a mechanism that American exhibitions, salons, and biennials entailed, among other things, a series of earlier sprouted up around the continent during the salons. Over the course of two decades, they Cold War. Crucial to that process was the work were held erratically; their names, scales, and of the Organization of American States (OAS) scopes varied as well. Seven editions of a and of the director of its Visual Arts Unit, José regional salon called El Salón de Artistas Gómez Sicre (1916-1991).2 Costeños were held from 1945 to 1953. That

salon was then turned into a nationwide event The salons in Cartagena and Barranquilla of which two editions were held in Barranquilla formed part of that inter-American fabric; they (1955 and 1959) and one in Cartagena (1959); were a privileged setting for Gómez Sicre’s work artists more active and known on the larger in Colombia and a key factor in his relations Colombian scene participated in that national there.3 Though artistic and cultural version of the salon. Finally, those national institutionalism was, at the time, still quite salons led to the inter-American events. In all of precarious in both cities, there was, starting in its incarnations, the salon stimulated exchange the mid-forties, an active group of avant-garde between the two cities and between the artists and intellectuals in each; their initiatives Caribbean region and the wider gave rise to the first art institutions in the local

Latin American Art in the Colombian Caribbean… / Isabel Cristina Ramírez Botero 144 ♯11 second semester 2017 scene. A single group of local cultural generated visible tension because it was administrators and artists was involved in the associated with centralism. organization of the salon, among them Alejandro Obregón—from Barranquilla—and In the inter-American salons, a number of Enrique Grau and Cecilia Porras—from different interests came together at strategic Cartagena. All of them were also active moments. If, for Gómez Sicre, the salons were participants in the Bogota art scene, specifically key to his work in Colombia and to the in the group led by Marta Traba after her arrival consolidation of the type of avant-garde he was in Colombia in 1954. They were the minds interested in promoting, they represented, for behind “true” modern art in Colombia, as local players and their initiatives, a fertile opposed to the earlier generation which had occasion to make connections and to find been tied to localisms and nationalisms. legitimation through, for instance, internationalization. There was, then, a synergy These local processes, though recent, were of projects. growing. And throughout the fifties—in a context where the art field was still extremely Common traits of the inter-American precarious—a strategy was enacted to legitimize salons in the Caribbean region of and renew art, to support young local artists, Colombia and to create new cultural spaces. In 1959, the IX Festival de Música de The tension between nation and region was Cartagena was held. Guillermo Espinosa had evident in the earlier salons in Cartagena and been the organizer of the festival—an attempt to Barranquilla. In the information that circulated, foster cultural rebirth in the city—since 1945. particularly in the press, the tendency to praise From his new post at the OAS, he resuscitated a the quality of the artists from the region as festival that had not been held since 1953, and compared to “national art” as a whole is patent; gave it a new inter-American scope. On the frequent mention is made of the artists and occasion of the ninth edition of the music writers from the Caribbean region that, festival, the Exposición de Pintura together, were at the forefront of Colombian Interamericana de Cartagena was organized . As a result, local elites began to with the support of Gómez Sicre. (Fig.1) support regional talent as a fundamental part of Columbian modern art,8 and Cartagena and Barranquilla as unquestionable centers of the country’s cultural movement. It is essential to point out, along those lines, the historical tension between the two largest cities in the Caribbean region and the center of the country—especially the capital—a tension with deep roots in politics and economics. Cartagena was the most important port during the colonial era, and there were always tensions over what city would be the country’s capital. Strategically Fig. 1. General view of the Exposición Interamericana de located at the mouth of the Magdalena River— Pintura Contemporánea de Cartagena at the Galería del for a time the country’s most important Palacio de la Inquisición. From left to right: Objeto negro transportation route—Barranquilla was, starting (1956) by Oswaldo Vigas, an unidentified work by Ángel Hurtado, Composición en negro (1958) by Enrique Grau, in the late nineteenth century, the country’s Casa de Venus (1957) by Fernando de Szyszlo and largest port. That, along with quick Carnicero (1957) by José Luis Cuevas. Photo published at modernization, particularly in the twenties and the Boletín de Artes Visuales of the Unión Panamericana, thirties, brought remarkable growth. Starting in N. 5, May-December 1959. the forties and fifties, however, the city began to decline as river transportation grew less and Gómez Sicre’s support was sought one year later less important and the thrust of the economy in Barranquilla in an effort, organized on the shifted to coffee, which implied moving activity occasion of the anniversary of the city’s to the port of Buenaventura on the Pacific. The founding, to follow the example set by economic and industrial decline of Barranquilla Cartagena and turn the Salón Anual de Barranquilla into an inter-American Salon. The

Latin American Art in the Colombian Caribbean… / Isabel Cristina Ramírez Botero 145 ♯11 second semester 2017 idea was an initiative of the Centro Artístico,9 The third inter-American salon was held three particularly of writer Álvaro Cepeda Samudio years later, in 1963. It coincided with the (1926-1972) and of Obregón. Gómez Sicre’s celebration of the one hundred and fiftieth presence in the city was nothing new. Since anniversary of the city’s founding, occasion for a 1956, the local press had reported on his visits series of events. The Centro Artístico took to Barranquilla—which pursued many different advantage of the opportunity to refloat the idea aims—as well as his whereabouts as he worked of a major salon that formed part of a broader on projects throughout the continent. campaign to promote Barranquilla as Furthermore, Gómez Sicre contributed cosmopolitan city of progress and civilization.10 personally to various publishing projects that gave rise to new spaces for art and culture in the The common features of the three salons held in press in Barranquilla. In 1956 and 1957, after the Caribbean region of Colombia attest to the Hojas Literarias supplement was created, Gómez Sicre’s repeated deployment of the same Gómez Sicre periodically submitted extensive strategies throughout the continent. 11 The articles on modern art, in defense of salons spread certain ideas about art, circulated abstraction, and in opposition to political or certain images, and insisted on the importance ideological art. (Fig.2) of a single group of artists that interested Gómez Sicre.12 Emphasis on the events’ remarkable scale was an attempt to place Cartagena and Barranquilla at the center of the continent.13 Furthermore, Gómez Sicre invited other figures from the rest of the country and beyond to participate in the salons, figures prestigious enough to shift attention from what was actually going on in these cities and to provide legitimacy. Those guests—who sometimes formed part of the jury—gave interviews and lectures, and communicated ideas, sometimes published as texts, in the local, Colombian, and international press about what was going on in the cities and about the conception of modern art promoted. One frequent and key guest was Argentine critic Marta Traba. On the occasion of the 1959 edition of the Salón de Cartagena, she wrote an article, “Un laurel para Cartagena”14 (1959), for the Colombian press backing the initiative; she also wrote the introduction to the catalogue of the Salón de Barranquilla in 1960. The media covered her visit to the show widely, publishing interviews in which the critic stated that it was the best show she had seen in Colombia.15 (Fig.3)

At the same time, Gómez Sicre also advocated the idea that the salons grant purchase prizes to build the collections that would give rise to modern art museums in Cartagena and

Fig. 2. A local newspaper highlights the visit of José Gómez Barranquilla—an idea resoundingly embraced Sicre to the city of Barranquilla. At the photo, Alejandro by the local actors who had supported the Obregón (right) and the director of the Sección de Artes formation of regional salons in coastal cities.16 Visuales holding the brochure “La OEA al servicio del arte”. Diario del Caribe, November 13, 1961. In fact, at each of the inter-American salons over ten prizes were awarded. Those award- winning works, along with works that participated in previous salons, became part of

Latin American Art in the Colombian Caribbean… / Isabel Cristina Ramírez Botero 146 ♯11 second semester 2017 both modern art museums’ founding , as well as Indianist and collections. Americanist movements; he upheld instead a type of art that would dialogue with the international languages of the European avant- gardes without losing its “Latin American accent”. His interest revolved around a strain of art that might have certain connections to local contexts, but that veered to the universal and could be read from a formalist perspective.17 That approach hoped to neutralize political contents and to defend freedom as maximum value of creation in democratic contexts. At his presentation at the opening of the Salón de Cartagena, Gómez Sicre associated new Latin American art with Cubism; he urged viewers to focus on emotion, inner strength, color, and other visual values as they looked at the works.18

During this period,19 Marta Traba seconded Gómez Sicre’s support of a supposed formalism,

Fig. 3. Marta Traba and Alejandro Obregón visiting the II a stance that displaced artists associated with Salón Anual de Pintura. El Heraldo, April 12, 1960. muralism and Americanists; the Cartagena and Barranquilla salons were privileged venues Meanwhile, artists and other local actors made where the affinity between the Argentine critic the most of the salons as a means to further and the Cuban cultural administrator grew.20 their own projects. The international salon was The salons were also strategic in the a way to legitimize the languages of modern art generational rift taking place in the dynamics in local contexts where they were still met with and relationships in the art field in Colombia at much resistance and to consolidate a network of the time, a period that witnessed the emergence institutions that would establish, in no of a historiographic discourse according to uncertain terms, the pre-eminence of the strain which modern art in Colombian was born with of modern art local actors were developing. this new generation. While this topic deserves Marta Traba played a crucial role as the study from multiple perspectives, I will focus on advocate of a new generation of Colombian one. The figure of Alejandro Obregón was artists in which the three artists from the particularly dear to Traba and Gómez Sicre, and Caribbean were central figures. they agreed he was the great innovator of Colombian art. Indeed, he was awarded first The formalist reading: seeking common prize at the two Barranquilla salons; he was also traits in Latin American art awarded a purchase prize at the Cartagena salon, where no distinctions were drawn The salons’ administrative strategies were tied between first and second prizes. Winning to Gómez Sicre’s interest in defining Latin international prizes alongside artists American art as a recognizable corpus and in considered, in the framework of the salons, the building a solid circuit that would legitimize it. best in the continent was, for Obregón, The artists selected were deemed, by Gómez substantial backing as he continued to Sicre, a group representative of Latin American consolidate legitimacy both locally and art. Time and again in exhibition catalogues and nationally. in public statements, the idea that the salons evidenced common traits that defined the Though the three salons, as well as Traba and artists in the region was emphasized rather than Gómez Sicre’s discourse in the period, doggedly the value of the works of individual artists. As upheld formalism and a self-referential modern an array of researchers have studied in other art devoid of references to political issues or contexts, the specific bent of Gómez Sicre’s contents, Alejandro Obregón was not an artist reading of Latin American art consisted of frank inclined to pure abstraction. Indeed, his work rejection of the social associated with repeatedly addressed political issues and

Latin American Art in the Colombian Caribbean… / Isabel Cristina Ramírez Botero 147 ♯11 second semester 2017 violence in Colombia. While, in this effort to student by means of the still life—painterly depoliticize contents, the salons attempted to resource par excellence—while also making form a group of artists around an exaltation of reference to a classic work from art history like formal values to which abstraction was key, the Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. works and artists on exhibit in them did not Nicolaes Tulp.21 Marta Traba also had to resort always match that vision. It is also true that to convoluted rhetoric to distance that painting Obregón managed to devise strategies to by Obregón from any possible association with formulate a dialogue between both political art. In an article she wrote on the components—the pictorial and the political. award granted to Obregón’s Estudiante Muerto Though pictorial problems are structural even (El velorio), she wrote: to his works that address political issues, some of those issues were too recurrent to be What the critic can do is tell the viewer overlooked. (Fig.4) beholding Obregón’s paintings that it is useless to look for any resemblance, any connection with nature, with morality, or with history in them. […] But can a work of art be wholly unbound from comparison? Yes, it can and it must stand alone—as if it were placed in a caisson—even if the work resists as Obregón’s painting does. 22

Even though it is earlier than the salons that this text discusses, I have offered this example because of how resoundingly it illustrates the contradictions implicit to the circuit that Gómez Sicre attempted to activate in the salons; it makes patent the inconsistency between the defense of certain aesthetic values and the intention to link those values to artists who, in some cases, contradicted them outright in their Fig. 4. Alejandro Obregón, Estudiante muerto (El velorio), 1956. Oil on Canvas - Collection Museo de Arte de las works. The solution in the Cartagena and Américas. Barranquilla salons was not to talk about specific works, but about the exhibitions as a Such paradoxes put Gómez Sicre and Marta whole in a vision that insisted on joining Traba on the spot. One prime example would be together a group of artists on the basis of the fact that, in 1956, Obregón’s Estudiante general descriptions. Emphasis was placed on Muerto (El velorio) [The Dead Student (The overlaps that shaped a sort of collective Vigil)] (1956) was the work brought into the temperament that was thought to incline Latin permanent collection of the Pan-American American artists toward abstraction, and Union gallery. In that painting, Obregón makes abstraction was associated with a vast range of explicit reference to the tragic killing of students visual pursuits that—like in the case of on June 8 and 9, 1954, during the dictatorship Obregon—were not always abstract. in Colombia. Obregón had been awarded the The exhibition format was very effective, then, Guggenheim for that work in 1956, and that not only because of its ability, as an institution, may well be why it was purchased by the Pan- to provide legitimacy, visibility, and circulation, American Union. Regardless, it blatantly but also because the exhibition, as Gómez Sicre problematizes the ideas that Gómez Sicre was conceived it, facilitated grouping together artists advocating. It is clear, then, that Gómez Sicre’s and works. Differences were smoothed over to readings were, at times, decontextualized; he emphasize certain traits on the basis of which looked at certain works through the lens of the idea of Latin American art could be built. formalisms, thus emptying them of content. To that end, he focused on the fact, pointed out Conclusions above, that Obregón grappled with structural pictorial problems even in his most political The inter-American salons, as well as the works. In the aforementioned work, for relationship between artists and art instance, he addressed the theme of the dead administrators from the Caribbean region of

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Colombia and the inter-American network, its state of Latin American art. The organizers of prime advocate José Gómez Sicre, and his ally the salons strategically insisted on the idea of in Colombia, Marta Traba, formed part of an the group of works in order to divert attention effective strategy for legitimation. On the basis from what the works and artists themselves had of historiographical accounts, they succeeded in to say. By that means, they fortified a specific making visible the avant-garde from the idea of modern art. Caribbean region of Colombia and in positioning it—and Alejandro Obregón as the Traducción: Jane Brodie artist most representative of the modern avant- garde rupture—as fundamental to the historical processes of modern art in Colombia. N0tes The salons were possible thanks to a convergence of interests between, on the one 1 On the creation of museums, see my article “Procesos hand, the circuit that was taking shape locales y circuitos transnacionales. El proyecto throughout the continent due, in part, to the interamericano y la génesis de los museos de arte moderno efforts of the OAS and, on the other, the work of de Cartagena y Barranquilla”, written for the book Art Museum of edited by Gina MacDaniel a group of local artists and intellectuals that had Tarver and Michel Greet to be published by Routledge in been coming together to further an art early 2018. institutionalism capable of affording them 2 A Cuban critic and curator, he was trained in diplomacy recognition and legitimacy and of allowing them and consular law (1939), receiving a PhD degree in social to work on their art in a professional fashion. sciences, politics, and economics from the Universidad de Furthermore, the salons and the projects they la Habana in 1941. Notwithstanding, from an early age he yielded, like the creation of modern art took an interest in art, writing reviews and working in the sphere of cultural administation by organizing and museums in Cartagena and Barranquilla, curating shows in . In 1946, he was named director of ensued alongside processes of modernization in the Visual Arts Unit of the Pan-American Union (the OAS both cities. It was for that reason that cultural Secretariat in Washington). The relevant writings on José projects also enjoyed the backing of certain local Gómez Sicre and OAS are (in chronological order): Shifra elites. Like Gómez Sicre, those elites saw in the Goldman, S., La pintura mexicana en el decenio de la confrontación. 1955-1965, Plural 85, 1978, pp. 33-44; salons an opportunity for their cities to occupy a Andrea Giunta, Vanguardia, internacionalismo y política. central place in the Americas. Arte argentino en los sesenta, Buenos Aires, Paidós, 2001; Michael Wellen, Pan-American Dreams: Art, Politics, and Regardless of that convergence of processes and Museum-Making at the OAS, 1948-1976, University of Texas at Austin, PhD dissertation, unpublished, 2012; interests, we find that the definition of Latin Claire F. Fox, Making Art Panamerican. Cultural Policy American art put forth in the salons—a and the Cold War, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota definition that attempted to tie it to a Press, 2013; Alessandro Armato, “La ‘primera piedra’: José depoliticized formalism and to a sort of hygiene Gómez Sicre y la fundación de los museos interamericanos that would liberate Latin America from the de arte moderno de Cartagena y Barranquilla” Revista Brasileira do Caribe, XII, 24, pp. 382-404, 2012; Nadia legacies of muralism and from the dangers of Moreno, Arte y juventud. El salón Esso de artistas jóvenes political art associated with leftist ideas—was en Colombia, Bogota, IDARTES, 2013; Alessandro Armato, not necessary in keeping with what some artists Estética, política y poder. La influencia de Nelson were doing. Along those lines, I cite the specific Rockefeller, el MoMA y la OEA en la construcción de Sao Paulo como foco de irradiación para el arte moderno en example of Alejandro Obregón, the emblematic Latinoamérica: los casos del MAM-SP y de la bienal artist of the salons’ project in Colombia. This (1946-1959), IDAES-USAM, Master Thesis, Historia del tension opens up new perspectives from which Arte Argentino y Latinoamericano, Buenos Aires, to examine the works that circulated at the unpublished, 2014; William López, “José Gómez Sicre y el salons and the ones that then formed part of the origen de una red continental polarizante: impacto en el ámbito colombiano” in María Clara Bernal (Ed.), Redes founding collections of museums of modern art intelectuales. Arte y política en América Latina, Bogota, in Cartagena and Barranquilla. Indeed, such Uniandes, 2015, pp. 339-375; Isabel Cristina Ramírez, Arte reexamination is necessary to attempts to y modernidad en el Caribe. Procesos locales y circuitos contextualize works and to distance them from regionales, nacionales y transnacionales de la vanguardia artística costeña, 1940–1963, Universidad the readings formulated at the salons Nacional de Colombia, Bogota, PhD Dissertation, themselves, that is, readings determined to see unpublished, 2016. those works as tight clusters in keeping with a 3 Gómez Sicre’s first action in Colombia was to organize social and political hygiene heralded as the new the exhibition 32 Artistas de las Américas, held in Bogota

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in 1949. For that event, he formed an alliance with the progreso” [150 Years of Steady Progress] explained that Escuela de Bellas Artes de Bogotá and with the Museo “the city exercises vast influence on intellectual and Nacional; he met with Alejandro Obregón, director of the cultural spheres”; it recounted the importance, along those former institution at the time. Gómez Sicre’s relationship lines, of the Centro Artístico de Barranquilla, founded in with neither the school nor the museum proved lasting, 1905. In closing, the article described Barranquilla as the though, and it was not until 1964, with the Salón Intercol “city that has embraced the boldest advances of the de Artistas Jóvenes, that Gómez Sicre once again organized modern era while it struggles to rival leading cities; its an exhibition in the Colombian capital. His relationship social and economic position and prestige are almost with Alejandro Obregón and his work in the cities of unmatched in the entire republic”. A few pages later, the Cartagena and Barranquilla, meanwhile, was constant article “El futuro de Barranquilla está en construcción” throughout the forties. [The Future of Barranquilla is in the Making], which spoke

4 of “billion-peso industrial projects underway”, was José Gómez Sicre, “Para la pintura, el mañana es hoy”, illustrated by a reproduction of the model of the Museo de Diario del Caribe newspaper, April 23, 1963. Arte Moderno de Barranquilla whose construction the text 5 A musician from Cartagena who had studied in Italy and announced. (El futuro de Barranquilla está en Germany, Guillermo Espinosa was a recognized orchestra construcción, 1963). See “El futuro de Barranquilla está en conductor in Colombia and throughout Latin America. He construcción” (unsigned), Diario del Caribe newspaper, conducted the Sinfónica Nacional de Colombia and was the April 7, 1963. head of the OAS’s Music Unit. He organized a number of 11 Andrea Giunta, op. cit.; Alessandro Armato, Estética, cultural initiatives in the city of his birth. política y poder…, op. cit.; William López, op. cit. 6 Particularly important in that group of intellectuals were 12 The following artists, for instance, participated in all the following writers, journalists, and artists: Alejandro three salons: Sarah Grilo (Argentina), Manabu Mabe Obregón, Cecilia Porras, Enrique Grau, Orlando Rivera, (Brazil), José Luis Cuevas (Mexico), Armando Morales Héctor Rojas Herazo, Gabriel García Márquez, Álvaro (Nicaragua), Fernando de Szyszlo (Peru), and Alejandro Cepeda Samudio, Alfonso Fuenmayor, Germán Vargas, Obregón, Enrique Grau, Cecilia Porras, and Eduardo Bernardo Restrepo Maya, Meira del Mar, Néstor Madrid Ramírez Villamizar (all from Colombia). Malo, Sonia Osorio, Eduardo Lemaitre, Aurelio Martínez Canabal, Miguel Sebastián Guerrero, Eric Stern, and Jaime 13 Gómez Sicre often described these salons as the most Gómez O’Byrne important in the country and, indeed, the continent. He

7 compared them to the São Paulo Biennial and to the This period was marked by a great deal of tension Córdoba Biennial in Argentina. between, on the one hand, painters who had been working in the region and who generally defended an artistic 14 Marta Traba, “Un Laurel para Cartagena”, Revista tradition based on mimesis and classical European art and, Semana, Bogotá, June 9, 1959. on the other, those who supported modern or new art. 15 Marta Traba, “La mejor exposición que he visto en 8 In 1959, on the occasion of the Salón Nacional de Colombia”, El Heraldo, Bogotá, April 12, 1960.

Cartagena, local critic Eric Stern defended support for 16 national art and rejected regionalist distractions. Even at the salons’ first versions in the late forties, their Notwithstanding, he backed what he viewed as the coordinators and organizers had made public the intention tendency to defend “material facts that pursue the clear to eventually turn them into nationwide events that would and intentional, and—in all likelihood—very healthy end of lead to the creation of museums. Along those lines, Alfonso combating the dominant voice called centralism”. He went Fuenmayor, director of cultural affairs for the Department on to say “we don’t want to debate now if painters from the of Cartagena, stated in 1947, “I dream […] about the inland are as worthy or less worthy than painters from the creation of a Colombian modern art museum, the coast. We fully agree with the opinion of Gómez O'Byrne publication of a monthly magazine as a bulletin of the when he says that the three paintings by the coastal cultural outreach program, and the expansion to a national painters are the best [in the show]. What we don’t agree scale of the coastal artists’ salon...” (González, 1947). In with is the assertion that it is on the coast that the Rafael González, “Un año de cultura en la Costa. Entrevista country’s most forward-looking expression is found”. a Alfonso Fuenmayor”, El Espectador newspaper, (Stern, 1959) December 24, 1947. 17 9 A private institution created in 1905, the Centro Artístico Formalist ideas circulated widely in those years and de Barranquilla brought together different members of the enjoyed the theoretical and critical support of specialists local elite—individuals with social capital, as well as artists, like North American critic Clement Greenberg, as well as intellectuals, and businessmen—interested in supporting backing from institutions like the Museum of Modern Art the city’s progress and culture. (MoMA), New York and its long-term director, Alfred Barr. On the basis of a vision of art as autonomous, the formalist 10 For the celebration of the one hundred and fiftieth stance supported reducing or even doing away with anniversary of the founding of Barranquilla, a range of naturalist references to the outside world; pictorial and initiatives was undertaken and discourses articulated in formal elements were instead the basis for art’s reflection different publications. A campaign that revolved around and experimentation. For formalism, the work of art’s restoring Barranquilla’s past glories as supreme intrinsic concerns bore no relationship to concerns of a Colombian city of progress and civilization was launched. social, political, or ethical nature.

On April 7, the actual day of the anniversary, local 18 newspapers published special editions that upheld the city “La exposición latinoamericana de arte moderno fue in those terms. An article entitled “150 años de continuo inaugurada en solemne acto” (unsigned), El Universal newspaper, May 26, 1959.

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19 The two critics agreed for a specific period; differences How to correctly cite this article later arose between Traba and Gómez, mostly because the gist of Traba’s political and aesthetic thinking changed dramatically starting in the mid-sixties. Ramírez Botero, Isabel Cristina; “Latin American Art in the Colombian Caribbean. The 20 Alessandro Armato, “José Gómez Sicre y Marta Traba: Inter-American Modern Art Salons of Cartagena historias paralelas” in the seminar Synchronicity, Contacts and Divergences in Latin American and US Latino art, (1959) and Barranquilla (1960 and 1963)”. In Univesity of Texas at Austin, 2012, pp. 118-127. caiana. Revista de Historia del Arte y Cultura 21 Carmen María Jaramillo, Alejandro Obregón. El mago Visual del Centro Argentino de Investigadores del Caribe, Bogotá, Asociación de Amigos del Museo de Arte (CAIA). No 11 | 2nd. semester 2017. Pp Nacional, 2001; Isabel Cristina Ramírez, Geografías 144-151 Pictóricas. La exploración del espacio en el paisaje de Alejandro Obregón, Bogota, Ministerio de Relaciones URL: Exteriores de Colombia, 2013. http://caiana.caia.org.ar/template/caiana.php? 22 Marta Traba, “Alejandro Obregón en la Sociedad de pag=articles/article_2.php&obj=289&vol=11 Arquitectos” in Marta Traba, Textos escogidos, Bogotá, Colseguros, 2002 [1956], pp. 88-89. Reception: November 21, 2017 Acceptance: December 14, 2017

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