In this brief text that appeared in the catalogue of Roberto Obregón’s second solo exhibition held in Caracas at Galería XX2 (1967), the artist presents a creed-like manner in expressing his convictions about art and life, and also commenting on the art he was creating at the time. He states that he fully believes in the limitless possibilities still available in figurative art, and although he does not disagree with the socially committed ideals issued by the practitioners of new figuration in Venezuela, Obregón holds the position that they restrict the problems faced by contemporary man to his local environment. Regarding his own work, the artist understands that it is not definitive, and also states that the iniquity within which some people find his themes perhaps responds to a desire to disturb, stir, or impress those who live under the grip of a false sense of morality.

This text constitutes the earliest written document in which Roberto Obregón (1946−2003) speaks with regard to his conceptions about art and his work. It provides important clues to his understanding and to his eventual transcendence in the history of Venezuelan art, already by the age of twenty one, in 1967, denoting the strong convictions and critical posture that he would carry for the rest of his life. The significance of this document resides in its testimonial nature; it records the thoughts of an artist at the early stages in his career and far from yet becoming one of the greatest representatives of contemporary art in his country. Its primary value is the validity of its content; so much so that critics and interviewers often continue to make reference to this seminal document citing its key phrases. Obregón, as he states in the first sentence of the text, “completely and fully” takes figurative art to possibilities almost never explored within the confines of national art in Venezuela. Other affirmations in this text point to what would eventually become the key characteristics of his endeavor: a desire to create an artistic “language” rather than an artistic “style” in his work.

Obregón’s foray into New Figuration was very short lived. The artist took a critical stance opposing the contemporaneous figurative artists and their engagement of socially committed art.   From 1974, critics would place the artist within the Conceptual art movement, although he objected to this view. That being said, some of the ethical and aesthetic principles of this trend were already found (or implied) in this text: a strong irony; a complex personality assuming the anguish of the contemporary man; and the conscious assumption of loneliness. Obregón is one of the few Venezuelan artists whose life and work were integrally linked as a fundamental creative experience.

Of equal interest is Obregón’s opinion regarding the dismissal of figurative art by local critics in Venezuela. While he does not mention any critics in particular, Obregón was right to assert that—barring the exceptions of Reverón and Narváez—for such scholars as Alfredo Boulton, the greatest masters of Venezuelan modernity were the representatives of the geometric abstraction and/or kinetic trends.

[For a short presentation on the artist, see in the ICAA digital archive by the journalist Margarita D’Amico “La flores de Roberto Obregón” (doc. no. 1051362)].