The XXIII Salón de Artistas Nacionales [XXIII National Artists’ Salon], that opened at Colombia’s Museo Nacional on November 3, 1972, consisted of works by forty-five artists. On opening night, the exhibition began on the outer steps of the Museum where hundreds of meters of wool had been laid out, leading to the entrance. Once inside, attendees suddenly found themselves entangled in the wool: “unaware of how or when they had gotten themselves all tied up, they were trying to get untangled so they could visit the exhibition” (from a review in El Tiempo, 4 November 1972, p. 2B). The poet Jorge Rojas (1911–1995), who had been the director of Colcultura since 1969, opened the event with the briefest of speeches: “I declare this Salon open.” Then the artist Flavio Ramírez started throwing hundreds of ping pong balls inside the Museum; the balls were bouncing off works of art as opening night attendees were presented with stalks of basil. A twelve-meter long poster on the wall with the message “Aquí no cabe el arte” [There is No Room Here for Art] caught the attention of the press. This was a work by Antonio Caro (b. 1950) who included, at the bottom of the poster, the names of the victims of a massacre of an indigenous community in Planas (Meta) and of the students who had died in the city of Cali the previous year. Later in the evening, a quartet serenaded attendees with satirical versions of well-known Colombian songs. Attendees were given this flier, which introduced Alma de Artista [Soul of an Artist], the musical group hired by the Colombian artists Bernardo Salcedo (1939–2007), Álvaro Herrán (b. 1937), Alberto Sierra, and Arnulfo Peña. This document is the only surviving reference to that presentation. The press described these activities as “an act of sabotage,” because they were a distraction for the public that had come to the Museum to see the exhibition. The lyrics are a protest against the official institutionalization of art and its instigators, in particular against the measures taken by the poet Rojas.
