The article “Propuesta para una doble lectura” is a statement of principle as well as a thesis that Marta Traba formulated on the occasion of an exhibition of Modern Colombian art in Paris. In this text, Traba provides a periodization of Colombian art from 1948 through the early eighties. Traba’s account begins with the consolidation of Modern art in Colombia, a process in which artist Alejandro Obregón played a primary role. This period was followed by the development of more experimental proposals in the sixties, such as the graphic arts as a political-artistic alternative starting in 1966 and even the development of a unique Colombian strain of Pop art. Traba goes on to discuss the further development of graphic arts and, to a lesser extent, Conceptual art in the seventies. She then addresses the pictorial explorations of the eighties. For Traba, this exhibition is “testimony of a culture” as much Colombian as Latin American, one that refuses to follow the signals of the “central transmitters.” In her view, “when the line of ‘resistance’ (which is not necessarily political, but aesthetic and cultural) is revealed to be the backbone of art from the Americas, an idea of identity that has been the greatest concern of our culture since the 19th century is affirmed.”

Argentina-born art critic and writer Marta Traba (1923–83), who lived in Colombia for years, was a pivotal figure in the consolidation of Modernism in Colombia. One of the most controversial figures in the cultural scene in Colombia and Latin America in general, Traba lived in Bogota for eighteen years (from 1953 to 1969). During that time, she worked as an educator and almost ceaselessly as a critic, writing for newspapers and magazines, and appearing on television. She founded and directed Revista de Arte Prisma (1957); she also founded the Bogota Museo de Arte Moderno in 1963, an institution she directed for a number of years. As a result of that position, she became deeply knowledgeable of the Colombian art scene. Though Traba is known as the champion of Modern art in Colombia, in the final decades of her career her position changed considerably as she embraced a number of Latin American anti-imperialist tendencies. In the seventies, Traba began formulating a thesis on Latin American artistic and cultural “resistance,” a key contribution to understanding Latin American art. In this framework, “Propuesta para una doble lectura” is an essential text for two reasons: it was the last article Traba wrote for a publication in Colombia (in fact, it was published after her death); and it contains the most important of Traba’s bold formulations regarding Colombian art. The text—in which Traba mentions some of her favorite artists—is an overview of the critical work she produced in Colombia.  

The canon and periodization formulated by Traba in this article have proven significant to writings on Colombian art history ever since.