In this article, researcher and art historian William Alfonso López Rosas provides a theoretical justification for the need to historicize art criticism in Colombia, and he describes some of the most important efforts that have been made along those lines. The author begins with a quote from Rafael Gutiérrez Girardot that voices the need for critical assimilation of the foreign for the sake of the social writing of Spanish American literature. On this basis, López Rosas explains his interest in the history of art criticism, asserting that at least in Colombia, it has in fact existed throughout history even though it has been ignored by historians and intellectuals. López Rosas’s text is divided into three parts. In the first, he examines the meaning of the term “art criticism” and asserts that it has two definitions: one linked to Giorgio Vasari that includes all writing on art; and a second, which dates back to Denis Diderot that is linked to modernity and that refers to a specialized practice. López Rosas argues that both sorts of art criticism have existed in Colombia since at least the nineteenth century. In the second section of the article, López Rosas provides a brief description of attempts made in Colombia to historicize art criticism, specifically citing works by Álvaro Medina, Carmen María Jaramillo [see “Una mirada a los orígenes del campo de la crítica de arte en Colombia,” doc. no. 1094156], Carolina Ponce de León, Ruth Acuña, and Gabriel Giraldo Jaramillo. This section consists of a brief analysis of work by each of those researchers, therefore providing an overview of the state of the historiography of art criticism in Colombia in the early twenty-first century. Lastly, López Rosas discusses recent art criticism. He bemoans the crisis that ensued in the mid-nineties due to the mass media’s wholesale rejection of critical discourse and the expansion of an art market linked to money laundering. According to López Rosas, art critics have not been capable of furthering the malleable tradition left by Marta Traba, and art has become elitist and dominated by just a few individuals and institutions. However, the author does detect the emergence of a new generation that makes use of alternative means of communication like the internet. This generation—which includes Jaime Iregui, Ricardo Arcos-Palma, Lucas Ospina, and many more—eschews the notion of the critic as an enlightened individual, instead favoring an active reader.

This article is the transcription of a lecture that William López Rosas gave in 2005 on the occasion of the first edition of the National Prize of Criticism granted by the Ministerio de Cultura, the Universidad de Antioquia, and the Instituto Distrital de Cultura y Turismo of Bogotá. The prize is intended to encourage critical production by supporting study of the visual arts in Colombia. In 2007, the Universidad de los Andes published the book Los pasos sobre las huellas: Ensayos sobre crítica de arte featuring this lecture and others delivered at the first forum on art criticism organized by the Universidad de los Andes, as well as related texts. The publication corroborates the fact that there is growing interest in art criticism in Colombia. 

This interest includes concern with the past, and in the first decade of the twenty-first century, there were a number of studies on the emergence, development, and crisis of art criticism in Colombia from the end of the nineteenth to the end of the twentieth century. Indeed, López Rosas—along with Carmen María Jaramillo—can be seen as a pioneer in this field of research. The very existence of these studies attests to the conviction that art criticism is crucial to grasping the aesthetic development of a nation, as well as its artistic production. 

In a somewhat contemptuous tone, the text questions certain aspects of institutions as it formulates a broad debate on the state of criticism in Colombia since the beginning of the twenty-first century. In the context of this discussion, López Rosas disputes the orientation of institutions like the Museo de Arte Moderno (MAM), the Ministerio de Cultura, and the Museo Nacional, which in his view, have contributed to the isolation of art and the deepening schism between the art world and the general public. In other words, the scope of the text is not merely historical, but also critical. This is particularly significant considering that the text was made public at the launching of a prize given by established institutions.