In the catalogue for the first edition of the Salón Atenas exhibitions, Eduardo Serrano Rueda explains the project’s goal of supporting local emerging artists and promoting their work. After stating the rules that were developed to ensure the open, innovative status of the Salon (i.e.. that artists will not be allowed to participate more than once, the event is only open to artists under 31 years of age, etc.), Serrano describes the event as the perfect setting for presenting the most experimental works produced by young Colombian artists. He states that “(…) the Salón Atenas has the distinction of introducing new artistic ideas and concepts, and exposing the public to works that have seldom been seen before.” He ends his essay with brief descriptions of the works of artists who participated in the I Salón Atenas: Antonio Barrera, Antonio Caro, Luis Hernando Giraldo, Ramiro Gómez, Enrique Hernández, Miguel Ángel Rojas, Edgar Silva, and Mariana Varela. 

From its first edition in 1975 until its ninth and final one in 1984, the Salón Atenas exhibitions were a platform devoted to the introduction of emerging artists through the deliberate inclusion of experimental works by the younger generation. The Salons were the brainchild of the Colombian art critic Eduardo Serrano Rueda (b. 1939), the curator of the Museum of Modern Art in Bogotá. He launched his career as a critic in 1970 and soon became one of the most controversial figures in recent Colombian art history as a result of his willingness to argue with his peers. Serrano’s rise to prominence in the Colombian art world coincided with Marta Traba’s exile from the country in 1969, which gave the appearance of being a generational changing of the guard and that considerably increased his involvement in everything related to art. His fellow critics and art historians at the time included Álvaro Medina (b. 1942) and Germán Rubiano (b. 1938), with whom he argued at length about contemporary art in Colombia. But there were others with whom he was more compatible, such as: Miguel González (b. 1950), Álvaro Barrios (b. 1945), Alberto Sierra, the Cuban critic Galaor Carbonell (1938–1996), and later on, José Hernán Aguilar (b. 1952).

From the very beginning of his career as a critic, Serrano openly identified himself as the champion of Colombia’s contemporary art movement, a role which he initially performed while he was curator of the Museum of Modern Art in Bogotá, a position he held from 1974 until 1994. The Atenas Salon program was one of his most successful projects because it provided a platform for several of Colombia’s key exponents of contemporary art. Miguel Ángel Rojas (b. 1946), for example, presented an installation at a Salon that he described as his “first Conceptual work” [Cf. Álvaro Barrios, Orígenes del arte conceptual en Colombia: ensayo histórico, teórico o crítico 1968-1978 [Origins of Conceptual Art in Colombia: Historical, Theoretical, or Critical Essay] (Bogotá: Alcaldía Mayor de Bogotá, 1999), p. 137]. It is also significant to note Serrano’s description of Antonio Caro (b. 1950) as “an artist working in the field of ‘Conceptual art.’” Clearly, Serrano’s support of conceptual ideas was a crucial part of his art criticism during the 1970s and 1980s.