In this text, Colombian curator and art critic Carmen María Jaramillo discusses the contradictions and complexities surrounding the beginnings of modern art in Colombia. She places the emergence of modern art in the framework of the historical and political situation facing Colombia from 1946 to 1959. Jaramillo argues that a series of specific political and artistic situations, and the relationships between them, were key to the development of visual production in which Colombian artists appropriated elements of the European avant-garde without neglecting the search for personal and unique works. Jaramillo argues that art criticism played a crucial role in the development of Colombian modern art. She provides specific examples of how the ideological and moral judgments characteristic of the beginning of the period studied gradually gave way to more specialized and autonomous approaches specific to the field of aesthetics. The topics of the four sections of text are the transition to a new conception of modern art in Colombia (1946–49); early abstraction; modern art in Colombia (1950–59); and the consolidation of modern art.

Published in 2005 by the Universidad Nacional de Colombia (Bogotá campus), this text places a series of important political and artistic events in the context of the development of art in Colombia from 1946 to 1958. Paradoxically, the transformation into a more modern cultural context ensued during one of the most fraught periods in Colombian political history in the context of the Cold War. Jaramillo makes use of writings by critics and artists of the period to provide a detailed description of a process that, though not without contradictions and setbacks, ended up making way for a new space. This process endowed the realm of art with a voice of its own and autonomy from the Church and the State, both of which had hitherto exercised great influence on art. Jaramillo’s text contains fragments of writings by crucial figures of the time, fragments that reflect on the exhibitions of the period, and on art in general. Through these writings, Jaramillo reconstructs the discussion of concepts that emerged at the time, such as “young art,” “modern art,” “contemporary art,” and “abstract painting.”   

For this text, the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogotá awarded Carmen María Jaramillo a master’s degree in the history and theory of art and architecture. The author explains that “sections of this text were written in 1998 and 1999 thanks to a research grant from the Ministerio de Cultura. Later, I was able to continue research with the support of the Instituto Distrital de Cultura y Turismo, and the Museo de Arte Moderno of Bogotá (2000).”