The Revista Arte Internacional, published by the Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá, dedicated its 15−16 edition to the theme “Latin America: Identity and Art.” In a special entry of the section “Registro,” Javier Gil, the Colombian art critic and a member of the publication’s editorial board, reviews the theoretical encounter held in conjunction with the exhibition “Ante América: Arte, cultura y posmodernidad en América Latina” [“Regarding America: Art, Culture and Postmodernity in Latin America”]. The exhibition was held in Bogotá in 1992 with the help of the Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango. In the article, Gil first considers the difficult and ambiguous nature of the theme chosen for the encounter, then shares his views about the concept of identity and postmodernity before offering a synopsis of the statements made by each of the seminar’s invited speakers: the Catalonian professor Pere Salabert [“Art, Cultural Identity and History”], the Colombian artist José Alejandro Restrepo (b. 1959) [“The Cannibal’s Smile”], the Uruguayan historian Ivonne Pini [“Alternatives to Representation in Latin American Art of the 1980s”] and the North American critic Fredric Jameson (b. 1934) [“Transformations of the Image in Postmodernity”]. At the same time, Gil comments on the talks given by the Colombian architects Carlos Niño and Francisco Sanín, the critic Nelly Richard, the Colombian critic Germán Rubiano and the Paraguayan critic Ticio Escobar. He concludes by presenting the main thematic concepts about Colombian art addressed by the Colombian artists Beatriz González and Doris Salcedo, as well as the art critic Carolina Ponce de León, who at the time also served as the director of Visual Arts for the exhibition’s organizing entity.

This document is important as a register and compendium of the main concepts debated within the framework of the 500th Anniversary of the so-called Discovery of America. It demonstrates how the term identity problematized and questioned the definition of “the Latin American” and opened a critical discussion that lasted throughout the 1990s. In Colombia, theories of postmodernity and the debate over culture permeated art circles. The theories of French philosophers Lyotard and Deleuze, the Argentine anthropologist Nestor García Canclini and the Cuban critic Gerardo Mosquera, among others, were known in the country through several mechanisms: the International Chair of Art Luis Ángel Arango, the professors in university art departments, talks given by philosophers and theorists in academic spaces and the diffusion of publications like Hybrid Cultures: Strategies for Entering and Leaving Modernity (1990) by García Canclini and The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (1979) by Lyotard. Javier Gil (b. 1955) was the Director of the Education Department of the Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá. He frequently collaborated in art journals like Arte en Colombia or Arte, for which he wrote articles, essays and catalogue notes. His most recent book is Tesoros Artísticos del Colegio Mayor de Nuestra Señora del Rosario, published in 2003 by Villegas Editores. Since 2004, he has served as the advisor of Visual Arts to the Ministry of Culture. To complement this article, consult the introduction to the catalogue of the exposition Ante América (1992). [See doc. # 1098386].