This book represents the conservative view of the role of the homosexual artist in the art world broadly circulated in the 1960s and 1970s [in Colombia]. Curiously, the prologue to the book by the Colombian artist, Pedro Restrepo Peláez, was written by a liberal politician, Alfonso López Michelsen (1913?2007). At the time, he was governor of Cesar Department —and later, from 1974 to 1978, he would become president of Colombia (see “Prólogo del libro El homosexualismo en el arte actual” [doc. no. 1094268]). With the questionable positions it takes, Restrepo Peláez’s book is an approach to twentieth-century Colombian art history regarding the direct role of homosexuality in the field of art. As such, it is required reading.
The documentary value of this essay is in its clarification of certain arguments (or the absence thereof) that have a social impact on the country in some way, for example, creating stereotypes. These beliefs persist in Colombia down to this day, and the homosexual artist is still often dubbed socially ambitious, snobby, superficial and/or alienated. Similarly, from these points of view we may deduce the belief (rooted in the powerful conservative layer of this society) that artworks with homosexual content pertain to the sphere of the immoral, degenerate and/or reprehensible.
Undoubtedly, in the late 1960s, the homosexual presence in Colombian arts was especially strong: homosexual playwrights, actors, models, gallery owners, critics, art historians and artists represented a significant presence on the national art scene.
In his book, El homosexualismo en el arte actual, Restrepo Peláez begins by taking a stance against avant-garde art per se (which, in his opinion, is the snobby expression of homosexuals). This involved taking an outright position against the homosexuals who decided to be artists, (which would lead to a “feminization of art”), against works with homosexual themes (which would fall under the rubric of “avant-garde”), and against the critics who supported “a snobby attitude” in art. In short, Restrepo’s position opposed the homosexual presence in art.