Ricardo Rodríguez Morales, the economist, writer, and author of many articles and essays on art and literature, analyzes and contextualizes the contents of two of the most important visual arts magazines in Colombia in the 1950s: Plástica and Prisma. The former was managed by the artist Judith Márquez Montoya, and the latter by the art critic and curator Marta Traba. Rodríguez delivers an exhaustive review of both publications in his article, which dissects the objectives, visions, points of view, and achievements of each magazine. The review mentions the impact these magazines had on the cultural life of the country, and discusses the debates that were stirred up by editorials, contributors’ opinions, and feature articles on subjects that were of interest in art circles at the time.   

Plástica magazine published seventeen issues between 1956 and 1960. Contributors included the Austrian historian and critic Walter Engel (1908–2005) and the historian and critic Marta Traba (1923–1983), both of whom wrote exhibition reviews, art criticism essays, and occasional feature articles that were published in the magazine as inserts of various sizes printed on colored paper. Plástica was the voice of modern art in Colombia; it reprinted current events articles from well-known international magazines, such as Prisme des Artes, Cimaise, Domus, Contemporary British Art, Cahiers d'Art, and Canadian Art. It also published contributions from foreign writers and correspondents, including the Spanish-Mexican Adolfo Salazar (1890–1958), the Englishman Herbert Read (1893–1968), the Hungarian Georg Luckács (1885–1971), the German Wilhelm Worringer (1881–1965), the Argentine Jorge Romero Brest (1905–1989), the Frenchman Michel Ragon (b. 1924), and the Cuban José Gómez Sicre (1916–1991). 

Meanwhile, Prisma was presented as a magazine devoted to the study of art criticism. It appeared after its founder, Marta Traba, taught a course on modern art and the Renaissance at the Universidad de América in Bogotá. The architect Eduardo Angulo was the director of the magazine, which was managed by the industrialist Simón Preminger (1912–1987). There were over twenty people on the editorial board, including Teresa Tejada (b. 1928), Kitty de Preminger (1921–2001), Gloria Espinel, Juan Posada, and many more. This pedagogical magazine focused specifically on Colombian and Latin American subjects, and ran special features on universal themes. Prisma survived for one year and then ceased publication (1957), but it is remembered as an essential part of the intellectual fervor of the 1950s and 1960s in Colombia to this day.       

Plástica and Prisma were conduits for the dissemination of instruction and information on art in general during a period in Colombia when people were only concerned with figurative and abstract art. There is no doubt that the efforts of the founders and staff of each of these magazines helped to develop a more current and universal approach to art among artists, critics, and viewers everywhere in the country.