The article “50 kilómetros de arte ‘computado’. La obra de Manzur” by journalist Alegre Levy was published in Bogotá-based newspaper El Tiempo on November 20, 1972. It is a review of the exhibition Manzur that would open the following day at the Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango of the Banco de la República. The show, which featured the last three years of Colombian artist Davis Manzur’s production, would close on December 21, 1972. Levy discusses Manzur’s novel use of the computer in the design of thirty works of art that contain a total of fifty kilometers of nylon. Levy also reports that she discovered a spectacular tapestry of monumental dimensions that Manzur and his students had been working on for two years, a work Manzur describes as “an interesting experiment.” Manzur points out that his works are made with industrial materials that “will bring about changes in the traditional language of oil painting.” Futurist constructions, his works bring together design, engineering, and art in the exhibition space. Likewise, the artist asserts that an exhibition at the Universidad de Jorge Tadeo Lozano in Bogota is a “major pictoral event.”

In this article, Colombian journalist Alegre Levy (1944−77) discusses one of the phases in the career of David Manzur (b. 1929). A decade earlier, Manzur’s production consisted of abstract and poetic painting [see Engel Walter, “David Manzur,” doc. no. 1185140]. Levy adeptly explains the factors involved in making Manzur’s constructions which were extremely novel for the Colombian art scene of the time. The titles of the works in the exhibition—Ovni [UFO], Homenaje a un astronauta [Homage to an Astronaut], Mecánica del Cielo [Sky Mechanics], Ciencia Ficción [Science Fiction], Máquina para recordar un sueño [Machine to Remember a Dream], Puerta de Jupiter [Jupiter’s Door]—evidence that Manzur was not exempt from the influence of the space race or from the prevailing idea of progress; his interest in astronomy and science is also clear in these works. In 1963, Manzur traveled to take a course in astronomy at the Chicago Sciences Institute. While there, he began to experiment with new visual formulations in his art. Similarly, Manzur worked with Naum Gabo (Naum Neemia Pevsner; 1890 -1977) in New York.  For this reason some of Manzur’s work attests to the influence of this constructivist artist. 

By the seventies, Manzur was enjoying considerable success. In 1954, he studied at the Art Students League of New York. In 1960, he participated in the II Inter-American Biennial in Mexico and in the Salón Nacional. The next year, he was invited by the Organization of American States to participate in an exhibition at the Pan American Union in Washington presented by José Gómez Sicre (1916–1991). In 1962, he was awarded a fellowship from the Solomon. R. Guggenheim Foundation. His work has been exhibited regularly at galleries and museums in Colombia and abroad. In 1970, he was awarded a prize at the II Bienal de Coltejer in Medellin.  

In the late sixties, Levy became one of the first women to work as a journalist for the newspaper El Tiempo. Some articles refer to her as the “discoverer” of Colombian primitivist painter Marco Tulio Villalobos; Levy would eventually become Villalobos’s agent. Levy was an active participant in the cultural life of Cali, especially in the Festivales de Arte held there. Her promising career was cut short by her early death at the age of thirty-three. After her death, the Inter-American Press Association issued a plaque in recognition of her public service in the mass media and reporting (El Tiempo, Monday, July 11, 1977, page 3C). The article “Mongo el zar de la basura” is feautured in the Antología de Grandes Reportajes published by Colombian journalist Daniel Samper Pizano.