Entitled “Testimonio: Las constantes de nuestra generación,” this text published in Revista Sardio (Caracas, 5–6. January–April, 1959) clarifies the reasons for the magazine’s creation in light of criticism leveled against it. The founding of the magazine is seen, the text explains, as the creation of a new weapon of combat. In response to accusations of sectarianism, the text assures that the magazine is discriminating without denying the valid and lasting contributions of other generations. At the same time, those involved in the magazine declare their shared repudiation of “intellectual fraud,” or complacent and banal culture subservience to personal interests. In response to accusations of “elitistism,” the magazine denounces colonialist interests and cites the boundless support it has given to a number of national liberation movements active throughout the continent; the text also mentions the participation of members of the magazine’s staff in the “national resistance” that combated the military dictatorship under Marcos Pérez Jiménez in power from 1952 to 1958.

By way of an editorial, this “Statement” opens the joint fifth and sixth issue of Sardio, Revista Bimestral de Cultura (1958–1961); a total of eight issues would be published by 1961.

Initially formulated as an attempt to further explain the purposes and aims of the magazine Sardio (Caracas, Nº 5–6. January–April, 1959), this “statement” is, in fact, a vehement defense against the attacks the publication had received, mostly from those involved in the literary magazine Tabla Redonda (Caracas, 1959–61). A more radical publication, Tabla Redonda was directed by Venezuelan journalist Jesús Sanoja Hernández; contributors included writers Rafael Cadenas, Ángel Eduardo Acevedo, and Francisco Pérez Perdomo. This text reaffirms all the principles put forth in the magazine’s first “Statement” (Nº 1. May–June, 1958), explaining how they have been put into practice and detailing the contents of the articles published in prior issues. The text makes a coherent effort to uphold the magazine’s original position, avoiding extreme and antagonistic stances.

The writers (narrators, poets, and playwrights), critics, and researchers clustered around Sardio included Salvador Garmendia, Ramón Palomares, Adriano González León, Guillermo Sucre, Gonzalo Castellanos, Luis García Morales, Elisa Lemer, Rodolfo Izaquirre, Rómulo Aranguibel, Antonio Pascuali, Héctor Malavé Mata, Francisco Pérez Perdomo, Edmundo Aray, and Caupolicán Ovalles; visual artists like Manuel Quintana Castillo, Carlos Contramaestre, Omar Carreño, and Marco Miliani also contributed to the magazine.

A number of books were published and exhibitions organized in conjunction with the magazine. Though short-lived, Sardio is an essential point of reference in the history of contemporary Venezuelan literature and the visual arts; its influence on later generations is patent.The magazine’s initial formulations provide an overview of the later manifestations of its aspirations, which were imbued with the effervescence surrounding its founding and in keeping with its historical precedents. The enthusiasm and exaltation in response to the end, in January 1958, of the dictatorship under Marcos Pérez Jiménez created an environment in Venezuela ripe for change and allowed for the emergence of a new aesthetic sensibility and new political conditions. By eschewing costumbrismo, local color, landscape painting, socialist realism, and excessive aestheticism, Sardio made way for a spirit of cultural renewal based on constant debate and questioning (largely from its own pages) of what had been the hegemonic parameters of art. El Techo de la Ballena, a group active in Caracas from 1961 to 1968, would emerge with the disbandment of Sardio; that later group’s strategies and stances were more subversive and provocative than those of its predecessor. 

The “statements” published in this and other issues of the magazine would evidence its history and development. See “Testimonio” (Nº 1, May–June, 1958) (ICAA digital archive doc. no. 1172206), the magazine’s foundational text; “Testimonio. El intelectual de izquierda y cierta estética revolucionaria” (Nº 7, April–May, 1960) (doc. no. 1172252); and “Testimonio sobre Cuba” (Nº 8, May–June, 1961).