Poet Juvenal Ortiz Saralegui (1907–59) was among the intellectuals won over by the impassioned discourse on painting and ideology voiced by David Alfaro Siqueiros while the Mexican artist was in Montevideo (February–April 1933). Like poet Basso Maglio (1899–1961), Ortiz Saralegui was one of the creators of the Asociación de Escritores Revolucionarios (AER), which was affiliated with the CTIU.
He was a regular contributor to the journal Movimiento, the platform of the CTIU’s ideology. In the article “Hacia el arte revolucionario,” Ortiz Saralegui describes the role of the artist as “individualist” in the face of a “disarticulated” society—a “chaotic state,” expressed in the artist’s work, resulting from the capitalist model. It is, in Ortiz Saralegui’s view, fundamental to establish the difference between two models of artist: those “at the service” of capitalism and those that “stand by the proletariat.” (Significantly, both are derived from Soviet models.) To draw a “revolutionary map” in Latin America, it is necessary, Ortiz Saralegui asserts, for artists to express the situation and struggles of local workers and intellectuals. That is the case, he explains, simply because Latin American countries are “young and lacking in artistic tradition.” What Ortiz Saralegui proposes is a social art with a distinct local mark, an “art that reflects the aspirations of the American proletariat.”
[For further reading, see in the ICAA digital archive the following texts, also by Juvenal Ortiz Saralegui: “Consideraciones sobre la expresión heroica” (doc. no. 1225615), “Fuera del Salón Oficial” (doc. no. 1221528), “Hacia el arte revolucionario III” (doc. no. 1198748), and “Los jurados de los salarios artísticos de 1935 atentó contra la cultura” (doc. no. 1225596)].
