In his famous “Manifiesto 1,” Joaquín Torres García repudiates the article published in the Confederación de Trabajadores Intelectuales del Uruguay’s journal Movimiento. Torres García’s text, in turn, occasioned “Contestando a Torres García,” an article whose malice makes itself felt when Norberto Berdía, its author, states that he is addressing the “young people who surround Torres García.” At the time, Torres García hoped to create an art school that would be regional in scope—this despite the serious difficulties he was facing in trying to keep together the small group of followers he had managed to form (many were deserting). Norberto Berdía condemns what he sees as the separation between art and social life at the heart of Torres García’s thinking; for Berdía, “social life” is understood from a leftist Marxist perspective, that is, as a concrete political body pursuant to the Soviet revolution.

Joaquín Torres García returned to Uruguay in 1934; in August of that year, the group of artists taking shape around him published its “Manifiesto 1” entitled Estudio 1037, in reference to the studio at 1037 Uruguay Street where the artist was starting to give lectures and organize exhibitions for a select audience. That manifesto contained, among other things, Torres García’s response to the article by Norberto Berdía entitled “El arte de Torres García” published in issue Nº 7 of Movimiento, the CTIU’s publication. [On the exchange of accusations between the confederation and Torres García, see in the ICAA digital archive by Norberto Berdía “El arte de Torres García” (doc. no. 1208154) and “En la sociedad burguesa ganan los banqueros y pierden los artistas” (doc. no. 1208127)].  

The article “Contestando a N.B. de la CTIU”—which Torres García published in his “Manifiesto 1”—gave rise, in turn, to this rebuttal published in issue 9 of Movimiento. Both Torres García and Berdía make passing reference to Marx: the painter in relation to Lenin and the international activity of different chapters of the Communist Party and the journalist in the context of commonplaces in the debates on socialist realism. In a weak and contradictory attempt to dismiss Torres García for his “lack of commitment” to pressing social issues, Berdía even looks to Hegel to condemn constructivism and uphold figuration. Regardless, his reasoning leads him to advocate the centrality of “the Idea” in Hegelian thought—an idealism in keeping with Torres García’s thinking. Though undeniably provincial, this polemic is of interest because evidence of the adversity that constructivism faced from early on (as such, it foretells the conflictive relationship that would develop in Uruguay between the Asociación de Arte Constructivo (AAC) and social realism).

[For further reading, see in the archive the following texts by Joaquín Torres García: “Con respecto a una futura creación literaria” (doc. no. 730292), “Lección 132. El hombre americano y el arte de América” (doc. no. 832022), “Mi opinión sobre la exposición de artistas norteamericanos: contribución” (doc. no. 833512), “Nuestro problema de arte en América: lección VI del ciclo de conferencias dictado en la Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de Montevideo” (doc. no. 731106), “Introducción [en] Universalismo Constructivo” (doc. no. 1242032), “Sentido de lo moderno [en Universalismo Constructivo]” (doc. no. 1242015), “Bases y fundamentos del arte constructivo” (doc. no. 1242058), and “Manifiesto 2, Constructivo 100%” (doc. no. 1250878)].