The Brazilian critic and historian Walter Zanini sees a need for an artistic exchange between the entire Latin American continent—not just Brazil—and other countries, a process he views as an important step toward understanding contemporary art as well as what came earlier. He provides a list of the most relevant exhibitions brought to Brazil from Europe (Portugal, France, Germany, Italy, and Holland) and the United States during the twentieth century. Zanini concludes his essay by urging Brazil and the other Latin American countries to do what they can in that regard, since the cultural legacy of the human race is not for just a few nations, but should be as expansive as possible.

Taken from the Portuguese version of the French text presented at the XXV Congreso Internacional de Historia del Arte [25th International Conference on Art History], that was sponsored by the “Comité International d’Histoire de l’Art” [International Committee of Art History] in Vienna, in September 1983. This issue of Plástica magazine was devoted to art in Latin America; it was produced by Ernesto Ruiz de la Mata, the Puerto Rican critic, who organized the Centro de Documentación de Arte Latinoamericano [Center for the Documentation of Latin American Art] in Puerto Rico during the 1980s. Some of the articles included in this issue were lectures delivered at various conferences and symposia that were collected here for the first time; other essays were contributed by their authors with no particular subject guidelines. This was the first time that a Puerto Rican magazine addressed the question of contemporary Latin American art. Plástica magazine, where this review was published, was an art publication that appeared fairly regularly in Puerto Rico. It began modestly enough in 1968, as the newsletter of the Liga de arte de San Juan [San Juan Art League], but changed its name in 1978 to Plástica revista de la Liga de estudiantes de San Juan [San Juan Student League Visual Arts Magazine]. Its very specific title notwithstanding, the twenty-one issues of the magazine explored a wide range of subjects within the broad parameters of Puerto Rican and Latin American art, filling its pages with retrospective coverage of subjects, such as the V Bienal de San Juan del grabado latinoamericano y del Caribe [5th San Juan Biennial of Latin American and Caribbean Prints] (1981), Puerto Rican architecture, and Latin American visual arts. The first editorial board of the magazine included Hélène Saldaña, Delta Picó, Cordelia Buitrago, and J.M. García Segovia. In addition to the many essays written by top Puerto Rican thinkers, the magazine published contributions from some of the leading Latin American artists and critics, such as Luis Camnitzer, Damián Bayón, Jacqueline Barnitz, Samuel Cherson, Joseph Alsop, Omar Rayo, and Ricardo Pau Llosa, among many others.