The United States art professor and historian Jacqueline Barnitz wrote a detailed report on a number of North American exhibitions of work created by Latin American artists in the 1960s and 1970s. She pays special attention to the 1970s, when there was a significant increase in the Latin American presence in the United States as compared with prior years. Barnitz also relates information about the museums, galleries, and communications media that have supported or reviewed this clearly evident boost. She attributes the increasing acceptance of these artists among North American viewers both to the contribution of critics and to changes in the societal socioeconomic structure. Most significantly, wealth has been flowing into non-Anglo-Saxon United States communities.

While the title of this paper is, “The Reasons for the Growing Interest in Latin American Art in the United States,” the true importance of the document is more as a reference than as an analysis. The abundant, detailed data provided are only important in the context of the overall history of Latin American art abroad, specifically, its models and movements. The Primer Encuentro Iberoamericano de Críticos de Arte y Artistas Plásticos de 1978 was held at the Museo de Bellas Artes de Caracas. In addition to the United States art professor and historian, Jacqueline Barnitz, there were other important public figures in attendance: Jorge Alberto Manrique, Yda Rodríguez Prampolini and Berta Taracena (from Mexico), Jorge Glusberg and Antonio Berni (from Argentina), Juan Acha (from Peru, based in Mexico), Julio Le Parc (Argentinean living in París), Adelaida de Juan (from Spain), Carlos Rodríguez Saavedra (from Peru), Galaor Carbonell (Cuban living in Colombia), Marta Traba (Argentinean living in Colombia), Roberto Pontual and Aracy A. Amaral (from Brazil), as well as the Venezuelans Marco Miliani, Alirio Rodríguez, Roberto Montero Castro, Elida Román, and Carlos Arean. An important precursor to this event was the Austin Symposium, organized by Damián Carlos Bayón under the auspices of the University of Texas at Austin in late October 1975. Many of the participants at the 1978 conference had previously attended the Texas symposium. A book about that symposium was published in Venezuela by Bayón himself (as a reporter and organizer of the book): El artista latinoamericano y su identidad, Colección Estudios (Caracas: Monte Avila Editores, 1977). [In this regard, see the ICAA digital archive for the lectures presented there by Acha (doc. no. 1065080), Amaral (doc. no. 776786), and Traba (doc. no. 1065742)]. They were also published in chapter four, “Debating Identity on a Continental Scale,” in Resisting Categories: Latin American and/or Latino? by Mari Carmen Ramírez, Héctor Olea, and Tomás Ybarra-Frausto in the series, Critical Documents of 20th-Century Latin American and Latino Art (Houston: The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston/International Center for the Arts of the Americas, 2012). In addition, see the lectures presented at El Primer Encuentro Iberoamericano de Críticos de Arte y Artistas Plásticos de 1978: by Elida Román (doc. no. 815617), Berta Taracena (doc. no. 815558), Juan Acha (doc. no. 815489), Marta Traba (doc. no. 815744), Jorge Glusberg (doc. no. 815475), Roberto Montero Castro (doc. no. 815631), Galaor Carbonell (doc. no. 815603), Carlos Areán (doc. no. 815730), Julio Le Parc (doc. no. 815575), Adelaida de Juan (doc. no. 815544), Ida Rodríguez Prampolini (doc. no. 815758), Antonio Berni (doc. no. 815659), Marta Arjona (doc. no. 850349), and the summary of proposals by participants written by Donald B. Goodall (doc. no. 850368).