The Cuban historian Adelaida de Juan discusses the changes and accomplishments in art and in the politics of art that were forged by the Cuban Revolution and that have been in place since 1959. She mentions famous artists whose work has changed; she names artists from every generation and describes them and their traits, their works, and their exhibitions, up until the Salón Permanente de Jóvenes in 1977. Adelaida de Juan identifies the distinctive elements of Cuban visual arts in the revolutionary era, pointing to a return to reality and a type of figuration driven by goals and approaches that differ from the New Figuration that emerged simultaneously in other Latin American countries. To make her point she refers to multi-disciplinary projects and the integration of the arts as well as the development of the graphic arts and poster art. She claims that the Cuban visual arts reached maturity in 1968.      

This article by the Cuban art historian and critic Adelaida de Juan (b. 1931) is essentially a sort of propaganda bulletin in which she presents an extremely positive view of the accomplishments of the Cuban Revolution. It is a valuable and interesting document because it provides a broad look at Cuban visual arts and how they are seen within the context of Latin American art as a whole. In her summary, Adelaida de Juan provides a wealth of detail about the major artists and the art produced during a particular period in a country that, in 1978—when the Encuentro was organized in Caracas—was already almost twenty years into a process of radical change and was experiencing (and continues to experience) a sociopolitical, and therefore aesthetic, reality that differed considerably from the reality in other Latin American countries.  

The Primer Encuentro Iberoamericano de Críticos de Arte y Artistas Plásticos was held in 1978 at the Museo de Bellas Artes in Caracas. In addition to Adelaida de Juan, other important figures in the fields of art criticism and art itself were at the event, including Jorge Alberto Manrique, Marta Traba (see “La tradición de lo nacional” [doc. no. 815744]), Juan Acha (“La actual división técnica del trabajo artístico en América Latina” [doc. no. 815489]), Carlos Areán (“Iberoamérica y su identidad artística y cultural” [doc. no. 815730]), Julio Le Parc (“Interrogantes” [doc. no. 815575]), Carlos Rodríguez Saavedra, Jacqueline Barnitz, Berta Taracena (“Elementos constantes en el arte iberoamericano” [doc. no. 815558]), Antonio Berni (“No puedo dejar de destacar la importancia de este encuentro” [doc. no. 815659]), Roberto Montero Castro (“Arte e identidad: métodos institucionales en el desarrollo cultural venezolano” [doc. no. 815631]), Marco Miliani, Alirio Rodríguez, Jorge Glusberg (“Aproximación metodológica para una comprensión de la retórica del arte latinoamericano” [doc. no. 815475]), Élida Román (“El rol del crítico” [doc. no. 815617]), Ida Rodríguez Prampolini (“Dadá y América Latina” [doc. no. 815758]), Galaor Carbonell (“Hacia la eventual incidencia de la revista de arte latinoamericano en nuestra identificación” [doc. no. 815603]), Roberto Pontual, and Aracy A. Amaral.

The “Austin Symposium” was an important forerunner to this event. The Symposium was organized by Damián C. Bayón and held at the University of Texas at Austin in late October 1975. Many of the participants at the 1978 Encuentro had attended the Austin Symposium, which led to much discussion on the shared experience. Bayón later published a book about the Austin Symposium: El artista latinoamericano y su identidad (Caracas: Monte Ávila Editores, Colección Estudios, 1977; 150 pp. illustrated in black & white).

It is important to note that the lectures delivered at the Museo de Bellas Artes in 1978 had not been published at that point, though some were subsequently included in monographs or anthologies. They therefore possess great documentary value as primary source material.