The curator Ruth Auerbach reviews the 1.a Bienal Nacional del Paisaje Tabacalera Nacional (August—October, 1996), basing her critique on this genre’s contemporary view and its important position in the history of universal art. Auerbach pays special attention to a new approach to landscape painting, and discusses the most influential facts, artists, and works of the twentieth century. In closing, she mentions the conceptual leanings of participating artists.     

The Venezuelan curator Ruth Auerbach refers to the vulnerable nature of contemporaneity, and the corresponding opportunities it somehow offers, to frame her views on landscape painting. She thinks today’s artists should work with concepts that are in sync with their time, using the appropriate media to do so. Auerbach turns to the history of landscape painting to illustrate the difference between the “romantic” style that was in vogue a couple of centuries ago, and the heterogeneous approaches of contemporary versions. She mentions the importance of the Land Art that was produced in the United States in the late 1960s, explaining that it was the first art movement to contribute generously to an innovative perception of landscape art based on an interior universe, and making social, physical, technical, scientific, etc. connections.

Auerbach also mentions modern Venezuelan artists, notably Manuel Cabré and Armando Reverón, both of whom, in Auerbach’s opinion, were harbingers of the contemporary style of landscape painting produced by artists who helped to transform the language of our new environmental reality, such as Roberto Obregón, Luis Villamizar, Miguel von Dangel, Claudio Perna, Rolando Peña, Milton Becerra, Pedro Terán, and Yeni y Nan.