The text, “¿Arte joven?” [Young Art?] by art critic Eduardo Serrano Rueda introduces the exhibition Nombres nuevos en el arte de Colombia [New Names in Colombian Art] held at the Museo de Arte Moderno [Museum of Modern Art] in Bogotá in March 1972. Serrano analyzes the meaning and use of the terms, “artista joven” [young artist] and “arte joven” in the realm of the visual arts in the early 1970s. He places art in a sociological structure in which the “social institutions” (museums, salons, biennials, critics, and galleries) are responsible for casting “light on the concept of art held by the society to which they pertain.” Serrano states that while “artista joven” refers to the artist’s age, the expression “arte joven” is ambiguous because it may refer to the art as new and dynamic or it may allude to its “lack of depth or technique.” Finally, the critic clarifies that “young art” is not the work produced by “young artists.” The text concludes with a series of questions on whether the change in the concept of art is in the hands of the “new generations” or the “new public.”

Three years after he wrote it, art critic Eduardo Serrano Rueda (born 1939) included this text in the book Un Lustro Visual: Ensayos sobre arte contemporáneo colombiano [Five Years in the Visual Arts: Essays on Contemporary Colombian Art] (Bogotá: Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá, 1976). The MAM director, Gloria Zea de Uribe, requested Serrano’s cooperation to select the twelve artists who would participate in the exhibition, Nombres nuevos en el arte de Colombia. This catalogue is a record of the museum’s first exhibition of the work of young artists (under 30 years old). Some of them would have a significant presence in the following decades; for example, Antonio Caro, Óscar Muñoz, Miguel Ángel Rojas, and Juan Camilo Uribe. This exhibition was made up of works by Edgar Álvarez (born 1949), Ever Astudillo (born 1948), Óscar Muñoz (born 1951), and Hans Wienand Payán (born 1947); prints by María de la Paz Jaramillo (born 1948); drawings by Miguel Ángel Rojas (born 1946); sculptures by Miguel Antonio Castillo (born 1945) and Héctor Fabio Oviedo (born 1944); collages by Juan Camilo Uribe (1945–2005); mixed-media works by Jorge Posada Morris (born 1950); paintings by Carlos Padilla; and finally, the environment (currently called an installation) El imperialismo es un tigre de papel [Imperialism Is a Paper Tiger] by Antonio Caro (born 1950).When the show was held, Serrano was working as director of the Galería Belarca. During his time as director (starting in 1969), his interest was focused on young artists and the most innovative Colombian artwork, whether drawing, printmaking, collages, or photography. The Galería Belarca promoted young men and women who would become established artists in the 1970s. Some examples of artists who followed this route were Alfredo Guerrero, Ever Astudillo, Óscar Jaramillo, Javier Restrepo, and María de la Paz Jaramillo. To Serrano, the art milieu of the 1970s was highly varied through the different approaches of “hiper-realistas” [Hyperrealist] and Conceptual artists, as he stated in an article in the Re-vista del Arte y la Arquitectura en América Latina [A Second Look at Art and Architecture in Latin America]. (See “Los años setentas: y el arte en Colombia” [The 1970s: Art in Colombia], doc. No. 860458.) These were precisely the trends shown in Nombres nuevos en el arte de Colombia and widely discussed in the press as the new trends in the visual arts.