In the early 1950s several Colombian artists began taking new directions.
As their ideas took shape, they separated themselves from the preceding
generations. This separation was hardly violent by Colombian standards,
but the new wave could not avoid some confrontations with the older school.
Literary circles, the press and the recently inaugurated National Television
took note of their disagreements. Colombia's capital, Santafé de
Bogotá, was the center of these new movements in art.
The first academically trained theorist to study Colombian art was the
critic and historian Marta Traba. To this new generation, Traba offered
spontaneous, systematic and unconditional support: she interpreted their
innovations and placed their achievements in context. In the circumstances
of a country undergoing profound social and political changes, Traba's achievement
now seems even more remarkable.
Born in Buenos Aires, Marta Traba was educated there and in Europe. After
marrying the well-known Bogotá journalist Alberto Zalamea, she became
a naturalized Colombian citizen. Her presence in Colombia had a dramatic
effect on the fate of the generation she undertook to promote and defend,
and whose triumph she ensured. No doubt it was easier for her than for a
native-born Colombian to lead the fight against conservatism, which inevitably
was identified with the status quo-the dictatorship and political bureaucracy
of an outdated order-at a time when Colombian intellectuals were ready to
welcome fresh influences.
In propagating her views and ideas, Marta Traba insisted with unparalleled
obstinacy on the need for change, as evidenced by the work of the new artists.
Nonetheless, change could not come about solely from within. This was one
point which marked a radical difference from the viewpoint of the previous
generation. Given her tremendous conviction, her mental agility in putting
her ideas into words and in neutralizing arguments to the contrary, particularly
in public debate, it is easy to understand the prestige Marta Traba acquired
by her work as a critic. She won the support of numerous Bogotá intellectuals,
as well as the unconditional admiration of the academic world. But her judgments
also antagonized some artists whom she dismissed as insignificant, despite
their past achievements.
The division between generations brought about a new diversity of concept
and style among Colombian artists. Their shared goal, exemplified by the
works in this exhibition, was to create a type of visual expression that
would have repercussion on the international stage. They combined European
tendencies such as cubism and geometric abstraction, for example, with pre-Columbian
symbols and references to local geography and folkways. All sought to identify
cultural situations with which people of other climes could identify. They
did not wish to be confined by parochial boundaries, but sought to have
universal appeal. They aimed to meet fully the challenges of the latter
part of the century and the prospects of a new millennium.
In matters of form and visual language, each artist took a different
approach and used his own judgment. All were eclectic in borrowing from
past themes and styles, but flexible enough to adopt the aesthetic principles
of 20th-century art.
While other Latin American countries began responding to global cultural
trends in the 1950s, Colombian art changed direction quite independently.
Whether they drew upon their history or rejected it, Colombia's artists
were conscious of their identity. The four artists represented here each
found new points of departure in aesthetic development. After study abroad,
they gained new perspectives on Western and native elements in art and could
better analyze the results of colonial influences. | 
