The Discourse of “National Art” in Colombia

Through the analysis of three different discourses on “national art” this paper argues that the latter has functioned as an underlying discourse and played a constant and significant role in defining much of artistic production in Colombia and the debates around it. Within this framework I examine the tension between modernity and modernization that comes into view, for example, in the controversy that took place during the last century between the modernist proposals of the Bachué group, which were anti-academic and expressionist, and the attempt at modernization promoted by figures like Marta Traba, with her “updating” campaign, and Eugenio Barney with his theory of transculturation. My hypothesis is that this tension reaches a synthesis in the plastic and conceptual work of Antonio Caro, which addressed the national public. The preceding movements find their synthesis and take a qualitative leap in Caro’s interpretation of the life and work of Manuel Quintín Lame.