In the summer of 1976, the Mexico City magazine Artes Visuales published a number of texts addressing the ongoing debates on defining a “Latin American” aesthetic that had gained momentum after a symposium at the University of Texas, Austin, in October of 1975. [SEE DOCUMENTS IV.4.1–IV.4.3 FOR THE DELIBERATIONS OF JUAN ACHA, ARACY AMARAL, AND MARTA TRABA]. The discussions on this polarizing question involving issues of identity continued in specialized journals, including in Octavio Paz’s magazine Plural, which originally appeared as a monthly supplement in the Mexico City daily Excélsior from 1971 to 1976, as well as in Artes Visuales. The latter publication launched in 1973 as a collaboration between Fernando Gamboa—then director of Mexico City’s Museo de Arte Moderno (MAM)—and Carla Stellweg, the Dutch-born and New York-based critic and promoter of Latin American art who served as its editor-in-chief.
Damián Carlos Bayón wrote “Contestación a una pregunta: ¿Cuándo se vuelve latinoamericano el arte en América Latina?” from the United States, where he was part of a small group of Latin American thinkers sponsored by American institutions like the University of Texas, where he taught. Citing the fierce originality of the Mexican printmaker José Guadalupe Posada and of the Venezuelan cinéticos, Bayón calls for other Latin American artists to produce work that is expressive of its context.
In a meandering rebuttal “Comentario al texto de Damían Bayón,” Jorge Romero Brest (1905–1989) notes that, even though he agrees with much of his old protégé’s essay, he finds Bayón’s characterization of artistic intent too absolute. Instead, Romero Brest argues that the value of an artwork should be qualified as something defined by experience and produced by the dialectic interplay that occurs in any given socio-cultural context. Notably, he shifts the political debate involved in Bayón’s text to focus on the aesthetics of culture, urging an understanding of a Latin American “aesthetic” that would encompass everyday experiences, mass media, and traditional arts. Romero Brest’s theoretical stance mirrors his support of “happenings,” Pop art, and other experimental art forms carried out at the Instituto di Tella in Buenos Aires during his directorial tenure in the late 1960s. Translated by Betty Sisto for the magazine, both texts were published by Artes Visuales [(Mexico City), 10 (April–June 1976): 18–22 and 23–26].