IV.4.1 DIGITAL ARCHIVE 1065080
I am afraid that I must begin by giving an authentic and conditional answer: Our present-day art both does and does not exist as a distinct expression.
It does or does not to the degree in which some works are distinct in themselves and others are not, for Latin American art consists of a wide range of expressions and quality, and includes many different concepts and practices. And it exists, or does not exist, as such, to the degree in which the artists’ ideal in producing any work of art is to make it something both distinct and universal. Although, at the same time, he cannot avoid similarities to other works [nor can he avoid] the inevitable influence of his geographic space and his historic time.
In attempting to determine whether the nature of the distinctness is and should be a matter of expression or of invention, of aesthetics or of Latin American character, we should remember that not all expression is aesthetic, nor does every painting or sculpture fulfill the ideal of being unique (distinct or new) and possessed of socio-cultural value—that is, of having some effect on its surroundings (society and culture), of changing them in some way. . . .
Everything seems to indicate, then, that the aesthetic quality of a work lies in its uniqueness, and that it is this uniqueness, therefore, which may be said to determine whether a work is distinct and new. Our art does, unquestionably, include works of this type just as it also includes others that directly express, and dwell upon, a known reality—one whose origin may be either: foreign or local. Nevertheless, neither the question nor the answer may be said to end here, because our art both is and is not distinct in the very same measure in which we, Latin Americans, are both like and unlike people anywhere else, and also because we seem to feel the need to give aesthetic uniqueness a Latin American air.
Now, if we consider that our identity is still in the process of being forged in the fires of local and world realities, that we are and want to be different from what we were, and that we are decidedly plural entities—born and brought up under the most widely varying conditions, products of a number of mixed strains of ancestry, and thus able to slip effortlessly from one attitude to another (which to the European mind makes us unstable and unpredictable)—it becomes fairly obvious that not everything that comes from Latin America is truly Latin American. Furthermore, that no one can point in all honesty to just what is and what is not legitimately Latin American in art—much less impose any such opinion on artists.
Thus, our artists are perfectly free to express some new aspect of what they think we are, or what they suppose we want to be, or even to use their inventiveness to express what we can and should be, and they are equally free to express the very process of becoming and wishing to become other than we were. They can take local realities and give them back to us transubstantiated, ponder permanence throughout change, and also give an unexpected Latin American touch to aesthetic uniqueness.
But as it happens, whether we like it or not, such distinctive touches are usually something that the artist inadvertently gives his work. There are other artists meanwhile who do this deliberately, making peculiar their work by giving it a Latin American stamp that supplants aesthetic uniqueness. Unfortunately, there are all too many works of this kind, and far too many art critics, theoreticians, historians, and aficionados who mistake these Latin American stereotypes, as well as other international fashions, for something of aesthetic value.
All these things that are true of our art are likely to be just as true of art anywhere else. But—in our case—there are far too few really good works, and our art is far from being an important element in our local culture as in world art. In my opinion, the reasons for this state of affairs are clear:
1) The numbers factor: Owing to socioeconomic causes, the numbers of our artists are few, and they have only limited opportunities for developing their art; the same is true of critics, aficionados, theories, and historians.
2) Ours is a young art, existing as a sociocultural phenomenon only since 1920, a date that according to Richard M. Morse marks the end of our colonial period.
3) The lack of an independent, realistic, and developed visual thought that would nourish artworks and ideals by means of reflection and solidify Latin American substrata for the aesthetic uniqueness of our artists. Above all, thought that would put an end to the mistaken concept of limiting art to artists, in order to go beyond the specific aspects of each work and approach art as a sociocultural phenomenon: one in which those who reflect on, spread, and consume art would also play a part. Thereby avoiding what is an extremely widespread vice: the art milieu self-centered on the ongoing battle for prestige of a series of prima donnas, a struggle that entices personality cults fostering both official institutions and the art marketing in general.
A further goal of this body of thought would lie in conciliating its own eminently visual interests with political concerns and literary models, and in laying the foundations for both a Latin American teleology and a Latin American re-formulation of the basic concepts of art.