In search of contemporary art: art exhibitions in Bucaramanga 1960-1979

Abstract

This article shows the artistic environment experienced by the city of Bucaramanga in the 60’s and 70’s of the 20th century. Art exhibitions and contests were made by various institutions, even so, this wasn’t enough and there weren’t spaces for the support to the newest talents that were educated by the distinguished artists of the city, who were graduates from different art schools in Europe. Bucaramanga lacked of plastic arts education in a professional level. The most of the artists began the career of plastic arts out of the town, making impossible the origin of a new contemporary art in the city. Was then in 1973 when the master Jorge Mantilla Caballero made an artist’s collective that was focused on contemporary art and started to adopt the national and international trends in the plastic arts. In this article is documented the transition from costumbrista art to the new trends and themes of the contemporary art, using as a primary source the artistic literature of those years, mainly newspapers and art catalogues.

Keywords: contemporary art, costumbrism, plastic arts, Santanderean art.