Art Museums of Latin America: Structuring Representation by Greet Michele Tarver Gina McDaniel & Gina McDaniel Tarver

Author:Greet, Michele,Tarver, Gina McDaniel & Gina McDaniel Tarver
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)

9 Local Processes and Transnational Circuits

The Inter-American Project and the Birth of Modern Art Museums in Barranquilla and Cartagena

Isabel Cristina Ramírez Botero

The museums of modern art in Cartagena and Barranquilla, two of Colombia’s main ports on the Caribbean Sea, were founded at the end of the 1950s.1 Both museums were established—the former in 1959 and the latter in 1960—with collections that included works by artists from all over the continent and with plans to maintain an inter-American scope. Their establishment came about through the convergence of regional, national, and inter-American economic, political, and cultural projects during the 1950s. On the one hand, a group of local avant-garde artists voiced the need for regional venues that would circulate and legitimize modern art, in addition to inserting it into international circuits. On the other hand, members of the local elite were making economic and political demands on the nation in the midst of a developing crisis for the ports as a result of national transportation networks’ move to the Pacific coast of Colombia. For this reason, certain businessmen’s associations and groups supported cultural initiatives that might strengthen local modernizing dynamics and increase the regional and national importance of these cities. Moreover, during the Cold War, the Visual Arts Section at the Organization of American States (OAS) was promoting an artistic circuit with the purpose of creating a common inter-American front that would disseminate a specific type of modern art, one that privileged the formalist vision of vanguard languages. In addition, it sought to deter social realism, Americanisms, indigenisms, and the influence of Mexican muralism, usually associated with leftist thought. The intersection of these three projects produced a network that brought about the founding of the museums in Cartagena and Barranquilla, which were precocious within the Colombian context.2

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