Following the exhibition Insectos [Insects] in June 1962, the article “Jaramillo: Pintura visible y audible” [Jaramillo: Visible and Audible Painting] by Marta Traba (1923–1983), the Argentine art critic who spent many years in Colombia, established the young artist Luciano Jaramillo as a major talent after his work was recognized by one of the most influential intellectuals of the period. This article helps to understand the arrival of a new existential, pessimistic, and violent form of Figuration—heir to the work of Alejandro Obregón (1920-1992).
Jaramillo was born in the city of Manizales (Caldas); in 1957 and 1958 he studied painting and advertising at L’École Paul Colin in Paris. On his return to Colombia, his first exhibitions drew the attention of resident art critics such as Traba, Walter Engel (1908–2005), and Casimiro Eiger (1911–1987), originally from Vienna and Poland, respectively. All three encouraged his Expressionist painting, though Traba criticized the strong influence of the French painter Bernard Buffet (1928-1999) in Jaramillo’s early works, in 1959. In this article, Traba mentions Jaramillo’s “authentic aggressiveness, even when he becomes lost in ‘Buffetian’ labyrinths, in monsters, or in deformed ineptitude.”
The year prior to the Insectos exhibition was a defining one for Jaramillo. In 1961, he was appointed professor of painting at the Universidad de los Andes; he had several shows during that period; and he exhibited at the XIII Salón de Artistas Colombianos [13th Colombian Artists Salon] where he was awarded second prize for painting. Traba and Engel both reviewed his exhibitions favorably in a series of articles, including “El gran talento de Luciano Jaramillo” [Luciano Jaramillo’s Great Talent], La Nueva Prensa (April 19-25, 1961).
The Colombian journalist Alberto Zalamea Costa (b. 1926)—who was Marta Traba’s husband at the time—launched La Nueva Prensa magazine in April 1961. With the help of a select group of intellectuals and members of the political class, Zalamea positioned the weekly magazine in open opposition to the Frente Nacional [National Front], the obligatory bipartisan alternative to the Colombian presidency for 16 years. In 1963, La Nueva Prensa became a daily newspaper that was published until 1967. Traba wrote a weekly column about modern art and “the new Figuration” that Jaramillo represented. She also organized debates on art at the newspaper’s offices, which became a cultural center. This article subsequently appeared in the book Mirar en Bogotá [Seeing in Bogotá] (1976) that was published by the Instituto Colombiano de Cultura –Colcultura [Colombian Cultural Institute – Colcultura], and was included in the collection of articles titled Marta Traba (1984) assembled by the Museo de Arte Moderno in Bogotá.