This document is important as a historical source for three main reasons:
1. It is one of the catalogues that records the activities that took place at the exhibition hall of the Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango during its first years.
2. It attests to the tension pervasive in the Colombian art scene at the time. While the exhibition hall of the Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango was a venue open to different generations and tendencies, the texts in some of the catalogues published in conjunction with the shows shed light on the abstraction-figuration polemic. Artists and critics took sides in the debate and, like Alipio Jaramillo (1913-1999), explained their positions. In the text Jaramillo himself wrote for the introduction to the catalogue to the Exposición de Alipio Jaramillo, the artist declares himself a realist. He attempts to legitimize his work, describing it as a “discourse both modern and alive.” In other words, he asserts its universality in both artistic and human terms. Jaramillo describes himself as an artist committed to the realities facing contemporary man, whereas abstract art—which he recognizes as visually coherent and interesting as an aesthetic formulation—is, in his view, overly indirect in its approach to the surrounding world.
3. This document evidences the reaction of realists to the emerging criticism of the day. Marta Traba (1923–1983) arrived in Colombia in 1954 and her presence would change the course of local art criticism. She would harshly criticize many artists—especially those who adhered to realism—for the political motivation explicit in their work. In this introduction, Jaramillo questions the criticism that was taking shape at the time, which he calls formalist. He states, “Let me assert that, at this time of our lives, we have the right to expect lucid and humanist criticism, a criticism that strives to see not only technique, but also personality—temperament and character—in a work of art. A criticism, that is, that heeds the experience of the individual in the world or, perhaps, a historical process—an aspect of man—reflected and recreated in art.”