Forty years ago, an art student’s project to create an art magazine came to life with the first edition of “Arte en Colombia”. Over the last four decades, it has become the leading source of information on Latin American art, at a time when awareness of Latin American art has been growing in North America and in Europe. In 1991, it changed its name to ArtNexus to reflect its wider Latin American coverage and growing international audience.
To celebrate its 40th birthday, the exhibition “Four Decades: Latin American Art” has been organised in two cities – Bogota and Miami – featuring work by many of the artists who have been featured on the cover of the magazine and have made valuable contributions to contemporary Latin American art, with a percentage of the sales donated to the ArtNexus Foundation which promotes arts and architecture through events and publications and maintains a library and research-archive in Bogota.
The exhibition shows the variety and breadth of Latin American art, encompassing sculpture, photography, mixed media, prints and paintings., with three of the earliest works being sculptures: Édgar Negret’s “The Bridge – Homage to Paul Foster” from around 1968-1970, Jesús Soto sculpture from the “Jai Alai” series (1969) and Eduardo Rámirez Villamizar’s “Diamond” from 1984.
Many of the artists like Carlos Cruz-Diez, Jesús Soto and Ernesto Neto have become internationally-known. Works on display include Iole de Fritas’ “La Tallera (2006), Carmen Herrera’s “Black and White” print from 2009, Carlos Cruz-Diez “Physichromie Panam 79” (2012), Alfredo Jaar’s “A Logo for America” (2014), Armando Morales “Dream at Dawn II” (1983), Miguel Angel Rojas’ “Intervened Economy! (2008) and Ernesto Neto’s “Heart and Mind” (2013).
In addition, ArtNexus published a much-needed and essential short guide to the myriad of art fairs and exhibitions taking place during Miami Art-Basel. Picked up at one of the art fairs, this would have been of even more value had it been available a few weeks in advance.