Jorge Romero Brest and the Coordinates of Aesthetic Modernism in Latin America

Abstract

Jorge Romero Brest and the Coordinates of Aesthetic Modernism in Latin America Both influential and controversial, the sixty-year art-critical practice of Jorge Romero Brest (190^-1988) was fundamental not only for the introduction of the idea of modern art in Latin America but also for the problematization of its crisis. Romero Brest is usually associated with the culminating point of his public career, when he directed the Centro de Artes Visuales (CAV) of the Instituto Torcuato Di Tella (ITDT) in Buenos Aires during the 1960s. This center for cultural and scientific experimen tation was noteworthy in Latin America for its exceptional interdis ciplinary approach integrating advanced research in fields such as the visual arts, music, theater, economics, and medicine. Romero Brest's directorship of the CAV during those years helped crystallize aesthetic thought that had been intensely shaped by the political and intellectual history of the period. Although trained in physics and law, Romero Brest decided early on to ded icate himself to the study of art history, which he complemented in the 1930s with his first trips to Europe and extensive readings in philosophy. Argentina's political situation during that period triggered his own interest in politics. He soon approached the work of Marx, Engels, and Lenin but would not join the Socialist Party until 1945, and then only in response to the rise of Peronism.1 In 1937 he published El problema del arte y del artista contempor?neos: Bases para su dilucidaci?n cr?tica [The Problem of Contemporary Art and Artists: Bases for their Critical Analysis], in which he addressed the social agency of art. Romero Brest's role as an educator and lecturer in different Latin American countries had an influential, formative role in the art criticism of those nations. Between 1939 and 1947 he taught at the Universidad de La Plata, until he was fired due to his opposition to Per?n s government. In 1941, he created the class Orientation and Artistic Research at the Colegio Libre de Estudios Superiores de Buenos Aires. In the 1930s, he also lectured at Montevideo's Universidad de la Rep?blica. Romero Brest did not produce art criticism in a systematic manner until 1939, when he came to see it as a way of shaping public criteria for historical and aesthetic valorization. His essays appeared regularly in the socialist newspa per La Vanguardia (1939-40), the antifascist periodical Argentina Libre (1940-46), and the well-known magazine Ver y Estimar ( 1948-^), which he published with the collaboration of students such as Marta Traba and Dami?n Carlos Bay?n, and a network of international correspondents such as Mario Pedrosa, Fernando Garc?a Esteban, Mathias Goeritz, Lionello Venturi, and Max Bill, all of whom were themselves extremely influential. This magazine, characterized by its support for