Aquí, hoy, a viva voz: sobre lo contemporáneo en el arte colombiano

Based on the thesis of the “end of art” and of the “end of the avant-garde”, and through the analysis of a series of interviews to Colombian artists, art critics, curators, and art historians, this paper explores some of the concepts that are used to construct the self-awareness of contemporarity in Colombian art. The analysis shows that this self-awareness is almost always determined by the penetration and consolidation in Colombia of the new ways of making art promoted by the neo-avant-gardes, that arouses local versions of the same concerns about the role of the institutions and the relationships between art and life. Very often, the most influent concepts used to understand this state of affairs come from the theories of postmodernity.