LUIS FERNANDO VALENCIA

Luis Fernando Valencia (1946) is a colombian artist who began his work in 1974, and in the same year began his performance as an art critic. His first works as an artist were recognized in his country as fundamental contributions to what has been called “Conceptual Photography”. In the same year of his beginning as an artist, he received a First Prize in “The August Salon 1975” at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Bogotá. In 1981 he received another First Prize at the Regional Salon, an event belonging to the National Salon of Colombian Artists. He represented his country at the 1983 Sao Paulo Biennale with a group of artists who initiated the change from traditional photography to photography related to the plastic arts. The selection of artists was convened by Eduardo Serrano, the most important art critic in Colombia at the time. He was invited to the 1982 Sydney Biennale, considered a historic event of the 1980s due to the participation of many of the artists who would set important trends in the following two decades. His architecture studies in the sixties, his degree in plastic arts in the seventies and his masters in aesthetics and art philosophy in the nineties were basic assets for his career as an artist and as a critic. His name appears in the books published so far on the history of photography in Colombia as a pioneer of a fundamental change in the conception of photography as art. His thesis work: "¿Que es la Experiencia Estética?" received the summa cum laude distinction from the Philosophy Institute at University of Antioquia. The most important publishing house in Colombia, "Villegas Editores", made an extensive book written by Mr. Valencia on the outstanding artist Mario Vélez. During the first two decades of the present 21st century, he taught subjects in graduate programs such as History of Contemporary Art, History of Modern and Contemporary Art in Colombia, History of Photography and lectured on Visual Studies. He was a professor at the Art Institute, Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana, Universidad de Antioquia and Colombia’s National University, Medellín, where he also was the Director of the Fine Arts Program. He also received the distinction “Exceptional Teaching” on several occasions. Mr. Valencia was co-founder of the Museum of Modern Art of Medellín, Colombia. He has been a jury, domestic and international, in biennales and arts events and presented papers in Colombia, Mexico, Ecuador and Paraguay.