In 1973, critic and theorist Juan Acha published the text Por una nueva problemática artística en Latinoamérica in Artes Visuales. The critical essay is available here in the original Spanish as well as translated into English for the first time. Selected original texts by Acha are published on post as part of the theme "Conceiving a Theory for Latin America: Juan Acha's Criticism."

In this text, Juan Acha underlines some central issues for art in Latin America in relation to “high” and “popular” art. He argues that the circulation of developmentalist aesthetics within third-world and more developed nations blurs the capacity of the former to properly conceptualize the emerging artistic problems of the region. He further posits that Latin American artistic production has always been based upon two modes—intellectualism and emotionalism—and that only by merging and dialectically superseding these dual approaches can a new aesthetic be attained. Acha argues that the new artistic problematic needs to be one of a sociological nature.