“Waterweavers”: A new exhibition that explores the role of rivers in Colombian culture–and art
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A waterfall of azure linen string is the first thing you see when entering the new exhibition at the Art Museum of the Americas. The piece, “Nudo Azul XIII” by Olga de Amaral, exemplifies the spirit of the show, “Waterweavers: The River in Contemporary Colombian Visual and Material Culture.”
Curated to highlight the importance of Colombia’s waterways historically and in modern times, “Waterweavers investigates the intricate ways in which culture and nature can intertwine across disciplines,” according to the curator’s description, which decodes the river as “a conceptual device to explore the intersections between design, craft, and art.”Waterweavers is a spectacular collection including work by fifteen artists and designers. The pieces in the exhibition are a combination of traditional and nontraditional media ranging from watercolors and ink on paper, to rubber casts of trees and nylon-metal hand woven rugs. At the pre-opening gallery talk June 24, elegant men in suits and women in fine dresses coalesced in one of the museum’s galleries to hear about the artworks inspired by water and weaving.
The exhibition, on view until Sept. 27 when it heads to Madrid’s Centro Cultural Conde Duque, was organized by the Bard Graduate Center Gallery in New York City. Nina Stritzler-Levine, the director of Bard gallery and project director of the Waterweavers exhibition, was at the June reception, along with the curators, José Roca and Alejandro Martin.
Stritzler-Levine began by telling the audience the exhibition grew out of her Center’s “interest in doing a Latin American project” as part of its devotion “to studying the material world in a broad sense.”
Roca, who is also the artistic director at the FLORA ars+natura independent space in Bogotá, guided the audience from room to room, sharing his knowledge of each piece and explaining how each one varies in style and medium.
Alberto Baraya’s “Árbol Histórico ” captures the damage the pursuit of profit from natural resources has brought to the landscape of Colombia. A latex cast trunk of a huge rubber tree bears long columns of scars from years of tapping. There is a certain irony in coating a rubber tree in latex to show the damage the rubber trade has wrought on the environment.
Abel Rodríguez had to work as a botanist and draftsman to create “Ciclo Anual del Bosque La Vega”. A particular locale on the bank of a river is depicted in ink and watercolor twelve times over the course of a year. The Dutch NGO, Tropenbos International, commissioned it as a sort of calendar to show the annual cycle of the rainforest.
Though the vast majority of the work presented would be identified as art, Roca noted that Susana Mejía “does not consider [her work] an art piece.” Perhaps this is because it is the result of an ethnobotanical research project in the Colombian Amazon. “Color Amazonia” is made of two parts. The first being Fique plant fibers hung from the ceiling, naturally dyed with a bright variety of color. Second are monotypes of natural pigments with abstract designs and flora pressed on paper.
Only four of the fifteen contributors are mentioned here; but there are many other thought-provoking pieces in the exhibition. The exhibition is a must-see for those with an interest in Colombia and would certainly spur a fascination in Colombian culture for those not familiar with it.
—Oliver Garretson
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