Sweeping exhibition of Colombian Art at the IDB Cultural Center
By hola | Published | 4 Comments
Sin título (1973) by Alejandro Obregón
The sculptures of Enrique Grau, Gonzalo Ariza’s landscapes, David Manzur’s poetic paintings, and work by 20 other Colombian artists are on display in “The Marvelous Real: Colombia Through the Vision of its Artists,” an exhibition at the Cultural Center gallery of the Inter-American Development Bank through until September 27.
Curated by Felix Ángel, the exhibition successfully illustrates the history of Colombian art through 36 pieces that include paintings, sculptures and video. What is remarkable about the show is that unites the Colombian artworks, part of the bank’s more than 1,700-piece collection*, in a thoughtful and chronological manner. Each piece is accompanied by a bilingual (English/Spanish) biography of the artist and an explanatory note offering context about the times in which it was made.
Gonzalo Ariza’s savannas and mountains welcome the viewer with a piece that introduces the spectator to Colombia’s multiple landscapes. Renowned Colombian artists such as Edgar Negret, Fanny Sanín, Enrique Grau, and Eduardo Ramírez Villamizar share space with the more contemporary work of Andrés Felipe Uribe and Carlos Fernando Osuna and others. It is surprising to see the reality of Enrique Grau’s sculpture, “The Kiss” (El beso) (1995), in the same exhibition with Andrés Felipe Uribe’s shocking video that criticizes a Colombian government campaign promoting a positive view of the country abroad by tattooing a heart in his chest.
The exhibition also underscores the many topics and techniques preferred by the artists. There’s the exquisitely detailed landscape love affair of Juan Bernal’s “Spirits of Nature” (Espíritus de la naturaleza) (2002), the gold replicas of Pre-Columbian pieces of Bogotá’s Gold Museum, the marvelous Negret’s sculpture “The Sun” (El Sol) (1985), and the colorful looms of Olga de Amaral in “Limestone Cliffs” (Riscos Calizos) (1988), among others.
The exhibition showcases the diversity of Colombian art, raising questions about the validity of its title. Alejo Carpentier’s “marvelous real” was a concept launched during the ’50s that represented not only Colombian but Latin American culture at that time. What this outstanding exhibition illustrates is the concern of its artists to describe a country that, as the show rightly highlights, is “in the making” and precisely because of that has been interpreted in many different ways by its artists. This selection of work certainly goes further than the old and general “marvelous real” concept.
The exhibition sets a high bar for the future showcases of the Latin American work planned for the bank’s art collection. In the meantime, these pieces will be viewable on the new IPAD version (downloadable it here) of the IDB gallery, another positive idea to promote the Latin American art on display in the bank’s building.
–Lucía Camargo Rojas
[*CORRECTION: The IDB has more than 1,700 pieces in its collection, not 700 pieces, as this story previously stated.]
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