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| Revolutionaries of Colombian art exhibit in Mexico |
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Works by Débora Arango, first woman who painted a nude in 1940, and three other contemporary artists as well as one outstanding Colombian photographer are being exhibited in Guadalajara
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A view of the exhibition hall with the work by artist Débora Arango |
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28 November 2007/ Press Ministry of Culture Colombia
At the Instituto Cultural Cabañas, one of the most important historic sites in Mexico, inscribed in UNESCO’s World Heritage List, are being exhibited since the 21st of November the exhibitions Débora Arango, una revolución del arte colombiano (Débora Arango, A Revolution in Colombian Art) and Contratextos, a collective exhibition with three of the most outstanding contemporary artists in the country: Óscar Muñoz, José Alejandro Restrepo and Miguel Ángel Rojas. The exhibition includes works by Fernell Franco, an artist who has been gaining significance in the second half of the 20th century in Colombia and in the international arena.
In the opening ceremony, the Director of the National Museum of Colombia, María Victoria de Robayo, said these exhibitions present Colombia as a country of cultural diversity, with a population that has expressed itself in many different ways throughout the centuries, and with an incredible and very obvious cultural wealth.
The Instituto Cabañas treasures some of the works by Mexican artist José Clemente Orozco, who in part inspired and influenced the Works of Débora Arango, a significant tribute to the great painter from the Antioquia region in her centennial anniversary. “Débora took from Orozco the interest in social issues and used the techniques of exaggeration and disproportion of forms as the way to criticize injustice, corruption and double morale,” said María Victoria de Robayo, who thanked the Museum of Modern Art of Medellín, custodian of the artist’s works.
On the other hand, the exhibition Contratextos constitutes a reflection on representation, photography, video and drawings by three of the post outstanding contemporary artists in Colombia, all of them internationally known.
Regarding the work of the Colombian artists included in the exhibition, the Director of the Department of Culture of the International Book Fair of Guadalajara, Igor Lozada, underlined some of the most significant features, and said: “artist Oscar Muñoz presents in his work on the human body the temporary and the ephemeral, among other ion the other hand presents aspects of Colombian culture, history and identity. Miguel Ángel Rojas is a contemporary artist who defines himself in his attitude, to say it in his own words: “Not finding definite solutions to the problems I face in my work is something crucial for me,” he said.
Lozada also referred to Débora Arango saying “she was part Mexican, because her work was very much influenced by the three greatest artists of Mexican muralist movement: Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Sequeiros and Orozco, as well as by the imagery of death - tragic and humoristic- of José Guadalupe Posada.”
According to María Lovino, curator of the exhibition and art critic, “there is a connection and continuity between the two exhibitions, because Mexico has placed a very important role in the modern history of Colombian art and Latin American art, something clear in the art of Débora Arango through the influence of muralist art. References to Mexican cinema and other expressions that influenced the idea of identity are present in the second exhibition, all of these marked also by the problems of colonization.”
Débora Arango’s exhibition at the Cabañas is divided into four major topics that are a sort of leit motif in her work: social issues, nudes, church and politics. The first part shows the social context in Colombia in the 1940s, a time of strong political confrontation in the country. With nudes, the artist shows the oppression and marginalization of women at the time, while the works about the Church present the institution as responsible for some of the most painful events occurred in the country in the 1950s. The political part of the exhibition shows deformed faces – one of the greatest contributions to visual arts- and paints politicians as animals.
Contratextos, on the other hand, exhibits the works by four contemporary artists who have changed the course of art history in the country. “With them, ends the history of costumbrism and begins urban art sparkling post-modernity and pre-modern agrarian structures. Fernell is the first artist to conceive (in the first half of the 20th century) photography in an abstract way and also the first to capture images beyond the obvious information,” says María Lovino, curator of the exhibition.
These exhibitions traveled to Mexico thanks to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Colombia, and to the efforts of María Claudia Parias, Director for Cultural Affairs of the Ministry.
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