Essay Instructions: TITTLE OF THE THESIS: The Face of Violence: Art as witness, interpreter and mediator of violence in Colombia.
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE: This thesis evaluates the social role of art in the problem of violence in Colombia, as an active element, witness, interpreter and mediator, and the relationship between artists and social circumstances in Colombia.
I. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
A. Narrative
The description of the violence in Colombia has been a theme well enough dissected nationally and internationally. On the contrary, Colombian art and its history seem to be secluded to a more local context and are, for the most part, frequently overlooked.
A great part of Colombian art, as it happens elsewhere, represents what happens in the country. Unfortunately, violence has been a big part of Colombians’ lives throughout their history. Through an analysis of the work of Colombian artists that have worked with violence as a subject for their art, this thesis examines the social role of art in the problem of violence in Colombia; art as an active element, witness, interpreter and mediator, and the relationship between artists and social circumstances in Colombia.
This concept is of primary importance, since as first hand witnesses of the history of Colombia and as activists of an aesthetic expression, artists have a very interesting story to share with the rest of the world. This dissertation seeks to have a social effect. If these ideas, concepts and expressions are shared, this can be a contribution for a better understanding about what is happening in Colombia. It can promote a greater awareness and civic commitment. After all, art must have a social function and civic responsibility.
B. Art and Violence in Colombia
Since the beginning of the 20th Century, several artists have dedicated themselves to represent violence in Colombia. However, it wouldn’t be until of mid-century when they really felt compromised with the social reality of the country. Between 1948 and 1958, Colombia lived a period called La Violencia. This sudden outbreak of violence was the result of a longtime constrained frustration by the public over the corrupted and centralized government and spread throughout the entire country. Like never before, an important number of artists responded to the events and became aesthetic activists. This difficult time produced a very intense movement in culture and arts in general; writers such as Alvaro Mutis, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Leon de Greiff came to the public light. Artists such as Alejandro Obregón, Fernando Botero, Deborah Arango, Pedro Nel Gómez, and Luis Caballero, among others, began to use their work to denounce, protest, and/or criticize political and social injustice.
Guerillas and paramilitary movements, created in the 1960s and extremely active during the following two decades, concentrated their subversive and terrorist activities mostly in rural areas where peasants and indigenous were the main victims. An example of the artistic production at the time is the group Factory Four, formed by the artists: Nirma Zárate (1939-1999) and Diego Arango (1942), and other artists.
The last decades of the 20th Century brought a new generation of artists facing a different type of violence when, in addition to the old political conflicts, the drug and narcotics traffic war made its entrance. In the 1980s, narcotics trafficking became a multi-billion dollar illicit business in Colombia. By the 1990s, the internal war between cartels, in addition to the Colombian government and international military persecution reached the cities that for almost two decades were fairly safe.
For many artists and regular citizens, it was an awakening. Now, artists were first hand witnesses living in the middle of a social, political, and criminal violence. The 1980s and ‘90s produced art with different points of view, diverse approaches, and new means of expression. Artists like Juan Fernando Herrán (1963) use photography to question the institutional aspects of the war against narcotics trafficking. Or, for example, Jose Alejandro Restrepo (1959) explores the origins of violence and works with video-installations. Different perspectives, such as the feminist, gained strength. Two of the most influential artists who have dedicated their work to the subject of violence are Beatriz González (1938) and Doris Salcedo (1958). They work with images taken from real events, but their message is neither political nor social. Gonzalez and Salcedo focus on the human, intimate, and personal vision of the victims and survivors of violence.
Today, Colombia is undergoing a rehabilitation process. Citizens and government, in general, understand that everybody has a civic responsibility and that in order to end violence in the country, it is necessary to work with the people. Victims and non-victims must learn from the past and heal, but not forget. Many sectors of society; governmental institutions, church, industry, artists, and cultural organizations are participating and creating public programs that use art as a therapeutic, educational, and edifying tool. Art has become a means for exercises on collective memory, relief, and expression.
C. Boundaries
From an historic and social perspective, this thesis is divided in three main sections that address the artistic production of distinctive and crucial periods of time in the last half of the 20th Century, when, in consensus with most historians, Colombia entered cultural modernity. The first part deals with the political violence in the 1950s and revolutionary violence from the 1960s to the ‘80s. The second one concentrates on the terroristic and narcotic violence in the 1980s and ‘90s. Finally, the third section focuses on violence in the new millennium and the new approaches to it.
D. Objectives
Beyond the analysis of certain works of art, this project seeks to learn how art has reflected, produced, generated and /or facilitated new views to the problem of violence. It also attempts to evaluate the impact of the Colombian socio-political situation in artistic production, and how much art has been or not been engaged with the circumstances in Colombia.
General Objetives:
-To study the different periods of violence in Colombia since the second half of the 20th Century and the consequent artistic production.
-To relate the content of the diverse works with the phenomenon of violence in Colombia identifying the historical content.
-To analyze of the works of Colombian artists that address the theme of violence, their perceptions of the country, and their positions; what message they want to express in their work and their contribution to the field.
-To study the capacity of aesthetic language to interpret and transmit the reality of Colombian situation concerning violence.
II. JUSTIFICATION:
My first approach to the subject was when I was writing the term paper for my Latin America Art class about violence in the art of Alejandro Obregon. I found out violence was a repeated topic for Colombian artists. A year later, I participated in the symposium Visible Players in Civic Life; Museums and Civic Engagement organized by City College of New York. My paper, Everyday Museums, makes reference to the public programs developed by the National Museum of Colombia seeking reflection on cultural heritage, social situation of victims of violence, and practical actions of civic participation. Cultural action in Colombia has not had a tradition of being evaluated and the hunt for research material was particularly difficult.
Within the subject of art and violence, literature is limited. The most important text is the catalogue for the exhibition Arte y violencia en Colombia desde 1948, published by the Museum of Modern Art of Bogota. This catalog shows a variety of artists who have addressed violence in their works, the multiple manifestations and approaches to the subject. Most of the works on the subject were published before 1980 and focus on the period of La Violencia. There are few more recent texts, but most of them are theses, surveys, or encyclopedias. Contextual and formal analyses are left mainly for articles and cultural magazines.
In recent years, the general awakening has influenced some artists and scholars to write from different perspectives. An example of that are the reflections on the origin of violence and its reasons in Cuerpo Gramatical: Cuerpo, arte y violencia by Jose Alejandro Restrepo. Anthropologist Pilar Riaño Alcala whose work focuses on violence and social engagement, writes about public art in “Encounters with Memory and Mourning: Public Art as Collective Pedagogy of Reconciliation.” Colombian historian Ana Maria Reyes wrote a thesis for her master’s degree at University of Chicago entitled “Fernando Botero’s Pictorial Language of La Violencia en Colombia.” Reyes, who was my professor at same university, also wrote “Horrific Beauty: Commemoration and the Aestheticization of Violence in Contemporary Colombian Art;” a paper presented at the seminar, New Perspectives in the Study of Social Conflict, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. No a comprehensive study about art, violence and civic engagement in Colombia has been done. It is certainly pertinent.
III. PROPOSED CONTENT (open to some /minor changes)
1. Introduction
2. A look to Colombian social, Political and Artistic context
a.Political Violence Between 1948 and 1958
b.Revolutionary Violence in the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s
-Case of study #1: Alejandro Obregon
-Case of study #2: Deborah Arango
c.Terroristic and Narcotic Violence in the 1980s and ‘90s
- Case of study#3: Beatriz Gonzalez
- Case of study#4: Doris Salcedo
3.Surviving Violence, A New Millennium
-Case of study #5: Public art project: La piel de la
memoria (the Skin of Memory)
4.Conclusions
5.Bibliography
6.List of Images
IV. BIBLIOGRAPHY (*the following books are “must have”. You must include them in the bibliography, I’m also including a list of suggested books)
-Traba, Marta. Historia abierta del arte colombiano, Bogotá, Colcultura, 1984
-Medina, Alvaro. “El arte y la violencia colombiana en la segunda mitad del siglo XX.” in Arte y violencia en Colombia desde 1948. Museo de arte moderno de Bogotá. Grupo editorial Norma. Bogotá. Mayo- julio de 1999. 10-118 *I CAN FAX IT, BUT IS 150 PAGES, PLEASE ADVISE
- Uribe, Maria Victoria. “Desde los margenes de la cultura” in Arte y violencia en Colombia desde 1948. Museo de arte moderno de Bogotá. Grupo editorial Norma. Bogotá. Mayo- julio de 1999. 276-286 SAME BOOK ABOVE
-Rodriguez, Dominique. “Violencia y arte: contagio por transfusion.” Agenda Cultural. Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano. (November, 1999): 4-9 *I CAN FAX, IT’S 9 PAGES
- Reyes, Ana Maria. “Horrific Beauty: Commemoration and the Aestheticization of Violence in Contemporary Colombian Art;” a paper presented at the seminar, New Perspectives in the Study of Social Conflict, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. (March 23, 2001)
Riaño Alcalá, Pilar. "Encounters with Memory and Mourning: Public Art as Collective Pedagogy of Reconciliation." in Public Acts: Disruptive Readings on Making Curriculum Public, ed. Francisco Ibanez-Carrasco and Erica Meiners (New York: Routledge, 2004). 237-61.
_____ "La piel de la memoria--Barrio Antioquia: pasado, presente y futuro," Novay Vetera 36 (August-September 1999): 79-85.
V. SUGESSTED BIBLIOGRAPHY: (suggested and not limited to, except for the “must have” books)
A.colombian History
Absalón, Jiménez, Democracia en tiempos de crisis 1949-1994, Bogotá, instituto de estudios políticos y relaciones internacionales, 2003
Alonso, Salazar, Profeta en el desierto, vida y muerte de Luís Carlos Galán, Bogotá, Ed. Planeta, 2003
Borrero, Armando. “Las guerras colombianas del siglo XX.” Revista Javeriana (Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá), vol. 138, no. 635 (June 2002).
Bushnell, David. “La Violencia.” Chap. 9 in The Making of Modern Colombia: A Nation
in Spite of Itself. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993, 201-222
_____ “The National Front.” Chap. 10 in The Making of Modern Colombia: A Nation
in Spite of Itself. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993, 223-248
Thoroughly documented, the chapters are evenly balanced in focus on the colonial period, the nineteenth century, and the twentieth century through the early 1990s.
Girard, Rene. Violence and the Sacred. The Johns Hopkins University Press (January 1979).
The author exposes the entire history of the alliance between Violence and religion
Jaramillo, Ana María, and others. Miedo y desplazamiento. Experiencias y percepciones, ed. Corporación Región (Medellín 2004).
Kalmanovitz, Salomón. Las instituciones políticas en el siglo XX, Bogotá, Banco de la republica, 1999
López de la Roche , Fabio. “Condicionamientos culturales de la violencia en Colombia” Universitas Humanísticas (Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá), vol. 24, no. 42 (June-December 1995).
Medina Gallego, Carlos y Mireya Téllez Ardila. La violencia parainstitucional paramilitar y parapolicial en Colombia. Bogota, Rodríguez Quito Editores, 1994
Pécault, Daniel. Guerra contra la sociedad, Bogotá, Ed. Planeta, 2001.
_____ Violencia y política en Colombia. Elementos de reflexión, Medellín, Ed. Hombre nuevo, 2003
Taussig, Michael. Law in a Lawless Land: Diary of a Limpieza in Colombia University of Chicago Press, 2005
Anthropologist Taussig chronicles two weeks in a small town in Colombia's Cauca Valley taken over by paramilitaries. It offers a insight into the nature of Colombia's present peril; the paramilitaries, the police and the desperate townspeople.
B.Colombian Art history
Álvarez, Miladis. “La plástica hoy como ayer”. Revista Javeriana (Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá), vol. 138, no. 635 (June 2002): 48-54.
Guillén Martínez, Fernando. "Introducción a nuestra pintura contemporánea."Revista de las Indias, Nº 103 (March-April, 1949)
This article gives an introduction of the modern art history in Colombia. It introduces the political works of some Colombian artists.
Londoño, Santiago. “Lyrical Americanism.” in Colombian Art. Bogotá: Villegas Ed., 2001. 309-313
_____ “Expressionists and Political Art.” In Colombian Art . Bogotá: Villegas Ed., 2001. 337-349
Analyzes Colombian more important moments in art. Londono explains how art is a revolution on consciousness and expression of local values throughout Colombian history. It is definitively useful to get a complete idea of the development of art in the country.
Medina, Alvaro. Procesos del arte en Colombia. Instituto Colombiano de Cultura, Bogota, 1978.
Nancy Princenthal, Carlos Basualdo, Andreas Huyssen. Doris Salcedo, Londres, Ed. Phaidon, 2000
Panesso, Fausto y Olga Lucia Jordan. “Beatriz González.” Arte y parte cuatro décadas en el arte colombiano, vol. 1, ed. Gamma (Bogotá 1990)
This survey presents a series of artists, their biographies and a general description on their artwork.
Posada, Gloria. “Beatriz González: documentos de identidad”. Revista Universidad de Antioquia (Universidad de Antioquia, Medellín) no. 226 (April-June 1999).
Seloff, Gary Alan. “Alejandro Obregón and the Development of Modern Art in Colombia.” (master’s thesis, University of Texas at Austin, n.d. 1983)
Szyszlo, Fernando de. “Contemporary Latin American Painting: A Brief Survey.” College Art Journal, Vol 19, Nº 2 (Winter, 1959-1960) 134-145
He focuses his work in the increasingly visible presence of Latin American artists and their work on the global art scene.
Traba, Marta. Historia abierta del arte colombiano, Bogotá, Colcultura, 1984
One of the most important books about the history of Colombian art, includes the work of several Colombian artists.
_____ La pintura nueva en Latinoamérica. Bogotá: ed. Librería Central, 1961. 138-143
Traba puts in evidence the forgetfulness in which was the art of Latin America. In this book, she emphasizes the importance of the leaders of Latin American modern art.
_____ “Violencia: una obra comprometida con Obregón.” La Nueva Prensa, Vol. 65, Ref. 136 A (August 3, 1962) 72
This article gives a formal analysis of Obregón’s paintings: The Massacre of the 10 of April (1948), and Violence (1962), focusing in the latter one.
_____ Seis artistas contemporáneos colombianos. Bogotá: ed Antares, 1963.
Overview of six important Colombian artists: Enrique Grau, Edgar Negret, Alejandro Obregón, Eduardo Ramírez Villamizar, Fernando Botero, and Doris Salcedo.
Robayo, Álvaro. La critica a los valores hegemónicos en el arte colombiano. Bogotá, Convenio Andrés Bello: Ediciones uniandes, 2001
Rubiano Caballero, Germán. “Arte moderno en Colombia: de comienzos de siglo a las manifestaciones más recientes.” in Colombia hoy perspectivas hacia el siglo XXI. Bogotá, tercer mundo editores, 1995
“Yo soy como Débora Arango pero 30 años después”. Revista Avianca (Bogotá), no. 10 (January 2006).
“Doris Salcedo”, Nuevos nombres: seguimiento, Banco de la Republica , 1990, Nº 3 exposiciones
C.Art and Violence
Cobo Borda, Juan. “Obregón: entre la guerra y la paz.” Revista Cromos, Nº 3399 (March 8, 1983)
Cobo highlights that Obregón incorporated into his painting a repertory of themes that transcend literary reference and are unmistakably Colombian in character. He talks about Obregón’s works that best represent the violent political events of the moment in the country.
Cohen, David. “The Dualist - Painting, Francis Bacon, Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany.” Art in America. (January, 1997)
For Cohen, Bacon’s art had registered and interpreted uncountable bloody and miserable episodes. He analyzes the painter’s works in term of violence.
Gaitan, Andres. “El arte en la era de los ciegos.” in Arte y violencia en Colombia desde 1948. Museo de arte moderno de Bogotá. Grupo editorial Norma. Bogotá. Mayo- julio de 1999. 132-150.
Gonzalez, Beatriz. Artistas en tiempos de guerra. Museo Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá. 1999
Guzman, German, Orlando Fals and Eduardo Umaña. Violencia en Colombia, estudio de un proceso social. Ed. Punta de lanza. 8th edition. vol. I and II. July, 1977.
Henriquez, Cecilia. “Violencia, arte abstracto y neofiguracion.” in Arte y violencia en Colombia desde 1948. Museo de arte moderno de Bogotá. Grupo editorial Norma. Bogotá. Mayo- julio de 1999. 120-131
Jones, Jonathan. “When the Master of Peace Did Violence.” The Guardian. (October, 2003)
Picasso painted the most compelling antiwar images in history. The author main argument is violence as Picasso’s greatest theme.
Kristeva, Julia. “La hora de los muertos: imágenes de lo prohibido en el arte actual.” Revista de occidente, no 21, (February 1998).
Londoño, Santiago. “Violencia, Las 10 obras de arte del siglo XX en Colombia.” Revista Credencial Historia, Nº 111 (March, 1999)
It is a very helpful resource to have a bigger picture of the importance of violence as recurrent theme in Colombian art. He enlists Obregón’s La Violencia as one of most emblematic paintings in Colombian modern art.
Medina, Alvaro. “El arte y la violencia colombiana en la segunda mitad del siglo XX.” in Arte y violencia en Colombia desde 1948. Museo de arte moderno de Bogotá. Grupo editorial Norma. Bogotá. Mayo- julio de 1999. 10-118
This exhibit catalog shows a variety of artists who have addressed violence since 1948, the multiple manifestations and approaches to the subject and formal analysis of the works exhibited. It was my starting point and main source.
Restrepo, Jose Alejandro. Cuerpo Gramatical: Cuerpo, arte y violencia. Ediciones Uniandes –Universidad de los Andes. Bogota, 2006.
Rodriguez, Dominique. “Violencia y arte: contagio por transfusion.” Agenda Cultural. Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano. (November, 1999): 4-9
Rubiano Caballero, Germán. “El arte de la violencia.” in Arte en Colombia (Bogotá), no. 25 (1984): 25-33.
Author dedicates this entire chapter of his book to analyzed the art inspired by the drama of violence in Colombia
Uribe, Maria Victoria. “Desde los margenes de la cultura” in Arte y violencia en Colombia desde 1948. Museo de arte moderno de Bogotá. Grupo editorial Norma. Bogotá. Mayo- julio de 1999. 276-286
Includes notes from an interview to Doris Salcedo by Santiago Villaveces as part of a research proyect called: El pais de los ciegos in 1993.
D.Art and Civic Engagement
Hirzy, Ellen. “A Challenge to Museums” in Mastering Civic Engagement. ed. American Association of Museums (Washington 2004).
Hoyos, Mauricio . La piel de la memoria--Barrio Antioquia: pasado, presente y future.” Medellin: Corporacion Region (2001): 124.
Lacy, Suzanne. “Medellin, Colombia: Reinhabiting Memory,” Art Journal, vol. 65, no.4. Thomson Gale (December 22, 2006): 17
Reyes, Ana Maria. “Horrific Beauty: Commemoration and the Aestheticization of Violence in Contemporary Colombian Art;” a paper presented at the seminar, New Perspectives in the Study of Social Conflict, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. (March 23, 2001)
Riaño Alcalá, Pilar. "Encounters with Memory and Mourning: Public Art as Collective Pedagogy of Reconciliation." in Public Acts: Disruptive Readings on Making Curriculum Public, ed. Francisco Ibanez-Carrasco and Erica Meiners (New York: Routledge, 2004). 237-61.
_____ “Encuentros artísticos con el dolor, las memorias y las violencias.” En publicacion: ICONOS. Revista de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO, Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales, Quito), no. 21 ( 2005).
_____ "La piel de la memoria--Barrio Antioquia: pasado, presente y futuro," Novay Vetera 36 (August-September 1999): 79-85.
E.Websites
Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History (ICANH),
accessed: November 2, 2007
National Museum of Colombia, accessed: October 25, 2007
_____ Exhibition’s page, Yolanda: Fragments of Exile and Uprooting
accessed: November 2, 2007
Latin Arte,
Luis Angel Arango Library (national library),
Colarte,
http://www.wrtu.org
F.Theory
Wallis, Brian. Art After Modernism: Rethinking Representation.
Benjamin, Walter. “The Author as Producer”. in Art after Modernism: Rethinking Representation. Contributors: Brian Wallis - editor. Museum of Contemporary Art. (New York. 1984): 297.
_____ Para una crítica de la violencia, Madrid, Taurus, 1999.
Foster, Hal. The Return of the Real: Art and Theory at the End of the Century. MIT Press. 1996
Barthes, Roland. “From Work to Text”. in Art after Modernism: Rethinking Representation. Contributors: Brian Wallis - editor. Museum of Contemporary Art. (New York. 1984): 169.
Panofsky, Erwin.
G.Others:
Restrepo, Laura. “Niveles de la realidad en la literatura de la violencia colombiana.” Ideologia y Sociedad, (1976) 7-35
This author argues the big impact of violence on the cultural environment in Colombia. Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Gustavo Alvarez Gardeazabal are just couple of the many writers and intellectuals that wrote about the subject. This essay helps to understand the group of Colombian artists that were influenced by the political and social environment and vice versa.
Cobo Borda, Juan Gustavo. “Poesía y novela en Colombia en la década del 80: Algunas tendencias.” in Colombia hoy perspectivas hacia el siglo XXI. Bogotá, tercer mundo editores, 1995.
Panesso, Fausto. Los Intocables. Bogotá: ed. Alcaraván, 1975.
The book, is a retrospective about the most important painters in the development of the visual arts in Colombia.
Posada, Francisco. Ideas sobre la cultura nacional y el arte realista. Bogotá: ed. Letras Nacionales, 1965. 7-33
A study about the variety of cultural expressions of Colombia in the XX century
Sanchez, Gonzalo. Translated by Peter Bakewell. “La Violencia in Colombia: New Research, New Questions.” The Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol. 65, Nº 4 (Nov., 1985), 789-807.
Even though this particular source was too general, It has an interesting debate about how ironically Colombia has traditionally had the strongest democracy in Latin America, with a significant social instability that began to spread throughout the country in the late 1940s.
THESIS MUST INCLUDE:
1.Images of mentioned artworks
2.Footnotes
3.At least 10 citations
4.At least 2 quotes
5.Table of Content
6.Bibliography 30-35 sources (current, whenever possible)
7.list of Images
8.Title page
9.Aproval and signature pages
Following this request form, YOU WILL RECEIVE AN EMAIL WITH:
Useful Reading material:
-Doris Salcedo and Beatriz Gonzalez (written by me. in Spanish)
-Interview: Medellin, Colombia: Reinhabiting Memory.” By Lacy, Suzanne. (about the project La piel de la memoria / the Skin of Memory, other of the study cases,)*
I CAN FAX THE BELOW SOURCES (*please let me know if you need them):
-Arte y violencia en colombia. Museo de Arte Moderno de bogota -150 pages (it is part of the “must have” books)
-Arte, memoria y Violencia. by Pilar Riano (it is part of the “must have” books)
- “Violencia y arte: contagio por transfusion.” Rodriguez, Dominique. (it is part of the “must have” books)
There are faxes for this order.
