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Between the desire to denounce the politics of a turbulent country and the exploration and celebration of identity, Colombian art is incredibly intense. But which artists have changed, and continue to change, the history of art? Paintings, installations, sculptures and drawings, discover the five famous Colombian artists that you absolutely must know!
How can one talk about Colombian art without mentioning Fernando Botero? In addition to being undeniably the most famous artist of Colombia, he is perhaps the most recognized in all of Latin America. Thanks to his diverse approaches, Fernando Botero was the first to spread Colombian art throughout the world. If Botero’s work has contributed so much to the history of art, it is also because it is so diverse. He is particularly known for his talent to realize scenes of daily life, portraits or nudes of women. But he is also known for having tackled ardent political subjects, such as the criminal violence of parts of Colombian society.
Plastic and multimedia artist, Doris Salcedo is one of the first Colombian artists to have gained international recognition. Specialized in installations and in situ interventions, her art is resolutely political. Often investing the public space, her work is both identity-based and collective. Salcedo questions our individuality as much as our political history, inviting the viewer to put on glasses as critical as they are sensitive. She works a lot on death and mourning, notably by diverting everyday objects.
Violent culture, violent art: the work of Doris Salcedo is impregnated with this Colombian violence, which she intends to denounce. Starting from the individual experience of mourning, she tries to propose to each citizen to reappropriate the collective history. To do this, she invites the population to meet during “actions of mourning”. In Bogotá, in the great Plaza de Bolívar, charged with its political and protesting dimension, the artist calls for recollection. We also owe her for the incredible installation Shibboleth, dealing with the horror of migration. In 2007 at the Tate Modern in London, she created this 167-meter-long fracture in the floor of the Turbine Hall. This huge crack represents what she calls “the experience of the third world, coming to the heart of Europe”. It’s a breathtaking work.
Emblematic figure of the Colombian conceptual art, and in the whole Latin America, Antonio Caro is famous for his protesting character. Exerting a “visual guerrilla”, the committed artist insists, denounces and calls to the rebellion. Not without humor, it diverts the advertising symbols to extract all the political substance of it. A protean artist, Caro creates paintings, posters and public installations. One of his most famous works is a detour of the Coca-Cola logo, transformed into “Colombia”. A direct reference to the ubiquitous brand of sweetened soft drink, the only company authorized to import the coca leaf (source of cocaine) into the United States until 1929. The same brand that causes serious health problems around the world, including Colombia. Using the popular and international imagery, he calls the Colombian people to break that inertia.
Master in the art of poetic drawing, Johanna Calle cultivates a delicacy of lines that brings an intense depth to her themes. Inequalities or social order, individual troubles, ecological disasters and power are some of the many subjects she questions and invites us to question. But Johanna Calle is famous today because she transforms art in her own way. On the one hand, she pushes the limits of drawing with an innovative approach to the medium. She draws with wood or steel, sprinkles her works with typed letters, photographs or wires. On the other hand, she composes her images as she would write poems, while carrying out a colossal work of prospecting. When she decides to dig into a subject, she does so with an almost scientific approach. She’s a perfectionist with a unique artistic approach!
Abstraction and social questioning are the two spearheads of Oscar Murillo. Having known a lightning ascension these last few years, this prodigy proposes an art dodging between the visceral and the cerebral. His works are immediately recognizable: an inimitable touch, repetitions with always different materials and contrasts of great intensity. But his artistic research is not limited to aesthetics. On the contrary, through his organization Frequencies Foundation, he has become a committed humanist as well as artist. Witness his work in schools and his works like A Mercantile Novel. Here he actually built a candy-making factory in a New York gallery with Colombina, a premier food company in Colombia. This installation as a working factory invites visitors to reflect on socio-economic conditions in the United States, Colombia, and abroad. Ultimately the work considers the nature of societies, both personal and universal.
Because of the interminable civil war, Colombia has long remained off the radar of contemporary art. And today the country is experiencing a real explosion, within its borders, but also internationally. The contemporary Colombian artists are becoming more and more famous, with prices that sometimes explode in an impressive way. A remarkable evolution, especially when we know that the most appreciated artists are also the most committed!
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