The 10 Best Colombian Artists And Where To Find Them
Bogotá, considered one of the most exciting global cities for contemporary art, is awash with contemporary art galleries and has its own influential annual arts fair: ArtBo. Yet it’s not only Bogotá that’s culturally buzzing. The Cartagena Biennial also promotes Colombia’s contemporary art, and the country as a whole is experiencing a cultural renaissance. Here, Culture Trip picks the ten must-know Colombian artists and where to see their work.
© Lucas Vallecillos / Alamy Stock Photo
Oscar Murillo at David Zwirner
Oscar Murillo’s cachet is extremely high in the contemporary art scene at the moment. He is currently represented by two prestigious galleries, Carlos/Ishikawa and David Zwirner, and he is continually pushing the boundaries of visual art while at the same time exploring his Colombian roots. This is most evident in A Mercantile Novel, an exhibition that illustrates the globalization of the manufacturing process by re-creating a factory production line that makes chocolate-covered marshmallows. It is made by one of Colombia’s biggest sweet manufacturers, Colombina, which used to employ members of Murillo’s family. He was also included in the international group exhibition at Saatchi Gallery called Pangaea: New Art from Africa and Latin America, which also includes fellow countrymen Fredy Alzate and Rafael Gómezbarros.
See Oscar Murillo’s work at David Zwirner, 519 West 19th Street New York, NY, USA, + 1 212 727 2070 and David Zwirner, 24 Grafton St, Mayfair, London W1S 4EZ
Installation view of Oscar Murillo’s 2014 solo show, A Mercantile Novel, at David Zwirner, New York. Photo by Scott Rudd | Courtesy David Zwirner Gallery and the artist
Pedro Ruiz, Herbario, 2013, oil on canvas, 100 x 150 cm | Image courtesy of Esguerra Art
Monika BRAVO, URUMU, Installation view at Bard Graduate Center NYC | © JUANLUQUE | Image courtesy of The Bard Graduate Center and the artist
Born in In 1964 in Bogotá, Monika Bravo is an internationally renowned multi-disciplinary artist based in New York. As a conceptual artist, she emphasises the process of her work as she grapples with her relationship between physical and emotional space. She recently had a hypnotic exhibition at NC-arte in Colombia called Weaving Time, curated by Beatriz Lopez. This was followed by a group exhibition at BGC Gallery, which involved Bravo, called Waterweavers: The River in Contemporary Colombian Visual and Material Culture. Curated by influential Colombian José Roca, the rivers of Colombia are used as a starting point – a conceptual device – to intricately weave through the intersection in Colombian culture and nature.
Although represented by Galerie Casas Riegner, you can see Miguel Angel Rojas’ work at Galeria MÜ. It is worth visiting this relatively new gallery, for it has filled a vacuum in Bogotá by providing a space that is solely committed to the exhibiting and selling of the finest contemporary Colombian photographers. Rojas is certainly highly regarded, forging an impressive career with public collections at Tate Modern, Museum of Modern Art in New York and is also part of the Daros Latin America Collection in Zurich. He is best known for his photography series in the 1970s called Faenza, which documents the anonymous meetings of gay men at a theatre.
La Biblioteca Luis Angel Arango rests in the heart of Bogotá’s historical La Candelaria district | © Jorge Andrés Calderón / Flickr
Doris Salcedo still lives and works in Bogotá despite her international success. It is clear that she has a strong bond with Colombia and it is her experience here that informs her work. Salcedo’s installations and sculptures can be abstract in form yet nevertheless it is clear what her main themes are: marginalization, displacement and oppression. Her most famous work is the installation Shibboleth, shown in the Turbine Room of the Tate in 2007. At the time, Richard Dorment, art critic for the Daily Telegraph, wrote: ‘over the years, we’ve seen some electrifying works of art in the Unilever series of commissions for Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall, but none has been stranger or more profound than the work that was unveiled yesterday’. This certainly caused a stir in the contemporary art scene – literally shaking the foundations of the Tate Modern.
Born in Cali, Danilo Duenas is an influential artist who usually creates site specific installations, using materials from everyday life and placing them in a controlled manner in exhibition spaces, thereby giving them new meaning. He is notable in this list for being a teacher: Professor at the Art Department of Los Andes University and at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Jorge Tadeo Lozano University since 1990. He has been exhibited in Berlin, Guggenheim Gallery in Miami and all over Colombia. He also has a public collection in Museum of Modern Art at Bogotá. He is represented by Galeria Jenny Vilà, which was founded in 1987. Based in Cali, it promotes significant contemporary Colombian artists as well as encouraging art collecting.