Exhibition featuring artworks by 24 artists will run from July 8 until September 27
“The Marvelous Real: Colombia Through the Vision of its Artists,” the new exhibition at the Cultural Center of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), is a visual tour that highlights the complexities, challenges and singularities of Colombia through the eyes of several of its most important artists.
Colombia's rise among middle-income countries in recent years, thanks to sustained economic growth, is reflected as we see Colombian artists succeeding worldwide. The construction of this positive image has its root in the narrative that explains “The Marvelous Real.”
The exhibition artworks were selected and organized chronologically according to the different periods in which the artists worked. The visual journey begins with pre-Columbian replicas, continuing with the reinvention of the territory from the 15th to the 19th centuries, the 20th century and through the early 1950s with the beginning of contemporary art, the social transformations of the 1960s, the decentralization of art in the 1970s, and concludes with works of the end of the century.
“Those who come to the exhibition,” said Iván Duque, Chief of the Cultural, Solidarity and Creativity Affairs Division, “will have the opportunity to feel the magic extremes and enjoy this creative nation through a combination of art, history, image, feeling, experience and commitment with the future.”
Regarding the concept of the “Marvelous Real,” Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier points out that “the history and the geography of Latin America are both so extreme as to appear fictional or even magical to outsiders,” hence the title of the exhibition.
The exhibit features 36 pieces by 24 Colombian artists including Edgar Negret, Fanny Sanín, Enrique Grau, David Manzur and Eduardo Ramírez Villamizar, among others, and is curated by Félix Ángel.