ART CITIES:Zurich-Beatriz González

Over the past six decades, Beatriz González has developed a strong artistic vocabulary that makes her one of Colombia’s most influential artists today. Since the beginning of her career, her works have been interwoven with the reality of her home country, which is marked by instability, corruption and violence. Constant armed conflicts, including a ten-year civil (1948 – 1958) and then the 52-year armed conflict between the Colombian state and the guerrilla movement led by the FARC (1964 – 2016), have had a lasting impact on her perception of society.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Galerie Peter Kilchmann Archive

Her solo exhibition “Funebria” includes works from Beatriz González’s most recent creative period weaving a web of references around tragic events in recent Colombian history. Central themes from her oeuvre, such as memory and Colombia’s collective memory, are explored and developed further in a broad range of techniques in the medium of painting. On display are eight new paintings, a sculptural piece of furniture, a newly conceived wallpaper (digital print on paper), an installation (serigraphy on plastic), and several works on cardboard and paper. With the title “Funebria”, Beatriz González ties in with a series of subjects around the politically charged figure of collective mourning, which have increasingly found their way into her work over the past twenty years. In the context of different narratives, the figure appears as an abstracted, black silhouette or as an allegory with simplified female features and runs like a connecting thread through the works in the exhibition. Eponymous is a series of six paintings in oil on canvas showing dark, shadowy figures in a rural setting digging rectangular pits in the ground. In the key work “Angelus local” the centrally placed figures and the gaping black opening at their centre contrast with the lush mossy green of the fertile-looking plain. A pale blue stripe at the top of the picture marks the distant horizon. In works such as “Cavar presente de indicative” and “Procesión mortuoria” the subject is taken up and retold as if in a shadow play against a colourful backdrop. The anonymous figures seem to be moving, carrying spades and hoes and looking like farmers preparing their fields. Simple outlines and generously applied areas of colour in rich green, earthy red or mustard yellow dominate the composition. What appears at first glance to be an everyday rural scene is a subtle reappraisal of a series of tragic events that have gained increasing attention in the national and global press since the signing of the peace treaty between the Colombian state and the FARC in 2016: in the course of the armed conflict, there have been repeated unexplained deaths known as “falsos positivos”. Civilians were kidnapped by the military and murdered as supposed opponents in order to fake success in the fight against the guerrilla troops. Many of the missing persons have not been found to date. The peace process initiated since 2016 is increasingly putting the victims of the conflict and their right to truth at the centre of the press and public attention. Similarly, the silhouettes of the “Cargueros” are repeated in the installation of “Cinta Amarilla”. The work refers to Beatriz González’s site-specific installation “Auras Anónimas” (2007-09) in Bogotá’s Central Cemetery, where 8’957 serigraphs of the same motif cover the niches of the columbaria. The niches had previously been emptied by the city, as the cemetery was to be demolished. “Cinta Amarilla” is a reference to the yellow barrier that currently surrounds the columbaria due to their poor condition and stands as a symbol of a lurking threat.

Photo: Beatriz González, Ángelus local, 2020, Oil on canvas, 50 x 120 cm, © Beatriz González, Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Peter Kilchmann

Info: Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zahnradstrasse 21, Zürich, Switzerland, Duration: 28/8-2/10/2021, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 10:00-18:00, Sat 11:00-17:00, www.peterkilchmann.com