“Anexo 1 – Entrevista con José Alejandro Restrepo” is the third and final part of the book Cruces by Colombian art critic Natalia Gutiérrez. The book, published in 2000, was the result of her master’s thesis in history and theory of art and architecture at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia. The text contains the most important segments of the conversations that took place between Gutiérrez and Colombian artist José Alejandro Restrepo from 1996 and 1999. Cruces addresses two basic problems that, according to the author, run through contemporary art criticism: the problem of perception and the problem of the use of language in writing. The interview presents reflections on the forms of representation that Restrepo’s work entails, as well as how a discourse on art is built simultaneously in the spheres of vision and writing.

José Alejandro Restrepo (b.1959) is a contemporary artist from Colombia widely known for his work in video and installation, two languages he uses to question conventional methods of writing history. By means of these two media, Restrepo has constructed not only a visual but also a written discourse. In them, his role as thinker and as observer is demonstrated by how he uses materials and in the narrative(s) that he constructs on the basis of dynamic research. His work is characterized by constant “editing” and experimentation, where a certain ordering enables the same topic to be seen from many perspectives. Natalia Gutiérrez’s interview makes a “stopover” in a number of works Restrepo made in the nineties. This allows the interviewer to address both the questions that the artist formulates by means of his creative process and major influences on him. The text discusses the following works: Atrio y Nave central [Atrium and Central Nave] (1996), Orestiada (1989), Terebra (1988), Meninas – contradanza [Menina-Counter-Dance] (1996), El paso del Quindío [Quindío Passage] (1992), Quiasma [Chiasma] (1996), Musa paradisíaca [Paradisiacal Muse] (1994), El cocodrilo de Humbolt no es el cocodrilo de Hegel [Humbolt’s Crocodile is not Hegel’s Crocodile] (1994), Transitorias [Transitory] (1998), Canto de muerte [Song of Death] (1999), Ojo por diente [An Eye for a Tooth] (1994), Serie de tres [Series of Three] (1996) and Teoría del color [Color Theory] (1999). The fragmented narrative that Gutiérrez constructs in Cruces makes way for an intensive analysis of each of the works mentioned above, works that bring together the range of interests that has led Restrepo to merge languages and, above all, to conceive of the image—and its potential as a bearer of stories—in a given context. This dialogue between critic and artist gives shape to a discourse where Gutiérrez’s questions, whether about perception or writing, find possible answers.