This document (2004) is relevant because it shows that Hans-Michael Herzog (b. 1956) was interested in exploring and describing the mood that was driving contemporary art in Colombia; he was also interested in documenting the thoughts and opinions expressed by the Colombian artist Nadín Ospina (b. 1960) on his own work and on Colombian art in general. Ospina took part in Cantos cuentos colombianos, parte I [Colombian Cantos Stories, Part I] (Zürich, Switzerland, October 30, 2004 to January 9, 2005) together with Fernando Arias (b. 1963), Juan Manuel Echavarría (b. 1947), Oswaldo Maciá (b. 1960), José Alejandro Restrepo (b. 1959), Miguel Ángel Rojas (b. 1946), and Rosemberg Sandoval (b. 1959). During the course of the exhibition, a discussion forum was organized that brought together a panel of Colombian intellectuals and political analysts. The exhibition catalogue published a series of incisive, provocative essays on the country’s social and political situation, as follows: Fernán González (b. 1939), “Hacia el trasfondo histórico de la violencia colombiana reciente” [Toward the Historical Background of Recent Colombian Violence]; Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza (b. 1932) “Colombia de ayer a hoy” [Colombia Yesterday and Today]; the researcher and writer Alfredo Molano (b. 1944), “Colombia: país enviolentado” [Colombia: A Country Made Violent], and the poet and essayist William Ospina (b. 1954), “El Secreto de Colombia” [Colombia’s Secret].
Cantos cuentos Colombianos: arte contemporáneo colombiano [Colombian Cantos Stories: Contemporary Colombian Art] (Zürich, 2004?2005) was one of the major exhibitions of Colombian art shown in Europe in the early years of the twenty-first century. The title was an attempt to draw attention to the existence of a diversity of voices and approaches among Colombian artists, and to [show] a way of expressing the country’s contemporary history with a level of creativity that was relatively unknown outside Colombia. This exhibition stimulated debate and reviews on the visibility of Colombian art in Europe and throughout Latin America.
Although there are some Colombian artists whose critical, thoughtful works have attracted attention on the international stage, the truth is that Colombian art is still seen through a clichéd prism of exoticism, and the best-known artist in that area is Fernando Botero (b. 1932). Ospina mentions this fact, and refers to Botero’s donation to the city of Bogotá in 2000, which was delivered into the custody of the Banco de la República. Botero’s donation included 123 of his own works and eighty-five works of universal art history, mainly paintings, prints, drawings, and sculpture by artists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.