The Colombian critic Natalia Gutiérrez interviews Miguel Ángel Rojas, asking questions about Corte en el ojo [Cut in the Eye] (2000), the work Rojas presented at the 39th Salón Nacional de Artistas [National Artists Salon] (2004). The interview addresses subjects such as the relationship between violence and art, the origin and meaning of the title of the work, the process involved in taking the photographs, in 1979, that make up the first part of the project, and what it meant for the artist to return to the Faenza Theater in Bogotá in 2000, twenty years after taking these photographs there.  

This interview is representative of the extensive series of conversations that the Colombian critic Natalia Gutiérrez (b. 1954) recorded concerning the artist Miguel Ángel Rojas (b. 1946); in particular because it consists of an excerpt that she selected to express Rojas’s thoughts on his work Corte en el Ojo [Cut in the Eye] (2000). The presentation also includes a collection of photographs of the Faenza Theater in Bogotá (1979). This interview is important because it establishes key parameters within which to consider these works; among them Rojas’ ideas about the relationship between art and violence and art and homosexuality, as well as, of course, what prompted him to produce Corte en el ojo in 2000.   

This interview with Rojas appeared in the publication Ciudad – Espejo [City - Mirror] (2009), in which Gutiérrez presents interviews with a number of contemporary Colombian artists and essays that discuss some of the photographs and videos they have taken of the city of Bogotá. 

Natalia Gutiérrez studied History and Theory of Architecture and Art at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogotá. She has worked as a critic and university professor, and is currently at the Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas [Institute of Aesthetic Research] at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia.

For more information, see the essay by Gutiérrez on Corte en el ojo, also published in Cuidad – Espejo (see doc. # 1099051).