This valuable interview with Juan Camilo Uribe (1945-2005) took place at the height of the controversy that his work incited on the Colombian art scene.
A self-taught artist, Uribe dropped out of high school. He began to earn local recognition as a ceramicist in 1968, though he later abandoned that medium due both to his inclination for sculpture and to a lack of materials. In 1972, Uribe was awarded a mention at the III Bienal de Arte de Coltejer (Medellín) for a work produced in conjunction with Marta Elena Vélez. His art is characterized by the use of popular religious images deemed tacky by the hegemonic visual arts culture. His demystifying pieces with critical and comic implications make oblique reference to Colombia and its reality.
This interview is by artist, curator, and cultural manager Félix Ángel (b. 1949). By means of interviews with important figures, Ángel’s books Nostros. Un trabajo sobre los artistas antioqueños (1976) and Nosotros, Vosotros, Ellos. Memoria del arte en Medellín Memoria del arte en Medellín en los años 70 (2008) document the transformation experienced by the art scene of Medellín—capital of Antioquia—in the seventies. This transformation was due to the emergence of young artists opposed to the local academic tradition and determined to develop contemporary forms of expression bound to international avant-garde movements.