This text by María Inés Rodríguez was published in the Catálogo General de Exposiciones de la Alianza Francesa de Bogotá under the title “Nuevas Propuestas Arte en Colombia 2005–2006.”It provides information about Cuando el Rio Suena, an exhibition of works by María Angélica Medina that Rodríguez herself curated for the exhibition hall of the Alliance Française in downtown Bogotá. The exhibition was part of the “Curador invitado” or guest curator program sponsored by the Colombian chapter of the Alliance Française. Rodríguez offers a concise description of Medina’s work, explaining two of her fundamental concerns: fabric as language and the need for communication. One work in the show entitled Pieza de conversación [Conversation Piece] consists of an enormous woven piece that the artist had been working on compulsively for eighteen years when this exhibition was held. On this occasion, Medina installed the piece like a river flowing over the exhibition hall’s floor and main window. Medina also installed a wooden platform with two chairs, one for her and another for viewers that wanted to sit down to converse while Medina continued weaving the piece around them.

In this text, Colombian critic and curator María Inés Rodríguez (b. 1968) explains the importance of the work Pieza de conversación (1988−2006) by French-Colombian artist María Angélica Medina (b. 1939) specifically in terms of its social and participatory value and its performative quality. The curator places special emphasis on weaving as an artistic gesture that owing to a device created especially for the show, allowed for a conversation to take place with the public, and therefore for exchange and visual creation. Those qualities in no way reduce the value of the work as sculpture. On the contrary, they are an integral part of the work and how it demonstrates the construction of the image in relation to time, space, and the audience, who participates in the work.  

Rodríguez provides a thorough reading of the sociopolitical implications that the act of weaving took on over the course of the show. She considers the nature of the synthetic material used, how it is arranged, as well as the relationships generated between the artist and the viewers. The precision of Rodriguez’s analysis as she points out elements key to Medina’s work—elements like the boundary between the public and the private, and the idea of art as an attitude towards life—sheds light on the various factors that make Medina’s sculpture and performance possible. Rodríguez asserts that the usefulness of the object becomes secondary. Indeed, it is neglected in Medina’s work although it could be used to formulate a criticism of the art institution or to question the function, work, and importance of the artist in society. 

A French-Colombian artist, museographer, and curator, María Angélica Medina studied at the Guildhall School for Music and Drama in London and the École du Louvre in Paris. She has participated in a number of exhibitions in Colombia and abroad, including the seventh Bienal de La Habana; the Encuentro Internacional de Medellín (2007); and the Primeros Premios del Salón Nacional de Artistas at the Museo de Arte Moderno of Bogotá (1999).   

María Inés Rodriguez is a Colombian curator who lives and works in Paris. Since 2005, she has participated in the guest curator program of the Bogotá chapter of the Alliance Française. She sat on the editorial board of Revista Valdez and founded Tropical Paper Editions, a publishing house for artists’ projects. She is currently (2009) the curator of MUSAC (Museo de Artes de Castilla y León) in León, Spain.