This flyer contains information on the exhibition entitled Lo que le sobra al rico le sirve al pobre by artist Lucas Ospina. The exhibition took place in the gallery of the northern campus of the Alliance Française in Bogotá. The opening was on April 25, 2000 and the exhibition was open to the public until May 12 of that same year. The flyer in A5 format, which can be unfolded in its entirety to form a single flat sheet, has four sides: front and back covers and two inner pages. The basic information about the event on the cover (title of the exhibition, date, and place) is superimposed on an image emblematic of the exhibition: a photograph of the front of a Renault 4 car with all sorts of stickers and press clippings stuck to it. Since the image encompasses the flyer’s front and back covers, it can only be seen in its entirety when the flyer is fully unfolded. The flyer’s inner pages contain a brief curriculum vitae of the artist and the text by the exhibition’s curator, Jorge Jaramillo Jaramillo. In his essay, Jaramillo argues that Pedro Manrique Figueroa, a fictional character of Ospina’s invention, is a precedent for the work Ospina exhibits here insofar as it also questions the concepts of author, style, and originality. Indeed, those concepts are crucial to the notion of the Modern artist. Jaramillo points out that humor and irony are the basis for Ospina’s institutional criticism and for his broad questioning of issues such as the “reception” of art and the “circulation” of ideas in the art world.

This document sheds light on the critical and conceptual approach to the art system in the work of Lucas Ospina (b. 1971) as well as his interest in other disciplines such as history and psychology. Jorge Jaramillo, author of the text, asserts that Ospina is “anachronistic” insofar as he forms part of a generation of artists that emerged in the late eighties, artists deeply affected by new technological media and an eclectic approach to the dichotomy between objectualityand non-objectuality. Particularly interesting is the comparison Jaramillo makes between Ospina—an independent artist, critic [see doc. no. 1130135, and doc. no. 1129798], cultural agitator, and participant in interdisciplinary collective projects—and the fictional character of his invention, Colombian artist Pedro Manrique Figueroa. Ospina uses the figure of Manrique Figueroa: Pioneer of Collage in Colombia [doc. no. 1133754, and doc. no. 1185084]—to sarcastically question the Modern definition of the “artist” and to demystify the concepts of “author” and “originality.”  

Jaramillo’s text depicts Ospina as an interdisciplinary artist. In so doing, he generates expectations about the exhibition, which he concisely describes by categorizing the elements used in the installation at the Bogotá campus of the Alliance Française. The author defines the sculptures as “traps to trap spaces,” the drawings of human figures as “situations akin to daily life,” and the paintings as “exercises in correction.” This critical formulation questions whether the “Modern” author has in fact been banished from Ospina’s work or whether the value of Ospina’s comic proposal lies in the very impossibility of negating the author and the art tradition.The text underscores the fact that the media used in the installation—painting, drawing, and sculpture— are traditional. The layout of the show formulates no hierarchy of values between media and, as such, it allows someone who indisputably embraces his individuality to voice a reflection on artistic “genres.”  

Jorge Jaramillo Jaramillo (b. 1955) is a Colombian curator and cultural manager. His recent curatorial projects include Bursztyn y Salcedo (2007), Judith Márquez (2007), Lucy Tejada (2008), Beatriz Daza (2008), and Carlos Rojas (2008), all under the auspices of the Fundación Gilberto Alzate Avendaño, a division of the Bogotá Secretaría de Cultura, Recreación y Deporte. He is currently (2010) the director of that foundation’s visual art department.