This document discusses Doméstica: una mirada cotidiana [Domestic: A Quotidian Perspective], the name of the latest edition of Nuevos Nombres [New Names], the exhibition of works by young artists that was presented at the Luis Ángel Arango Library. José Ignacio Roca, the curator of this shown (2001) also wrote the essay in the catalogue, which included twelve artists whose works referred to the concept of “domestic life”—understood in this context as the intimate, everyday space where people coexist and create a shared environment that gradually changes over time. Photography, sculpture, painting, performance art, and installation were the media used to express sundry aspects of the exhibition’s theme. The exhibition space was arranged to represent an average home, with a living room, dining room, bathroom, bedroom, etc., all of which affected the installation and reading of the various works, and the relationship among them.        

The Nuevos Nombres [New Names] exhibition was organized every year at the Luis Ángel Arango Library at the Banco de la República in Bogotá to provide exposure for the work of unknown young artists. The event was designed and curated by the critic Carolina Ponce de León (b. 1957) for the first eight years. Beginning in 1985, the Library was used as an exhibition space in which risks were taken with the artists’ works and with the curator’s designs. As from 1994 a different curator was selected for each edition in an attempt to keep the event in line with the original concept.  

By 2001, when Doméstica: una mirada cotidiana [Domestic: A Quotidian Perspective] was staged, Nuevos Nombres had already become an established event. On this occasion, the exhibition presented a number of alternative interpretations of a single theme. The texts written by José Ignacio Roca (b. 1962) about each of the artists make it possible to imagine a space inhabited by different people who try to imbue a portion of that place with an identity that questions the role of art in society. Roca’s main idea—“to place in situ a collection of works of art that reflect on everyday space”—creates an exhibition that explores subjects such as: public and private space, personal belongings and others’ belongings, official spaces for art and those that are not, the roles of men and women in a particular environment, communication issues created by the limits imposed by the structure of a dwelling, etc. Though each artist’s idea is different, Roca’s texts expose a cross section of the works; it is as though he was the thirteenth artist and the other works were all part of one master project.   

Twelve artists participated in Doméstica: Gabriel Sierra (b. 1965), María Isabel Rueda (b. 1972), Diana Drews (b. 1971), Beatriz Eugenia Díaz (b. 1965), Sandra Bermúdez (b. 1966), Juan Pablo Fajardo (b. 1974), Andrés Fresneda (b. 1974), Jimena Andrade (b. 1961), Steven Rand, Mariana Dicker (b. 1974), François Bucher (b. 1972), and Alberto Lezaca (b. 1971). It should be noted that in the 1980s, Nuevos Nombres launched promising art careers, as in the case of Juan Fernando Herrán (b. 1963), Johana Calle (b. 1965), María Fernanda Cardoso (b. 1963), and Doris Salcedo (b. 1958), to name just a few.