“Pedro Manrique Figueroa. Precursor del ‘collage’ en Colombia” [Pedro Manrique Figueroa: Harbinger of Collage in Colombia] (1999) consists of an appendix and three sections, as follows: “The Zero Years,” “The Pink Years,” and “The Red Years.” The appendix refers specifically to “Manrique’s Literary Work.” The various components were written simultaneously by Carolina Sanín and Lucas Ospina; the latter wrote only the last section. The entire text appeared in October 1999 in the third edition of Revista Valdez, a magazine partially sponsored by the Stimulus for Regional Publishing Projects (1999), that was part of the Colombian Ministry of Culture’s annual national stimulus program for creation and research. The article, which was published in the Documentos Valdez section of the magazine, adopts a historical research style to narrate the romantic, working, and artistic life of (a fictitious artist) called Pedro Manrique Figueroa, a character created by Ospina with the help of the Colombian artists Bernardo Ortiz and François Bucher.     

The document uses sarcasm and irony to criticize the art establishment and weaves both styles into the telling of the story in the piece called Pedro Manrique Figueroa. Precursor del “collage” en Colombia (1999) by the Colombian artist Lucas Ospina (b. 1971). The document tells the story of the life, friends, relationships, and political ideals of the fictitious artist Pedro Manrique Figueroa (1934–88) from the time of his arrival in Colombia—after being deported from the United States in 1952—until his final meeting in 1988 with the Valdez brothers, at which time he “disappears.” Manrique is described as obsessive, solitary, and fickle in his political and personal positions. He is portrayed as an anonymous character who experiences local and global sociopolitical events, absorbing them into himself to become a reflection of a country that has little interest in memories. This latter quality is symbolized by the amnesia attack that Manrique suffers in 1954. The document mentions four romantic liaisons that profoundly influence his “pegotes” [glued things], as he calls his collages.  

There is a great deal of humor involved in the development of an archetypal character based on the image of a modern artist: a bohemian type with a preference for leftist politics, immersed in turbulent love affairs. The story is believable because it is set in Colombia’s intellectual environment in the late 1950s and 1960s when the Nadaísta [Nothing-ist] literary movement was advocating angst as the essential platform for creativity. This article is a resounding critique of the figure of the “artist” in current Colombian visual art circles, where the iconic image of the “maestro” is still revered.

“Pedro Manrique Figueroa. Precursor del ‘collage’ en Colombia” is a visual art project created by Ospina with the help of the Colombian artists Bernardo Ortiz (b. 1972) and François Bucher (b. 1972) and the curatorial assistance of Jaime Jaramillo (b. 1955). It was first exhibited in 1996 at the Bogotá Galería Santa Fe planetarium, and has subsequently been shown on five different occasions: Los años rojos (1999); Sub-realista (2000); Cinco collages americanos 1973 (2006); Man With a Kilt (2008); and Museo de la Pobreza (2009). For more information on both versions of Pedro Manrique Figueroa, see [doc. no. 1185084]. 

Carolina Sanín (b. 1961) is a Colombian critic who works in the field of literature. Her essays have been published in magazines such as El Malpensante, Semana, Cambio, Soho, and Valdez. Currently (in 2010), Sanín is a professor of literature at State University of New York.