With this text, Colombian poet and essayist Juan Gustavo Cobo Borda introduces the exhibition of works by painter Manolo Vellojín held at Galería Garcés Velásquez in Bogotá in 1978. In Cobo Borda’s view, Holy Week (a Spanish religious celebration) is the point of departure for a “conceptual adventure” that takes the shape of “wooden boxes covered in glass inside of which pieces of black canvas are arranged.” The author considers the somber way that Vellojín folds the canvases, which in his opinion, represents the antithesis of the ornamental excess of the Catholic Church. Through his research into color and form, Vellojín gives the Holy Week celebration an unprecedented dignity and power. Perhaps due to its literary quality, one of the works that most interests Cobo Borda is Sudario para Marcel Proust [Shroud for Marcel Proust], an eloquently named composition of white on white. Cobo Borda asserts that the cold and ascetic quality of the exhibition gives it a disturbing quality; the exhibition consists, he argues, of “wholly religious art not based on any faith whatsoever.”

In the article “¿Un arte religioso?” (1978), Juan Gustavo Cobo Borda (b. 1948) presents the exhibition Vellojín: Dolorosos, Sudarios, Esquelas, Estandartes which opened on May 10, 1978 at Galería Garcés Velásquez in Bogotá. The show featured a series of abstract works by Manolo Vellojín (b. 1943) now considered fundamental to his career insofar as they consolidated his interest in religious themes, asceticism, and immaculate compositions. The works simplified elements from religious rituals to such an extent that they were insinuated by a mere fold in a canvas. 

Manolo Vellojín is one of the most important abstract artists in Colombia. His work goes beyond formalism for the sake of introspection; his paintings are characterized by a pursuit of perfection and by impeccable production that evokes the patient and even “painful” period that their making requires.  

A number of Colombian artists active in the second half of the 20th century—among them Juan Camilo Uribe (1945-2005) and Beatriz González (n. 1938)—approached religious themes from a satirical perspective. Vellojín’s approach is diametrical. His historical and mystical references lie in the Romanesque period and in medieval codices.

This article appeared in Re-Vista del Arte y la Arquitectura en Colombia, a journal published by critic, gallerist, and curator Alberto Sierra (b. 1944). That publication featured articles on the Colombian art scene from 1978 and 1981 that now constitute valuable reference materials.