In her essay “Diego Barboza: El festín de la nostalgia,” published in the catalogue for the eponymous exhibition, curator Katherine Chacón, after providing information on the artist’s youth, studies, and his start in painting and drawing in Maracaibo, explains the phases of his career in accord with his travels and changes in his artistic language; his move to Caracas in 1963, his activity as a painter in this city; his stay in London between 1968 and 1973, during which he began and developed his “expressions” as street action; his return to Venezuela at the beginning of the 1970s, and finally, his return to painting in the mid-1980s. Chacón asserts that in Venezuela, he was the pioneer of conceptual art during in the 1970s.

Venezuelan curator Katherine Chacón (b. 1964) has through her analysis delved the most deeply into the life and work of Diego Barboza (1945–2003), an artist born in Maracaibo. He is, without a doubt, one of the most prolific conceptual artists in Venezuela, especially with regard to the modalities of action art, performance, and Mail art. The text “Diego Barboza: El festín de la nostalgia” was written for the great exhibition that was shown in the three principal national museums (Maracay, Maracaibo, and Caracas); in fact, this was the first (and last) of the artist’s life. Chacón organized for the first time the vast body of his work by period: paintings, drawings, collages, installations, object-based works, Mail art, and action works (his documentary records). This is a curatorial text par excellence that at the time facilitated a better understanding of the show; nevertheless, it is also valuable for offering us a record and analytical platform for future studies of his work. Chacón provides previously unpublished biographical information: the data concerning his childhood offers a clear idea of the feminine archetype and presence in Barboza’s poetics; other information offer keys to understanding his work in a Latin American context. The impact of Brazilian artist Hélio Oiticica’s Tropicalia Eden exhibition, which he visited in London, stands out; it influenced his work in a decisive manner.

The exhibition Diego Barboza: El festín de la nostalgia was presented at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Maracay “Mario Abreu” (2000), and was held the following year at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo del Zulia (Maracaibo) and the Galería de Arte Nacional (Caracas).