Katherine Chacón’s interview starts out with significant aspects from the life of the artist Beatriz González, especially those that influenced her work. It focuses on her university studies and professors, her family, the city where she was born (Bucaramanga), important exhibitions, and her early ties to art history and artists (Pablo Picasso, Edgar Degas, Wassily Kandinsky). Then the interview delves into the development of her art language; this includes her selection and use of source [materials] (e.g., almanacs, newspapers, and plates), her various thematic interests (taste, humor, irrationality), her media, materials, directions, and her critical moments of transition. Among these, Chacón accords special importance to the artist’s decision to become a political critic through her work starting in the mid-1980s. That was when González returned to drawing and oil painting and changed her way of working with found images. The interview concludes with González’s intent in the mid-1990s to use metaphor to focus on the drama experienced by much of the Colombian population caused by drug trafficking and armed conflict.

This interview is in the catalogue for the retrospective exhibition of work by Colombian artist Beatriz González (born 1938) and organized by the Museo de Bellas Artes [Museum of Fine Arts] in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1994. The catalogue includes texts by the exhibition’s curator, Katherine Chacón, who carried out the interview. In addition, it has articles by curator Roberto Guevara; by the critic and curator Carolina Ponce de León (born 1957); and Colombian critic Germán Rubiano (born 1938). The dialogue between Chacón and González offers a rich perspective that shows the way the artist lives, and her approach to her work, her thought processes, and the motivations that underlie her selection of sources, materials, and media. It also highlights elements of her background, what affected her in the past and what still moves her. Moreover, her professors, colleagues, and trips, as well as her cultural and political milieu, are discussed. Other interviews may be complementary to this one: Germán and Marta Rodríguez Rubiano, “Entrevista a Beatriz González” [Interview of Beatriz González], Beatriz González, una década 1980–1990 [Beatriz González, One Decade 1980–1990] (Bogotá: Museo de Arte Universidad Nacional [National University Art Museum], 1990, pp. 4–11); and Álvaro Barrios, “Entrevista con Beatriz González” [Interview with Beatriz González], Orígenes del arte conceptual en Colombia [Origins of Conceptual Art in Colombia] (Bogotá: Alcaldía Mayor de Bogotá [Bogotá City Hall], 1999, pp. 43–62). In addition, there are texts written by the artist: Beatriz González. “Anotaciones de una pintora en tiempos de crisis” [Notes of a Painter in Times of Crisis], Nómadas 8 [Nomads 8] (Bogotá, March–Sept. 1998, pp. 36–43).