In 1972, exactly 50 years ago, the artist from Barranquilla Álvaro Barrios He had an explosive and original idea: print a drawing of his in a newspaper and have people take it away so that he could sign the page and, with his own handwriting, give it the status of a work of art.
It was not necessary to spend a fortune to have an original work in the living room of the house; it was enough to buy the newspaper, mail the page and wait patiently for it to arrive back. Barrios has made almost a hundred popular prints; there are collectors who have specialized in having them and framing them: because newsprint also ages with a unique exquisiteness. His large collections are in the MoMa in New York and in the Reina Sofía. And in the Mambo of Bogotá.
To celebrate that first print in Diario del Caribe, which was originally an advertisement for Almendra Tropical coffee, Mambo took out his collection of prints and hung them exquisitely in the third-floor room. And EL TIEMPO now publishes the brilliant piece with which Barrios celebrates this half century.
(Also read: Juan Pablo Echeverri died: Colombian artist famous for Miss Photo Japan).
It is a Saint Sebastian who –among other things– has been a recurring motif in his work: even, for the 2018 World Cup, he made one for the Donjuán magazine with James Rodríguez with his body pierced by the arrows of martyrdom.
The artist Álvaro Barrios will sign the engraving ‘San Sebastián y las Palomas’, this Saturday, June 18, at 4 pm at the MamBo.
The exhibition also has two new prints that are in keeping with our times and which were presented at the beginning of the year at the Gabriel García Márquez Center in Madrid, within the framework of its most important art fair, Arco. These are two NFTs: Duchamp’s Bad Circus and Dreams. And it’s impossible not to spend a couple of fun minutes next to their seals with potties and wheels on the end of their noses or enter the dream world of Dreams. It is the first time they are exhibited in Colombia.
(It may interest you: Miami has the only sculpture of Bob Dylan in a public space in the US).
El Mambo –in addition– made a special wink for this new engraving: he left a blank space in the sample to hang it today. The teacher – with his usual generosity – will be signing them at the museum today, Saturday, June 18 at 4 in the afternoon, but before that, just at 3, there will be a guided tour with Barrios and the museum’s curator, Eugenio Viola.
Fernando Gomez Echeverri
Culture Editor of EL TIEMPO
