BOGOTA FOR PURPLE FASHION
“I was in China recently, after traveling 5000 KL in just a week by train and bus and taxi , I had a vision. I've seen us locked in a triangle made by three chopsticks, all of them black. The first made by steel (US), the second by wood (Europe) the third a plastic one (China), these chopsticks are closing around us and we are rice.. US used to be the new-North once, Europe a great mix of North and South, China used to be a "Far East" but now everything is turning to a Total North. There are a few safe places still left.. Outside of the terrifying triangle of Total North, a crazed Pac-man, the Muslim World- is expanding to all directions, copying the worst of the West, suffocating the best of the East. Still, there is a land where not only we can escape from Total North's chopsticks and Allah's veracity but even take a bit of time to study how to deal with all that. The country is Colombia and has a bit of everything: Atlantic/Pacific/Amazonas/Páramos, even a Micro-Tibet called Sierra Nevada- the indigenous people who live up there, are luckily NOT celebrated. Colombia is just a minute away from Miami, still light-years different because a civil war has put on hold the Gringo-philosophy and the European propaganda. These days the country is coming out of the -somewhat protective- tunnel of isolation… They call this process Paz (“peace”) and Colombian people are- to say the least- skeptical about it although everyone wants the war to end. Paz’s theater happens in Habana, Cuba, there a number of bosses, starting with Santos- a President with an eternal smile attached on his face (a face that was actually burned in an accident he had as a kid and re-constructed in a genius way, just to accommodate that smile). Then there are various second-class Che Guevaras, the top one one goes by the name of Timochenko, the others are Iván Márquez, Pablo Catatumbo and Pastor Alape. They are the FARC, a "revolutionary army” that support itself by selling drugs. Far from all that, from what happens in Cuba and even Colombia, a new generation that includes youngsters such as Felipe Steiner and Antonio Echavarria are taking their time in the “cool” cities of the Total North. Sooner or later they will return to their country to take control of its Democracy… This is not the place to talk about the “other”, more relevant Colombians, the indigenous people, still here’s at least a few of the names of the 66 tribes that are still happening: Arhuaco, Awa, Bara, Barasana, Cocama, Chiricoa, Guambiano, Guane, Inga, Kankuamo,Kogui, Kuiba, Makuna, Ocaina, Piratapuyo, Puinave, Sikuani, Tanimuka, Tikuna, Tucano, Uitoto, Wayuu, Wiwa & Yukuna. Now, let’s zoom into the centre of Colombia and to its capital, an area that used to be a paradise called Bacatá (in the language of the famously extraordinary Chibcha people who used to live there until the European barbarians arrived and exterminated them). The name of the area, victim of the same idiotic violence has turned to Bogotá.. "Aquí no hay gallos, no hay nada”(Here there are no roosters, there’s nothing) complains Gabriel García Márquez using as his avatar Simon Bolivar, Bogotá’s most famous user (Bolivar was using this city as a base to go all around the South America with his horse and try to change its operating system). There’s "less than nothing" in Bogotá today, there’s Contemporary Art, the corpse Europe and US are throwing around in every parts of our planet. When the corpse was a living organism- in the 60's-70’s, there used to be a few important locals breeding it. From those days I”ll name-drop just one guy, Miguel Ángel Rojas and a group called Taller 4Rojo. From our days, I want you to know three names: Matilde Guerrero, Juan Sebastian Pelaez & Sebastian Fierro Castro. Fierro Castro is Painting, Pelaez is Post-internet Guerrero is the future of this country in every sense.. The best way to see Fierro Castro is to visit the booth of Colombia’s most happening gallery - Instituto de Visión in an art fair near you (this gallery really goes in all of them), the best way to see the work of Pelaez is to check him on Instagram under the impressive tag #juansebastianpelaez . The best way to see Matilde Guerrero’s work is to come to Bogotá and meet her. If this little text gave you the wisdom to know more about Bogotá, read the books of Santiago Gamboa, start with his first book, Perder es cuestión de método. If you can’t read it in Spanish, what a pity, you are still stuck in other languages.. try listening 100 times Marcel Proust translated in Spanish in audiobook, maybe something will click in you.. I don’t know if any of these advises are useful or inspiring to you, the reason I am offering them is because I consider Bogotá a capital of the South, not the old-South but our new Middle South, the MedioSud (www.mediosud.us). It’s very possible that in the next few years, it will simply become just another city of Total North (Bogotá’s actual mayor, the infamous Enrique Peñalosa is actually working hard towards that direction), but maybe IT WILL NOT. What will happen to Bogotá- and to the world-in that case (other than not having the next Documenta happening there and at the same time in Kassel?) What will happen to people like Guerrero/Pelaez/Fierro Castro/Gamboa/myself&my daughter Alpha? This is the question and we have ABSOLUTELY NO ready-made answer. Keep watching… Miltos Manetas, Bogota, 2016
