Ana M Franco

Resumen español:

En 1958, el artista colombiano Eduardo Ramírez-Villamizar (1922-2004) fue contratado para realizar la obra de arte público más ambiciosa de Colombia hasta el momento: El Dorado, un moderno mural monumental que se instalaría en el igualmente moderno rascacielos del Banco de Bogotá (hoy del Consejo de la Judicatura). El presente ensayo estudia en detalle este mural y, con ello, se constituye en el primer esfuerzo por contextualizar y analizar el primer relieve monumental de Ramírez-Villamizar. Este artículo discute a profundidad la manera como el artista integra motivos precolombinos en el lenguaje internacional de la abstracción geométrica y las implicaciones de esta yuxtaposición en su programa estético. Así mismo, examina las fuentes y el contexto en que la obra fue producida, argumentando que El Dorado marca la institucionalización de la abstracción geométrica como símbolo de modernidad y progreso en el arte colombiano, al mismo tiempo que revive tradiciones artísticas locales.

Palabras clave: Ramírez-Villamizar, El Dorado, mural, relieve, abstracción geométrica, arte precolombino, modernidad, modernización, arquitectura moderna, Estilo internacional.

Abstract inglés:

In 1958, Colombian artist Eduardo Ramírez-Villamizar was hired to execute the most ambitious public artwork to date in modern Colombia: El Dorado, an entirely golden monumental mural for the new International Style headquarters of the Banco de Bogotá (today the Consejo de la Judicatura). This paper studies in detail Ramírez-Villamizar’s mural and, with this, it constitutes the first effort to contextualize and analyze the artist’s first monumental relief. I discuss the strategies used in the mural to integrate pre-Columbian motifs within international geometric art and I address the implications of this juxtaposition within the artist’s aesthetic program. At the same time, I examine the sources and context in which the work was produced, arguing that El Dorado marked the institutionalization of geometric abstraction as a symbol of modernization and progress in Colombian art, while at the same time reviving local artistic traditions.

Key words: Ramírez-Villamizar, El Dorado, mural, relief, geometric abstraction, pre-Columbian art, modernity, modernization, modern architecture, International Style.

During the late 1950s and early 1960s, New York’s art world underwent a major transformation that took it from Abstract Expressionism to Minimalism. American artists, as well as international artists working in New York, redefined the concept of abstract painting and sculpture to accommodate a new way of understanding the possibilities of abstraction. This transformation was spear-headed by a new generation of artists known at the time as the New Classicists. Their geometric-inclined output distinguished them from the previous generation of Action Painters, but their belief in the art object as a receptacle of meaning also distanced them from the succeeding generation of Minimalists. Among the most visible figures of this group we find Colombian artists Edgar Negret (1920-2012) and Eduardo Ramirez-Villamizar (1922-2004) who between 1960 and 1964 participated in a series of exhibitions in New York and Bogotá centered around the concept of a “new classicism.” This paper studies the works produced by the Colombian artists during their sojourn in New York and their interpretation as part of the New Classicism both in the US and in Colombia. This close look at Negret’s Magic Machines and Ramírez-Villamizar’s White Reliefs reveals that these works were informed by the Colombians’ interactions with contemporary American artists and the extent to which this transnational dialogue influenced the reception of their work in New York and Bogotá as part of the New Classicism.