Representing Violence in Colombia: Visual Arts, Memory and Counter-memory

This essay’s discussion takes place at the intersection of several topics:
the Colombian visual arts of the 1990s, their representation of violence, and
the arts market and its interest in topics of violence and trauma. It follows a
circuitous route that begins with an examination of works dealing with violence
by two well-known Colombian artists, both of whom routinely exhibit their
work outside of Colombia: Doris Salcedo and Fernando Botero. The analysis
focuses on the way the artworks articulate memory and national identity by
exploring not only the content of the artwork, but also the context of its
production and the mode of display. While belonging to different generations
and having very different artistic trajectories and styles, a comparison of their
particular approaches to issues of violence offers useful perspectives into the
diverse modes of representation of a very delicate subject-matter that connects
with topics of identity and individual/collective memory and simultaneously,
with the inclinations of the arts market.