Débora Arango, Painter Of Politically Charged Themes, 98
DGH
It was reported from Bogota, Colombia, on December 11, 2005, that
Débora Arango, a prolific artist who at first repelled socially
conservative Colombia with stark paintings of nudes and social conflict
but who was later celebrated as one of the country's most inventive,
daring artists, died on Decemer 4, 2005, at her rambling colonial home
outside Medellín, Colombis, at the age of 98.
Her death was confirmed by a great-nephew, Pedro Miguel Estrada.
In a career that began nearly 80 years ago and lasted until late in
life, Ms. Arango produced countless works that often depicted the
hurdles and indignities she found in being a woman in a strict Roman
Catholic country. She made dramatic paintings of prostitutes, which
shocked midcentury sensibilities, and one of a woman giving birth in
prison.
Though a product of a traditional, affluent family from the Antioquia
province of Colombia, Ms. Arango produced work that pushed the bounds
of decorum, vividly touching on delicate and troubling subjects like
Colombia's political violence, poverty and brutality. In her work, she
depicted a 1950's-era Colombian dictator, Gen. Gustavo Rojas Pinilla,
as a toad, and portrayed a military junta as five monkeys wrapped in
Colombia's flag.
Ms. Arango always pushed boundaries, even as a young girl. In a
favorite story, she talked about how she wore pants to ride horses,
unheard of in her time, and about how her father permitted her to drive
the family car.
"In those times in Medellín, there were three women who drove: a
foreigner, the daughter of a trucker and me," she said.
One of 12 children, Ms. Arango first studied art at 13 at the rigid
Catholic school she attended in Medellín and later at the city's
Instituto de Bellas Artes. In 1935, she began working with Pedro Nel
Gómez, a well-known artist who painted murals that portrayed the
powerful and influential of Colombian society.
Despite living amid anti-reform movements, Ms. Arango began to capture
social issues in her work, as well as the female body, which she often
depicted as corpulent and wrinkled.
Ms. Arango first caused a public stir in 1939 when she exhibited in
Antioquia with established male artists. In 1940, after an exhibition
in Bogotá, the newspaper El Siglo said of her works, "They constitute
a true attack against the culture and artistic tradition of our capital
city." Ms. Arango's work also came under assault in Spain in 1955, when
the dictator Francisco Franco closed an exhibition of her paintings.
Ms. Arango, like the better-known Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, was
inspired by the muralist movement of Mexico, which captured Latin
America's roiling history in epic proportions. She never became a
muralist, but she did paint large, trying to hammer her message with
broad, thick brushstrokes. Her subjects inhabited the seamy side of
small-town life: drunken men leaving a bar, a woman roughed up by
policemen, an emaciated child in a mother's arms.
"She did it with brazen language," Fernando Botero, Colombia's most
renowned artist, said of Ms. Arango's message in a telephone interview
from his studio in Paris. "She was not preoccupied with aesthetics.
What was central was expressing herself."
Her paintings also tackled subjects that in an isolated, provincial
country in the 1940's and 50's were best left alone. What she saw as
hypocrisy in the church became an important subject for her. In one
famous painting, Ms. Arango portrayed a group of nuns circling a caged
bird, a cardinal. In another, a boxcar is filled with bodies, a
reminder of the relentless political violence that has marked Colombia
for decades. Ms. Arango often focused on race and poverty, as well as
on corrupt leaders.
"She was capable of condemning," said Alberto Sierra, curator of the
Museum of Antioquia in Medellín and an expert on Ms. Arango's work.
"Politically, Débora was a voice of protest as things were unfolding.
A lot of artists wait and portray events after they happened."
As Colombia opened itself up to the world and produced celebrated
artists like Mr. Botero and writers like Gabriel García Márquez, Ms.
Arango's work eventually found acceptance and critical acclaim.
Though her art has been exhibited in Madrid and the United States, Ms.
Arango never sought fame and was reluctant to have her paintings shown.
Still, in Colombia art books feature her work, and the Museum of Modern
Art in Medellín boasts of the 233 pieces she donated in 1986.
In old age, she continued to work, her paintings climbing the walls of
her beloved house in the town of Envigado. She delighted in having
visitors, surprising them with her sharp wit.
When one asked her about her relationships with men, whom Ms. Arango's
art often portrayed in a less-than-positive light, she said, "Men never
thought much of me, and I never thought much of them, either."
Her diminishing skills forced her to give up painting in the last year
or two of her life. In 2003, shortly before receiving the Cruz de
Boyacá, Colombia's most important honor, she recognized the
inevitable.
"There is so much to paint, but the tears come to my eyes and I cannot
do it like I would like," she said. "I was very bold, but you start to
wear down with the years."
NY Times
Debora BOGOTÁ
Hyfler/Rosner
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From: "DGH" <peri...@eudoramail.com>
Subject: Débora Arango, Painter Of Politically Charged
Themes, 98
Date: Tuesday, December 13, 2005 5:04 AM
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http://www.villegaseditores.com/loslibros/8084095/memoria_de_diseno.html
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