Course: Débora Arango and the transgression of Colombian art
INSCRIPCIONES CERRADAS
Date: Tuesday, May 13 and Thursday, May 15
Time: 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Format: In-person
Fee: $216,000 COP
Early bird before May 3: $194,000 COP
Discounts for MAMM Friends, according to membership level, on the general price.
The course offers a detailed journey through the life and work of Débora Arango, one of Colombia’s most influential artists, whose production defied the moral and aesthetic norms of her time. Her work, characterized by the raw and uncensored representation of the female body, social criticism, and the denunciation of political injustices, made her a symbol of rebellion. Throughout the program, the main stages of her artistic career will be addressed, from her early years of training at the Instituto de Bellas Artes de Medellín to her international projection in countries such as Mexico, Spain, and England.
The sessions will explore the influences that shaped her style, such as European Expressionism and Mexican Muralism, as well as the tensions generated by her representation of the female body and her criticism of religious and political power structures. Additionally, the impact of the Colombian sociopolitical context on her work and the challenges she faced due to censorship and the misunderstanding of her time will be analyzed. The course will also highlight her contribution to opening spaces of expression for women artists. Through the study of her most iconic works, some of which we will be able to see firsthand, it will be shown how her production remains relevant for understanding contemporary issues related to freedom of expression, women’s rights, and criticism of power.
Methodology:
The course will combine masterclasses with visual analysis of the works and context, and space for group discussions. Participants will have access to a selection of historical documents and visual materials that will allow them to delve into the different stages of the life and work of Débora Arango. Critical and reflective dialogue will be encouraged, seeking for each participant to develop a personal yet contextualized and analytical interpretation of the works and the artist. Additionally, comparative analysis exercises will be conducted to identify the artistic and cultural influences present in her production and their impact on contemporary art.
As part of the sessions, participants will be able to visit Débora’s works on display in the galleries, and some works in the MAMM collection.
In this session, we will address the artistic training of Débora Arango at the Instituto de Bellas Artes de Medellín and the influence of masters such as Pedro Nel Gómez and Eladio Vélez. We will analyze how her early works, focused on the representation of the nude and social criticism, marked a turning point in the artistic tradition of the era, generating both admiration and rejection. Through the study of her initial works, we will explore the transition from an academic style to a more expressionist and personal one, in which the use of color and the force of forms take on a leading role. Additionally, her work will be contextualized within the framework of the social and cultural transformations of Medellín in the 1920s and 1930s, highlighting the role of women in the artistic sphere and the obstacles they faced in accessing training and professional recognition.
This session will analyze the international projection of Débora Arango and her insertion into the Latin American and global artistic context. We will study how the experiences during her travels to Mexico, Spain and England influenced her work, enriching her visual language and broadening her critical perspective on the social and political issues of her time. We will explore the connections between her work and Mexican muralism, as well as the influences of European expressionism on her pictorial style. Additionally, we will address the impact of her participation in international exhibitions, the controversies generated by her representations of the female body and the censorship she faced in different cultural contexts. Through the analysis of emblematic works, we will demonstrate how her artistic production transcended Colombia’s borders to become a benchmark for critical art.
About Sara Fernandez
PhD in Philosophy from the Universidad de Antioquia. Historian with a master’s degree in Art History. She was a postdoctoral researcher between 2022 and 2024 at the Faculty of Philosophy of the Universidad de Buenos Aires (Argentina). She is a member of the research group Theory, Practice and History of Art in Colombia at the Universidad de Antioquia and of the Global Art Archive at the University of Barcelona, directed by Anna Maria Guasch. She is also part of the Colombian Committee of Art Historians. She teaches in the Master’s program in Art History and undergraduate programs at the Universidad de Antioquia, as well as in the History program at the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana. Her interests lie in the areas of art historiography; philosophy of art and history; contemporary art in Colombia; the possibilities of semiotics applied to the specific field of art, as well as the interactions between history, art, and philosophy. Among her publications, notable books include Historia y arte, una propuesta metodologica desarrollada en Debora Arango y sus obras sobre el periodo de la Violencia (2016) and Conceptos generales en las historias del arte colombiano: historia, arte y nacion, 1959-1985 (2022); author of “Arte, memoria e historia en la obra de Jorge Marin” (2023); “Reiteraciones de sentido: indexicalidad y memoria historica en el arte contemporaneo en Colombia” (2023); “Arte precario: la posibilidad de pensar la experiencia deficitaria del mundo contemporaneo” (2023); “Gestos de archivo como acciones politicas en y desde el arte” (2024); “Aproximacion al uso de estrategias del Barroco en el arte contemporaneo latinoamericano” (2024); “Aprovechando las lecciones de los antepasados indigenas: el caso de los Bachues” (2024); “Aproximacion a los usos prehispanicos en el arte contemporaneo latinoamericano” (2024); “Entre archivos digitales y gestos archivisticos: apuestas politicas desde la estetica contemporanea” “2024); among others.