Museum, 40, Survived Colombia’s Violent Years
MEDELLÍN, Colombia — Among the nearly 250 paintings that were donated by the artist Débora Arango to the Museum of Modern Art here, perhaps none relays the anguish of this country’s incessant violence more than “La Masacre del 9 de Abril.”
In her 1948 masterpiece, Ms. Arango, a Medellín native, rendered her grotesque figures, both priestly and demonic, spiraling downward along a church bell tower set amid a city inflamed. Her image was a response to the assassination of populist leader and Bogotá mayor, Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, which plunged the country into chaos and bloodshed.
In essence, the assassination and Arango’s work would be a harbinger of more than five decades of rampage to come, eventually earn- ing Colombia the notorious distinction of suffering from the longest running conflict ever in the Americas. In September 2016, Colombia’s government signed a peace agreement with the country’s main rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia — known as the FARC — effectively ending more than a half- century of war.
This year, the museum is celebrating 40 years since its founding. The anniversary is noteworthy. But it’s even more remarkable considering the museum was established by some 20 artists — among them Ms. Arango — amid the country’s fighting and the mounting violence among drug cartels. The city had hosted three major art biennales in 1968, 1970 and 1972, encouraging the artists to begin planning for a museum to exhibit contemporary art.
The museum’s location in Medellín also makes it an extraordinary landmark: in the 1980s and 1990s, the city was one of the most violent in the world. It was from here that Pablo Escobar ruled his cocaine empire and where he was killed by Colombian police in 1993. According to Human Rights Watch, more than seven million Colombians were displaced, disappeared or murdered during the 52 years of fighting. The museum opened its doors to the public in 1980.
“People didn’t go out then,” said the museum’s director, María Mercedes González. “Life took place indoors. But the artists, this museum, as well as many other social and cultural institutions persisted. There was a very powerful social will, a barrier of resistance, and, despite war and economic crisis, this city was resilient.”
In 2006, city leaders approved the museum’s relocation to the Talleres Robledo building, in the Ciudad del Rio. In 2015, it opened new galleries, a theater, book and gift stores and a cafe. Today, the museum is a commanding urban nucleus, its steps descending onto a plaza facing the high-rise apartments on Medellín’s eastern hills, and serves as a popular meeting venue for nearby residents. It had 110,000 visitors last year.
In March, the exhibition “Art in Antioquia and the Seventies” opened, reflecting on the museum’s first exhibition, in 1978. The museum’s photographer, Juan Felipe Barreiro, said, “Just a few years ago, this kind of gathering would have been unthinkable.”