A program of Cámara de Comercio de Bogotá
A cultural program of:
A program of Cámara de Comercio de Bogotá
A cultural program of:
... and yet it moves
Galileo
Seldom does the reverence for an object have the ability to concentrate the different temporal vectors that mediate "sacred history," natural history, and political history. Those who visit the National Museum of Colombia may come across – quite literally – a celestial rock that we can touch; as is often cheerfully pointed out by some members of the museum's educational team, it is one of the few pieces in their permanent collection that allows for such tactile interaction. This object is known as the "aerolito" of Santa Rosa de Viterbo, a mineral mass weighing four hundred kilos that, it is said, fell near this town on Good Friday during Holy Week in 1810, having passed through Earth's atmosphere. The narrative around this small asteroid has sought to align the coincidences of an astronomical event with the political event that led to a campaign for the independence of a country marked by a predominantly Catholic society at the time [1].
As described by Santiago Castro-Gómez (2009), a century after the flight and fall of the aerolito, the celebrations for Colombia's first centenary of independence revolved around the superstition generated by the passage of Halley's Comet. The comet's disruption of cosmic order was believed to foretell similar changes on Earth. On April 20, 1910, the comet was observed in Bogotá beyond the hills of Monserrate and Guadalupe, and although no tragedy occurred, it left the sense that things were changing and that a new era was approaching for the country. According to various discourses of the time, celestial signs heralded a transition to a higher material and spiritual state, a transition that was celebrated with the start of the Centennial festivities on July 15. In this context, the Agricultural and Industrial Exhibition became the stage where Colombian society – and, more specifically, the people of Bogotá – embraced the illusion of integrating into the global and industrial economy through the exhibition of the first national goods and manufactures. According to Castro-Gómez, however, it was more a symbolic performance of an imagined capitalism that prepared the subjectivities needed for the real capitalism that would be implemented in our context two decades later.
At the beginning of 2023, astrological predictions indicated significant shifts in the social, economic, and cultural behavior of humanity, as many as the astronomical events that coincided with the modern turn narrated around the 18th century. This situation was not unrelated to the theme chosen by Tiepolo for the fresco he painted on the vaulted ceilings of the Würzburg Residence, depicting the Allegory of the Planets and Continents in 1752, just as the global economic order was solidifying around the modern world system. What Tiepolo couldn't foresee was the cataclysmic prediction made by various communities on the other side of the Atlantic regarding celestial alignments and eclipses before the continental pachakuti, which marked the origins of modernity a couple of centuries before his time.
Planetary Movements, Possible Worlds seeks to confront the dialectic of utopias that artistic projects [2] imply with a collective dimension, to bring together artistic practices that allow us to connect in a more direct way with reality and current events. The compilation of works in this curation invites us, just like the planetary movements of 2023, to abandon old models and beliefs, to commit to new ways of being and participating in the world. Like the new planetary positions, this set of works and projects calls for cooperation and collective action, to articulate and imagine other scenarios and social landscapes where empathy and compassion for other beings in this world are essential. We were interested in selecting works that remind us of the social dimension of art, its public character, its ability to act and take a stance in the world, much like the planetary movements of our time.
The curation, spread across two rooms and in tune with the path of the Pisces and Capricorn constellations, presents five alignments of works organized into small chapters that orbit from one room to the other: human relationships, stories and fictions, living bodies, orientations and destinies, and social practices.
[1] According to Boris Groys (2014), "projects" in the contemporary art field place us in a dialectical temporality: we give up the present to position ourselves, both physically and emotionally, in the future. When a project concludes, it is inevitable for sadness or melancholy to emerge both times return to their place, and we go back to inhabiting the "normalcy" of the present, while "the future" remains suspended; what was yearned for and dreamed of has materialized, with all its mistakes and shortcomings.
[2] A comprehensive cultural history of the aerolito was articulated in the artistic project "Pequeño Museo del Aerolito de Santa Rosa" (Small Museum of the Santa Rosa Aerolito) by María Elvira Escallón, carried out from 2017.
Established in 2008 as a collective dedicated to developing research, curations, and publications that link artistic practices and visual culture to consider various forms of political imagination and issues related to the economy.
Among their curations and publications are Múltiples y Originales. Arte y cultura visual en Colombia; años 70 (2010-2019); Rojo y más Rojo. Taller 4 Rojo; producción gráfica y acción directa (2012-2014); Con Wilson... dos décadas vulnerables, locales y visuales (2014); Sal vigua (2015); La nariz del diablo (2017); De la vía armada a la Vía Láctea. Monos e historietas de Joe Broderick (2018); Unidad y Combate. Clemencia Lucena y los trabajadores del arte revolucionario. Arte, agitación y propaganda en el Frente Cultural del MOIR (2019); Contrainformación. El revés de la trama (2019), Barrios del mundo: ¡Uníos! (2022), and Escaparate. Memoria, movilización e imaginación política (2023).
María Sol Barón is a full-time professor in the Department of Visual Arts at the Pontifical Javeriana University in Bogotá, Colombia, and Camilo Ordóñez is a full-time professor in the Faculty of Arts ASAB at the District University Francisco José de Caldas in Bogotá and a lecturer in the Department of Visual Arts at the Pontifical Javeriana University in Bogotá, Colombia.
Wednesday, November 22
2:00 - 7:00 p. m.
Performance of the play Conocí un viajero de Tierra Antigua (I met a traveler from Tierra Antigua)
Artist: Álvaro Cabrejo
Chapter I - Marine
3:30 - 5:30 p. m.
Performance La vie en rose
Artist: Leifer Hoyos Madrid
Thursday, November 23
2:00 - 3:30 p. m.
Performance of the play Conocí un viajero de Tierra Antigua (I met a traveler from Tierra Antigua)
Artist: Álvaro Cabrejo
Chapter II - The Young Mennon
3:30 - 5:30 p. m.
Performance La vie en rose
Artist: Leifer Hoyos Madrid
5:30 - 7:00 p. m.
Performance of the play Conocí un viajero de Tierra Antigua (I met a traveler from Tierra Antigua)
Artist: Álvaro Cabrejo
Chapter III - Alice
Friday, November 24
3:00 - 3:40 p. m.
Performance of the play Conocí un viajero de Tierra Antigua (I met a traveler from Tierra Antigua)
Artist: Álvaro Cabrejo
Chapter IV - Archaeology World Tour
6:00 - 6:45 p. m.
Performance of the play Conocí un viajero de Tierra Antigua (I met a traveler from Tierra Antigua)
Artist: Álvaro Cabrejo
Chapter V - Love letter to a saint
Saturday, November 25
12:00 m. - 1:00 p. m.
Guided tour by the TRansHisTor(ia) Team
2:00 - 3:00 p. m.
Performance of the play Conocí un viajero de Tierra Antigua (I Met a Traveler from Tierra Antigua)
Artist: Álvaro Cabrejo
Chapter VI - Atlas
Sunday, November 26
1:00 - 6:00 p. m.
Performance of the play Conocí un viajero de Tierra Antigua (I met a traveler from Tierra Antigua)
Artist: Álvaro Cabrejo
Chapter VII - Revolver - Re-Volver
