Saturday, March 2, 2013

The MAMBO Celebrates a Half-Century



Sergio Tujillo Magnenat, Fantasia, 1932.

The Museum of Modern Art of Bogota, the MAMBO, is celebrating 50 years of existence right now with a retrospective from its collection. This selection of the museum's collection of 4,517 works of art covers a wide spectrum, including abstracts, political commentary, entertaining stuff. It also includes works which don't look like art to me.

Fifty years ago, the MAMBO held its first exhibition in the BLAA library in La Candelaria. Since then, it's been in the National University, a Bavaria building and the Planetarium. It moved to its present building, on Calle 24 and carrera 5, beside the National Library, in 1979.








The MAMBO's cubic building is a bit boring.



A man gets kicked while he's down, in an untitled 1971 work by Rafael Canogar

Untitled, by Equipo Cronica. Is this the CIA meddling in Chile, then governed by a US-backed dictatorship?













Silla (Chair), by Ramiro Gomez, 1971.


The note in his hand says 'Colombian history by Esso, Texaco and Others.

La Adivina, by Enrique Grau, 1956.



Las Segadoras, 1895, by Andres de Santa Maria.








The image on the wall looks like Jorge Eliecer Gaitan, the assassinated populist politician. 







Top, by Carlos Zerpa, All Hands Aboard, 1983;  Below,  Cabina 21, by Jose Antonio Davila, 1971.
Self portrait making never looked so pretty. Dora Franco takes her own photo in 1987.


By Alvaro Barrios, but is this art?





Looks like someone wanted to be Picasso.



Is this art?

Are these chairs art?






By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

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