Cristo's Morbid Vision

Artist Cristo Hoyos and one of his funereal wreaths.

A wreath and noose.

Artist Cristo Hoyos believes that, during its long history of conflict, killing in some Colombian rural areas has become worse than horrific, worse than terrifying, worse than nightmarish: It has become boring and mundane.

Hoyos' work, now on display in the Gabriela Garcia Marquez Cultural Center in La Candelaria,
includes a series of flower wreaths embedded with violent symbols such as a knife, a noose and a weathered cow skull.

In Colombia, violence has been tied to the inequality of land ownership, Hoyos observed the other day at the exhibition. That's why his wreath series has a rural flavor.

Other Hoyos works portray impoverished Embera indigenous people, wealthy elite Colombians and displaced people, emphasizing the huge contrasts in a nation with a growing economy, a half-dozen billionaires, and millions of impoverished and victims of forced displacement.

Hoyos found the images for the exhibition, entitled 'Silence: Living Paintings,' in Colombian newspapers and magazines between 2008 and 2010.

Wealth and glamour. 

Displaced people.

Embera indigenous people from the Pacific coast region.

The other day, dining tables were set up in front of the paintings for a United Nations event.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Gabriel García Márquez: Already Forgotten?

A few months ago City Hall on Plaza Bolivar carried a huge banner in memorial of the deceased South African leader Nelson Mandela. I expected at least as much for Márquez, but City Hall's wall is empty. 

Today, I took a cruise thru La Candelaria in search of some memorial to Nobel Prize winner Gabriel García Márquez, who died a few days ago in Mexico City.

Colombian Pres. Santos declared three days of national mourning for this great Colombian, as well as a memorial service next Tuesday in the Cathedral de Bogotá. Márquez's funeral is to be held Monday in Mexico City, where the novelist lived for a half century. He has already been cremated, but it's not clear whether they will be interred in Mexico or Colombia.

Strangely, even tho Márquez lived and worked for a time in La Candelaria (he worked for the El Espectador newspaper before moving to Paris and becoming a novelist) and several institutions here carry his name, I found no memorial to the novelist.

In the town of Aracataca where Márquez was born, the people seem to have mixed feelings about their most famous son. Márquez visited only rarely and contributed little of his fortune to the development of the town, which still doesn't even have fresh water.

The Gabriel García Márquez Cultural Center was built by the Mexican government's cultural agency. Strangely, the building has never had an exhibition about Márquez, but I expected SOMETHING about the man's passing. However, I saw nothing. 

The old El Espectador building on Ave. Jimenez. They might have hung a black banner here, or a photo of the novelist.

A flag a half mast on a government TV station building on Calle 26 - the only official sign I saw of Márquez's passing. 

A newspaper vendor in La Candelaria. Since Márquez's death, several papers have reported an almost nothing else. 

People ponder an exhibition about Márquez's life on the wall of the BLAA library in La Candelaria. But the annual exhibition was here before the novelist's death. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Images of Colombia's Coffee Region

One of the region's first cemeteries open to people of all religions. "You just had to be dead to qualify."

The central plaza of the Gabriel Garcia Marquez Cultural Center in La Candelaria is displaying this exhibition of photos from Colombia's coffee region. I liked them because, unlike the stereotypical pics from the region, these are more about the region's people and other non-coffee subjects.

These photos were taken by professional photographers directed by Stephen Ferry, a United States citizen who lives in Colombia.

Harvested coffee fruits flow out of a bag. Inside each red fruit is a coffee bean. 

Coffee plantation workers walking home. 

Dishes and ingredients served in the coffee region. 

The coffee region's rolling hills. 

A weathered coffee plantation worker. 

Coffee plantation workers sleep under these tents to keep off the mosquitoes.

The Gabriel Garcia Marquez Cultural Center, which strangely has no display about the Nobel Prize-winning novelist. 

Colorful and aged houses in the Coffee Region. 

Grinding stones used by the indigenous people, the Quimbaya.

A  young coffee harvester. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours