Five Colombian Views in Japan

In these times of globalization, the ties between nations
must transcend commercial agreements and be strengthened
effectively by means of cultural components and individual
identities, allowing a profound and joyful exchange
between peoples.
Considering that culture must be understood as a symbolic
source which permits individuals to understand and act within
the environment and that human behavior is guided by ideas
and beliefs that are exercises in social exchanges and transmission,
it is the reciprocal and conscious appropriation of values
and views of reality that is the main objective of closer ties, as
exemplified here by the exhibition FIVE COLOMBIAN VIEWS IN
JAPAN, at the Shaddai Gallery of the Politecnical University of
Tokyo. These five visual reflections are part of the celebration
of the establishment of relations between Colombia and Japan,
whose beginnings took place on 25 May 1908.
The showing of photography has the participation of prominent
figures in Colombian photography: Adriana Duque, Carlos
Duque, Fernando Cano, Luis Morales, and Sergio Bartelsman.
Each artist presents a different perspective regarding a way
of seeing his or her individual environment and understanding
photographic space in terms of the language which is common
to all: the image.
Thus, while Adriana Duque captures in her photographs
instances of myth, reality, and fantasy, in her compositions
one can intuit the results of a perverse summary which navigates
among social contrasts that are typical of a national
reality, as well as scenarios which touch neo-surrealism.
These are like landscapes from children’s stories, now altered
by the insertion of antagonistic forces. Careful observation of
her images will disturb the spectator because they are loaded
with references charged by western classical tenets yet filtered
by views influenced by cinema, literature, and contemporary
cultural practices that are appropriate to the “new”
technology of the image.
Carlos Duque, on the other hand, constructs and sculpts
by means of smoke, fragile forms that make up a language
that traps us in its airiness; these are flashes in suspensión,
instants which disappear in a split second. It is a bucolic experience
of the practice of photography determined by time and
its duration and captured for all eternity by means of plunging
a photographic surface into emulsion. It is intuition which
expands even into the experience of drawing and painting,
now adopted by the protean force of the eye: photography.
Fernando Cano leads us through a unique stretch of
Colombian geography, where the transparency of a skirt
twirling in a typical dance or eyes hidden behind a carnaval
mask reveal multiple instances of joy in the souls that drown
their daily problems in the midst of a festival. There is an
internal debate between the exuberance of our idiosyncrasies
and a complex reality. Color, gestures, and conflicts
make up the tour which we spectators, as if in a replay,
experience when we allow ourselves to be captured by this
trip into memory, where we feel the spirit of people and
their immense cultural treasures.
Luis Morales, for his part, directs us through his strange
and carefully presented tunnels which are doomed to lead
nowhere. The space presented to us is a problem in perception
and consciousness, philosophical instances of being,
where time is immobile as if the objects were looking at us
and demanding a place in our memories. Indifference and
coldness, mystery and a protective power of the photographic
image, where the protagonists are perceptual sensitivity and
the intricate labyrinths of the mind. His tunnels are the result
of a reflective view which crosses the impossible spaces and
edifications of awareness.
Sergio Bartelsman presents pieces of our part of the world,
reaffirming with his images the beauty of our geography. His
camera articulates and attempts to form a group derived from
the triad of machine – human – nature. In unison, the symphony
of a visual practice close to the spirit of the East can
be heard. These images seem inspired by Japanese engravings
because they are contemplative and reveal an intention which
propagates the understanding of color as a sensitive transmission
of the image. The relationship between the machine and
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nature is symbiotic, even extending to include the concept of
the armed artist, bearing his pencil or brush, in this case the
weapon of light upon a photo-sensitive piece of paper.
Fantasy, space, time, tours, memory, and complex relations
are turned into interdisciplinary practices exhibited
here as cultural exchanges which sum up years of visual, discursive,
and cultural traditions between two ways of inhabiting
the world: eastern and western.
FOTOMUSEO would like to recognize the way in which
Ambassador Patricia Cardenas has performed her work at the
Colombian Embassy in Tokyo, strengthening relations between
Colombia and this formidable Eastern nation. We are grateful
for the invitation we received to present images to the people
of Japan that reveal the multiple aspects of our country. We
also thank Maria Elvira Quintana, Director of the Cultural
Affairs Office of the Ministry of Foreign Relations, for her
dedication and kindness and Ana Isabel Mosquera of the State
Department; Maria Claudia Parias, who offered us all the support
from the same office in making this exhibit possible;
Norie Sakae, in charge of Cultural Affairs and Communication
at the Colombian Embassy in Japan, for her dedication and
patience; and especially Carmiňa Ferro Iriarte, President
of the Banco de Credito Financial Group in Colombia, for
her sensitivity and understanding regarding the duty of all
Colombians in expanding the good image of the country in
other lands.

Gilma Suárez
Director • FOTOMUSEO
Curator