Beatriz González

Ensemble aanwinst rond het fries 'Cargueros de Bucaramanga'

18 November 2021 - 6 February 2022
work in collection

Art says things that history cannot – a much-loved statement by the Colombian artist Beatriz González. De Pont has purchased an exceptional group of her works, including Cargueros de Bucaramanga (2006). In this eight-meter-widetextile frieze with signal-like images, the artist makes the violence in her home country palpable in a hushed and incisive manner.

González (Bucaramanga, 1932) is considered one of the most influential artists of Latin America. She has inspired many with her work, but also via her capacities as a teacher, curator and writer. Her oeuvre continues to be relevant to current developments in Colombia and the rest of South America. In documenta 14 (2018) and recently, in several retrospective exhibitions in Europe, it has moreover proven to be surprisingly universal.
The force of González’s confrontational visual language is clearly displayed in Cargueros de Bucaramanga, where a procession of carriers (cargueros) passes by. Heavy burdens, hung from long sticks across their shoulders, are transported by the figures. These are black silhouettes, which blur into darkness halfway through the frieze and then continue thereafter as white cut-outs in the dark: as though this carrying goes on day and night, without end. The shock is relentless when we realize that the cargo being transported here is dead bodies.