This interview by Colombian poet and art critic Jesús Gaviria (b. 1949) provides a retrospective vision of the work of Colombian artist Hugo Zapata (b. 1945). In it, the artist discusses the sculpture Geografía, which won a prize at the 32nd Salón Anual de Artistas Colombianos (1989). This undated article was found in the vertical files of the Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango (Bogotá).
Critical texts of the 32nd Salón Anual de Artistas Colombianos describe Geografía as an abstract work in stone that brought out the best in the material. The work evokes sculptural principles, and the return of man to nature and the sacred. The salon itself was a decentralized nationwide event in which young artists participated. New tendencies like the Transavantgarde, New Realism, and Neo-Expressionism—the movement with which Zapata is associated—figured prominently in this salon.
The urban intervention projects in which Zapata participated in 1984 gave rise to reflections on his passage from small to monumental formats. Geografía is an intermediate point in that process. It led the artist to search for textures in the material and for traces of the passage of time as he moved from two-dimensional to three-dimensional space.
Poet and art critic Jesús Gaviria was the curator of the Museo de Arte Moderno of Medellín (1989 to 1994) and the director of the “El Arte en Antioquia Ayer y Hoy” collection of the Fondo Editorial of the Universidad EAFIT (Medellín). His books on art from the region include La acuarela en Antioquia e Imágenes del café.