Beatriz Gonzalez, Colombian Painter of Collective Memory, Dies at 93

"Colombian artist Beatriz González, a foundational figure in Latin American contemporary art, died on January 9 at the age of 93 in her home. Widely recognized for her vibrant palette and radical use of furniture as a support for her paintings, she addressed collective memory by attempting a pictorial representation of her nation's history, depicting political events, violence, and loss. The news of her death was confirmed by her gallery Casas Riegner in Bogotá."

"Though her iconography, derived from popular culture and mass-reproduced images, is often aesthetically associated with Pop Art, González maintained that this was a misunderstanding of her oeuvre. Her practice was rooted in the specificities of Colombian visual culture, which differed fundamentally from the American and European contexts. While peers like Andy Warhol and Richard Hamilton replicated consumer culture and advertising, González took a more critical view, exploring the complex relationship between the construct of taste and social class."

"Starting in 1962, González used reproductions of classical artworks by Diego Velázquez and Johannes Vermeer as motifs, often placing them on industrial steel furniture. Later, she drew inspiration from newspaper photographs as well as láminas Molinari - mass-printed chromolithographs of saints, idols, and mythological scenes produced by the Gráficas Molinari workshop and commonly used for interior decoration in working-class Colombian homes. By selecting these prints, González sought to understand how such images shaped individual sensibility."

Beatriz González, a foundational figure in Latin American contemporary art, died on January 9 at age 93; her death was confirmed by gallery Casas Riegner in Bogotá. González used a vibrant palette and radical practice of painting on furniture to address collective memory and to pictorially represent Colombian political events, violence, and loss. Her iconography drew from popular culture and mass-reproduced images and was often mischaracterized as Pop Art, but her practice was anchored in Colombian visual specificities rather than American or European consumer culture. Beginning in 1962 she appropriated reproductions of Velázquez and Vermeer, later using newspaper photographs and láminas Molinari to probe how images shape sensibility and social taste.

Read at Hyperallergic