Mike’s Bogota Blog

Unas escenas y comentarios desde Bogota, Colombia. Scenes and commentaries from Bogota, Colombia.

Sunday, January 5, 2014

‘Malicia Indigena’

This exhibition, entitled ‘Malicia Indigena,’ was held recently in Los Andes University’s Santo Domingo exhibition hall, on Jimenez Ave.

The title could be translated literally as ‘Indigenous Malice,’ but actually means something different. ‘Indigenous’ more properly means ‘natively developed,’ and ‘malice’ something more like ‘mischief,’ ‘trickery’ or even ‘ingenuity’. The concept, as I understand it, refers to native-born Colombian abilities to deceive others, particularly foreigners, who supposedly have exploited Colombia thru history. The idea’s been used specifically to refer to narcotraffickers’ success at shipping their cargoes north by outsmarting those gringoes.

The exhibition includes images of the ‘degenerate art’ which the Nazis tried to destroy. That’s timely now because of the huge trove of such art found recently in Germany, as well as reports that German-Colombian bookseller Karl Buchholz had traded in such art before the war.

What’s really real here, and what isn’t? I was never certain.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours