Collection on stage #5: Fetish: material conversations presents a selection of works from the Museum of Modern Art of Bogotá’s Collection, which not only represent an important part of the nation’s artistic and cultural heritage but also come together to construct a network of meanings around the concept of the ‘fetish.’
The exhibition weaves together works categorized under five concepts, which intersect in each piece. ‘Gazing into the Void’ represents artistic formal explorations related to the concept of infinity, or the perpetuity of absorbed fullness. Through two-dimensional works, with flat colors and abstract figures, this section allows the departure from narrative as an irreducible act of mediation in today’s reality.
Similarly, the sacred guidance of the stars has inspired spiritual solutions, social organizations, religions, and even geographic references since the beginning of human history. The idea of ‘Astrality – Ancestrality’ legitimizes human concerns, evidencing connections with the celestial and the primordial, and approaches, through mysticism, the figures and archetypes inherited from the past.
The show brings together the works of renowned modern and contemporary artists to establish dialogues that, although embedded in artistic currents marked by rationalism and skepticism—characteristics of modern art—approach the creative act through the drive of the esoteric, the hidden, and the ancestral.
Collection on stage #5 is the fifth in a series of exhibitions that seeks to research, preserve, disseminate, and make accessible the Museum’s collection. The main objective is to build alternative discourses that allow for interpretations of the works beyond their visual narratives, enriching traditional chronological accounts with innovative concepts and themes.
Collection on stage #5: Fetish: material conversations highlights works from the Intercol Salons, Athens Salons, and the Bogotá Biennials, those exhibitions spearheaded by MAMBO that not only introduced new names to the art scene but also incorporated experimental, hard-to-classify approaches.
