In April 1996, the Museum of Modern Art of Bogotá (MAMBO) brought together 130 pieces by Luis Fernando Zapata (Girardota 1951-Bogotá 1994) for the exhibition “Times of Silence,” which were published a year later in a catalogue with texts by Álvaro Medina and Carlos Barreiro. The exhibition showcased ten years of production, largely created in Paris, that define the artistic journey of this Antioquian artist who died prematurely from complications of Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, an illness he had suffered from for several years. After that MAMBO exhibition, Zapata's work remained immaculately stored away, out of public view for almost three decades, like the cult objects they represented in themselves. This contrasts sharply with the dissemination of work by other members of that brilliant generation of Colombian artists based in Paris, a group decimated by HIV in the early 1990s, such as Luis Caballero, Lorenzo Jaramillo, and Antonio Barrera, to name a few.
The press of the time highlighted Zapata's career achievements, such as his 1991 exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris, as part of the Salon de la Jeune Pitionte (Young Painting Salon), and his shows at the Garcés Velásquez, Jenni Vilá, and La Oficina galleries in Medellín. Luis Fernando Zapata's work was exhibited in the Netherlands, France, and Germany, as well as at the 1990 National Salon of Artists, the same year he participated in the first curatorial cycle of the Year of Concrete Art at the Casa Negret Gallery. This cycle revealed the connections between Colombian abstract artists who were subsequently engaged in formal explorations.
Since his major exhibition at MAMBO, his name appeared in only a few sporadic group shows linked to the abstraction of the 1990s, and reappeared last year in ‘Virosis,’ the first exhibition in Colombia about the HIV epidemic, also at MAMBO. This year, on the 30th anniversary of his death, Alonso Garcés, the custodian of his legacy, has generously facilitated a timely review of Zapata's work for the exhibitions “Lo inmemorial” at the Elvira Moreno Gallery, the one we are presenting at MAT, and the one that will be at the Leslie Lohman Museum of Art in New York next January. These exhibitions allow us to appreciate the enduring relevance of his work.
His interest in the linear forms of prehistoric geometric design, ranging from rock art to the decoration of weapons and everyday objects, is the common thread that allows us to understand the different stages of his creative process, coupled with a particular affinity for textures and materials. Thus unfolds a relationship that extends from his early paintings on traditional materials to the shields and stelae crafted from papier-mâché, his preferred medium. Research trips to North Africa, already marked by the tragic fate of his destiny, give way to objects of worship, such as magical amulets, and to boats that soon become tombs, which in turn give way to sarcophagi, the final stage of his production, conceived as chrysalises and constructed upon his own body. From the formal interest in an ascetic abstraction, common in the 1980s, Zapata embarks on a path of profound reflection on life, love, memory, death, and a personal spirituality that fills his final works with poetry in the search for what endures. And as Friedrich Hölderlin wrote: Love also fixes attentive eyes, but what remains is founded by poets.
Darío Ortiz
