Day 90 / Día 90

Villa del Rosario is the old Colombian capital where Bolívar was named president of the Great Colombia (Venezuela, Colombia and Panama) in 1821 and where the Republican Congress first held session. Today, only an edifice in ruins remains, as a reminder of the fact that the Panamerican union never came to fruition. It was in this same spot where I patiently waited for a whole week for the sister Bolivarian country of Venezuela to open the doors to my van and me. The requirements for my entry had arrived to the most ludicrous stage, and the only thing left was now to ask for a personal letter by president Chávez himself. On Friday, the customs office closed at 4:30pm and the Vice-minister had not yet signed the letter.

I sat idly and anxiously in this part of the world, in the only small hotel of the town that ironically faces the ruined palace that embodied the Bolivarian dream of unity. Like that structure, and like that dream, my utopian journey apparently had arrived to a similar fate. That week I had been victim of theft, had a car accident, and my spirits were in their lowest level. As it was customary to submit an address at each location visited, I wrote The Panamerican Address of Villa del Rosario.

“(…) The Colombia that I found, either in reality or in imagination, is a country with open wounds. My conversations, maybe imaginary, with curators, critics and educators, went gently around the topic of national patrimony. And yet the following workshop (that I believe I gave) inevitably derived into the hateful and tired, but unavoidable topic of the civil war and the drug traffic, the very own unrest of this country (…) In the end, the search for the project is and has been for our collective and individual unrests, and in the Colombia that I visited I found them, thought to have lived them, and think that at least I was able to conceive the challenge that it represents to face them daily.”

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Villa del Rosario es la vieja capital colombiana donde Bolívar fue nombrado presidente de la Gran Colombia (la unión de Venezuela, Colombia y Panamá) en 1821, y donde el nuevo congreso republicano fue proclamado. Hoy en día, el día donde se firmó aquella proclamación yace en ruinas, al igual que aquél proyecto integracionista. Fue en este mismo lugar donde he esperado por una semana a que la República Bolivariana de Venezuela me permita entrar al país. Cada día me imponen nuevos requisitos, incluyendo una carta del vice-ministro de relaciones exteriors. He estado sentado ansiosamente en esa parte del mundo, en el único hotel del pueblo que irónicamente se encuentra justo enfrente de esta ruina bolivariana. Como ese edificio, y como aquél sueño de unificación, siento que mi proyecto ha llegado a un destino similar.

Day 85 / Día 85

Today we held the public activities of the SPU in Bogotá, under the splendid scenery of the Quinta de Bolivar, with a special tribute to El Libertador. Before a small audience, a stellar cast of Colombian curators spoke around issues of historic and cultural heritage in museums and their relationship with contemporary art. The participants included Jaime Iregui, Jose Roca, Jaime Cerón, Constanza Torquica and William Alfonso Lopez Rosas. In Bogota there has been a recent debate around the opening of historic museums to allow contemporary artists to interact, which in turn has led to the debate on what is the true mission of these spaces. We spoke about institutional critique and its new phases, the notion itself of heritage and the role of historic interpretation on the everyday life of a country.

At the unfinished workshop here, the director of the Quinta de Bolivar, Daniel Castro, brought up the topic of individualism as a key factor in Colombian society, who, according to his view, is a great obstacle for making a joint progress in society. In this discussion, the idea of individualism came back as we spoke about the way people react to the never-ending war and drug problem in Colombia, and how these factors all contribute to the social behavior of the average Colombian.

The day ended with the performance of the Panamerican Anthem and the unveiling of a plaque that commemorated the passage of the SPU through Bogotá, performed before the monument of Bolívar. The ceremony slightly lifted our spirits after two days of speaking, and experiencing, problems related to the social unrest of the city.  We finished the day with a visit to a downtown bar and a toast of Colombian aguardiente.

I am now getting ready to go to Caracas, a stop that had been left behind.

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Hoy tomaron lugar las actividades de la EPD bajo el espléndido escenario de la Quinta de Bolívar, donde le hicimos un tributo a El Libertador.  Ante un público reducido, un grupo de curadores colombianos hablaron de cuestiones de patrimonio y de la crítica institucional. Había encontrado resistencia cuando propuse originalmente el tema de la violencia en Colombia, debido a que es tal cliché; sin embargo, este surgió de cualquier manera cuando se comenzó a hablar de individualismo y de los factores sociales que impiden el progreso en Colombia. El día terminó con la ceremonia y la ejecución del himno panamericano. Acto seguido, los artistas colombianos me llevaron a un bar del centro a celebrar y a olvidar mi computadora robada entre tragos de potente aguardiente.

Day 84 / Día 84

The good news: I managed to get the van out of customs in Cartagena. The bad news: it cost nearly $3000 in travel, wait, bribes, fees, and paperwork. The good news: I was able to leave Cartagena to Bogotá. The bad news: I had to finally face Colombian highways. The good news: someone came with me, Manuel Zuñiga, an artist and great fan of travel. The bad news: he doesn’t drive. The good news: we took the "safe" road through Bucaramanga (guerrilla-free). The bad news: it was the worst topographic road i have ever taken in my life. Trip to Bogotá was 24 hours, mostly behind huge tractor-trailers. The bad news: the road is completely militarized, with military checkpoints every 20 km. The good news: the soldiers have been very respectful and decent with me. Colombians like Mexicans thanks to ranchera music and Cantinflas. The bad news: we have U.S. plates in guerrilla territory. The good news: everyone here thinks that Alaska is part of Canada. The good news: we made it to Bogotá, and this morning installed the schoolhouse at the Quinta de Bolivar, the most appropriate space for the project so far. My host and friends, Carolina Franco and Maria Clara Bernal, from the University of the Andes, have been generous and enthusiastic. Daniel Castro, the director of the Quinta, has been doing an exemplary education program in this museum for years.

The very, very, very bad news: upon three hours of being in Bogotá, and after surviving the road, guerilla, and customs, once I was already registering at the hotel lobby, the impeccable "hotel manager" took my laptop bag- and disappeared. I lost thousands of pictures documenting this project, as well as all my phone numbers, lists, and other materials, aside to a $2500 G4 laptop that I will likely won’t afford to replace again, plus now my ability to continue reporting the project on this page has been severely hampered. The hotel manager’s impersonation apparently is an old trick mastered by the "professionals" here. Too bad I had to learn about this trick by being an active part of it.

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Las buenas noticias: conseguí salir de la aduana en Cartagena: las malas noticias: me costó casi $3000 dólares entre gastos de viaje, mordidas, y papeleo. Las buenas noticias: realicé el trayecto a Bogotá por la carretera de Bucaramanga, donde no hay presencia del FARC. La mala noticia: es la carretera topográficamente más peligrosa que he manejado. La mala noticia: la carretera está completamente militarizada y me detuvieron constantemente. La buena noticia: los soldados colombianos adoran a los mexicanos, invocando a Cantinflas y a Pedro Infante. Y ahora las muy malas noticias: a las tres horas de llegar a Bogotá, y después de haber sobrevivido la carretera y me registraba en el lobby del hotel, el impecable “gerente” tomó la mochila con mi laptop y desapareció. Perdí miles de fotografías documentando el proyecto, y muchos otros materiales vitales para este proyecto. El truco del gerente falso aparentmente es una vieja estrategia utilizada por los “profesionales” de aquí. Lástima que tuve que enterarme de esta tradición a través de participar directamente en ella.

Day 79

My stay in Cartagena has been a bit more extensive than what was originally planned. Fortunately for me, Cartagena is a city that deserves a long stay. My Colombian friends had rightly recommended for me to stay in the lively neighborhood of Getsemaní, historically known as the area where servants and slaves would spend the night after the closing of the gates of the walled city, which was inhabited by Spanish only.

Cartagena de Indias was founded by Pedro de Heredia, at a place with rich indigenous cultures, and with the goal to turn the city into the main port to store and ship gold to Spain. Cartagena was often attacked by pirates, and for this reason the Spanish built a magnificent wall around the city. The wall would turn up protecting the city to the passage of time – maybe nowhere else in Latin America can one see so many well-preserved XVIIth century buildings. There is a plaza dedicated to Simón Bolívar, who had a decisive victory here and whose phrase to that effect adorns his monument: “People from Cartagena: if Caracas gave me life, you gave me glory”.

Artist Rafael Ortiz, a local Colombian artist and the only person that I had the number of, turned out to be a great host. Ortiz, who moved to Cartagena from Bogota searching a better quality of life, received me with his family and has been a great guide to the city. Ortiz makes a kind of work that faces the challenge of adapting its conceptual strategies to a local art world that doesn’t go much beyond decorative paintings. Ortiz has initiated projects that make artists interact with the city of Cartagena, and he has even done collaborative workshops with high-risk youth from the poor neighborhoods in the area.

Cartagena receives a good amount of tourism, although fortunately U.S. companies have not invaded the city yet. This is certainly close to end, given that right-wing president Alvaro Uribe is doing all he can in order to get the Free Trade Agreement through. Uribe won re-election by a landslide and tomorrow Monday will mark his historic taking of office (the first presidential re-election in the modern history of Colombia). The event has been met with violence from the guerrilla groups in Colombia, since Uribe has taken a strong stance against the guerrillas. As a result, the whole country is in yellow alert and under military watch until the taking of office.

Even so, the conflict does not seem to affect the neighborhood life in Cartagena, which is a quiet, low-key town. “Get ready for the worst” told me artist Maria Posse, who was the first one to welcome me to the city, and forewarned me about the bureaucratic speed of everything here. Indeed, once I had started the paperwork here I realized that it would be hopeless to try to resist the lethargic rhythm imposed by the sea, the humidity and the heat.

An example of high impracticality and slow speed is exemplified in the telecommunications here. Perhaps due to lack of government regulation, phone communication has resulted in true communication chaos and on a secondary “call” market. The companies Movistar and Comcel dominate the cell phone communications, but due to their reciprocal high costs in calls to either company as well to ground lines, few people can maintain their own cell phone bill and most don’t want to call from one type of company to another. As a result, in every corner in Cartagena there is a person selling cell phone calls (although not always to every kind of cell). International calls are out of the question, unless if one goes to an international calling location.

In order to try to avoid this telecommunications labyrinth, I thought appropriate to cut to the chase and simply buy a cell phone. This, under the logic that the system would work, seemed to be the solution, but I had forgotten that this kind of logic simply would not hold here. The woman who sold me the cell phone functioned a bit like the customs agent: “you can start calling immediately” –she said when I inquired about the service. “It will take 24 hours to start working”— she said once I had paid. After the 24 hours, when we phone wasn’t working yet, she said: “ it’s just that sometimes it takes a few days to get going because the system is so backed up”.

In the meantime, while I try to find a phone that works and rescue the Panamerican van from the sea, time here passes in its own unpredictable fashion and I have no choice but to sit around and walk around Getsemaní, and do things such as being an spectator in the neighborhood’s beauty contest.