Beatriz González - guerra y paz : una poética del gesto = Beatriz González - war and peace : a poetics of gesture : Guerra y paz : War and peace : Beatriz González - war and peace

Beatriz González (Bucaramanga, Colombia, 1932) is one of Latin Americaœs most renowned living painters on the contemporary art circuit, and a key point of reference in her countryœs culture. War and Peace: A Poetics of Gesture is an original survey of Beatriz Gonzálezœs work. Since 1962, González has used painting as a means of appropriating and interpreting preexisting images from Western painting, popular culture, and photojournalism. Beginning in the 1980s, her works commented increasingly on public life and violence in Colombia. González is also an art historian, cultural critic, museologist, the author of several books, and a point of reference in the educations of many recent Colombian artists.The exhibition presented at the MUAC differs radically from recent retrospectives of the artistœs work in Europe and the United States: this is not simply a retrospective of the career of a South American Pop artist, but also a review of Gonzálezœs methods for exploring the communicative power of figure. The exhibition features series of works that the artist took from photojournalistic images and developed into paintings, drawings, prints, and public works. In each such work, Beatriz González refines a bodily gesture in order to produce a deep expression of empathy and human understanding.