Naked 1960'S Colombia

ensayo Naked 1960’s Colombia: Nadaísmo, gonzaloarango, and X-504 Camilo Roldán Mora than just a col- Though the movement has been labeled a kind of Latin Amer- ican Beat Generation, or placed alongside Dadaism because they lecction of Colombian share an outspoken stance of “anti-everything,” staging public “Beats”, the origins demonstrations (Baciu 737), or compared to Italian Futurism and significance of the for their exaltation of the new (Galeano 650), and definitely in- fluenced by early translations of Surrealist manifestos and poetry Nadaístas lie in a reac- (Romero 75), Nadaísmo is a movement particular to Colombia tion to societal vio- and original in its conception. lence and a need for There is no clear consensus about Nadaísmo’s place in Co- revolution lombian literature. Although the movement was not primarily literary and instead had pretensions of a total socio-cultural revolution, the Nadaístas sought to free Colombian literature from the regionalism that they saw as an instrument of social hegemony and a remnant of colonialism (Romero 82). Often criticized for failing to generate an original aesthetic (Posada 851), for not producing a substantial amount of work (Duque 30), and for not expressing any nationalist or patriotic sentiment (Ospina 57), the majority of Nadaísmo’s detractors predicate their arguments on antiquated expectations and conservative models for the role and behavior of a writer in the public sphere. The Nadaístas never made any claims about creating a new aesthetic; they only claimed to reject the old aesthetic. Neither were the Nadaístas all writers by trade, but the work they did complete was intended to be an ephemeral antithesis to the perfectionism and monumentality of previous Colombian poetry. And the Nadaístas were clearly not Sin título. Gouche sobre papel. 2007 interested in lending their art to any kind of nationalist cause “The most visible immediate response within the concerns, patriotism, or political ideologies. Church to [La gran violencia] was to identify the cause Founded in 1958, after nearly a decade of extreme of religion wholly with the Conservative party, and con- interpersonal violence —a period known as La gran demn the Liberals as atheists and communists,” thus violencia— a violence motivated by partisan politics, all exasperating previous tensions and condoning further of the writers and individuals tied in with the Nadaísta aggression (Levine and Wilde 229). In a Medellín ca- movement bore witness to, either directly or indirectly, thedral, during mass, several individuals associated as adolescents or adults, brutal acts unfathomable in with the Nadaísta movement cast their wafers onto the their darkness (Romero 32). Whole families were mas- ground before the congregation, lighting cigarettes in- sacred for the father’s politics, their bodies mutilated to stead of swallowing the host. They were saved from a indicate the perpetrators —the reason: a lexicon of dis- lynching when the police intervened and arrested them memberment and disfiguration (see Uribe). No heroes (Romero 41). During a convention for Catholic writ- in this landscape, no heroes populating the Nadaísta vi- ers, they distributed pamphlets that explained, through sion, there are only human beings with dark hearts, men profane and vehement derision of the Church, why the whose arguments sound ridiculous after the passing of Nadaístas are not Catholic. Gonzalo Arango, as leader, time (Galeano 658). Nadaísmo sought to overturn the was arrested and placed in a holding cell reserved for violence by rejecting the assumptions and ideals that the most violent criminals in the city (Romero 40). support it, by insulting the bourgeois audience that Before the infamy, in 1958, after about a year in ex- entertained their selfsame subversion. Nadaísmo was a ile, Gonzalo Arango (1931-1976) came to Medellín, violent response to La gran violencia (Romero 32). manifesto in hand, ready to round up support for Co- The Nadaístas quickly gained infamy by orchestrat- lombia’s first and only avant-garde movement (Escobar ing several attacks aimed at the Catholic Church be- 22). To consecrate the founding of Nadaísmo, Arango 23 held a book burning at the University of Antioquia in shows that Colombian poetry had been muzzled by Medellín. The books to be burned were mostly from the moral and rhetorical prejudice, as well as religious and Colombian canon, but the bonfire also contained the political coercion. Nudity is not simply part and parcel unpublished manuscript of Arango’s first novel. While of a timely witticism; rather, it is a recurrent element for the manuscript became hot ash, the poet gonzaloaran- X-504 in his first collection, Los poemas de la ofensa go read his Primer Manifiesto Nadaísta from the toilet (1968). It is a symbol of his desire to subvert the con- paper roll he wrote it on (Escobar 23). straints placed on Colombian poets and authors of the Primarily a journalistic prose writer, gonzaloar- 1960’s, and an ironic contradiction in light of his enig- ango’s poetic oeuvre is scant, an approximate total of matic pseudonym. twenty poems (Agudelo 761). Besides the manifestos, Reflecting on his nom de plume in a mimeographed his contribution to the literary life in Colombia was not pamphlet intended to encourage new adherents to the so much through writing as through his very person. movement, the poet asserts that X-504 was not neces- gonzaloarango offered an alternative for the youth who sarily a pseudonym because the number 504 was from had lost all confidence in the institutions and values of his government issued identification card, and thus sig- Colombian society. They used a house in the country- nifies him more unequivocally than his own name. It is side as a meeting place, and many of the early attend- the number society gave to make him easier to find. X ees were drug addicts, thieves, adulterous men, and he more vaguely defined as: homosexuals (“Gonzalo Arango” 26). Many of those a question… the false name of the truth… humorous and who went on to become adherents and proponents of ironic [for a poet]… The X has four limbs to symbolize the Nadaísta movement were more or less a decade my four paws… X-504 exists so that Jaime Jaramillo younger than gonzaloarango. He served as a guide for Escobar can live freely, without the weight of literature them, a kind of role model, and a self-declared prophet and admiration. This pseudonym serves as well to say, ‘Mark your favorite author with an X’ (Romero 54). (Agudelo 760). It’s possible that Jaime Jaramillo Escobar would When Nadaísmo first appeared, thirty years after the have never become X-504 had he not been such a close publication of his book Viaje a pie, when all the intel- friend of gonzaloarango, Nadaísmo’s founder and fig- lectuals in Colombia rejected Nadaísmo for its shame- urehead. Even gonzaloarango thought his friend was less self-promotion and nihilistic attitude, Fernando atypical for a Nadaísta, pointing to Escobar’s punctual- González, prominent Colombian philosopher-mystic, ity, responsibility, employment and compliant citizen- referred to gonzaloarango as the first naked man in Co- ship as the things that made him the strangest Nadaísta lombia (Cobo Borda 29). In large part due to his Jesuit (Agudelo 793). Nearly the same age, both men were education, Fernando González saw Colombia as a livid about a decade older than most of the other members, panorama of devilry, confession and spiritual exercise, but whereas gonzaloarango was a charismatic and his- to which he opposed pleasant and ephemeral works, trionic leader, Escobar was so timid and anonymous a disdain for the serious (Cobo Borda 28). In Viaje a that when his book, Los poemas de la ofensa, won a pie Fernando González declared that Colombia “needs national award in 1968 he did not attend the ceremony bodies over anything else, bodies that are not afraid of (Agudelo 793). So anonymous, for years he wrote un- nudity,” which he defends by asserting that the clerical der a mysterious and mechanical pseudonym that seems influence demonized the body and made it into some- more fit for a 1990’s graffiti artist than a reclusive -Co thing horrible and hypocritical (González 23-25). lombian poet: X-504. Nadaísta poet X-504 (1932- ) once said, “The se- But more than any other Nadaísta, X-504’s oeuvre cret to my style is that I always write in the nude,” and in presents a path towards a collectivity that expresses the as much as Nadaísmo was a movement of serious irrev- diverse ethnic roots of Colombia (Galeano 652). The erence, this poet’s nakedness is both a humorous as- people in his poems inhabit arcane narratives and magi- sault on bourgeois expectations and a statement about cal worlds, as well as the painful reality of Colombian literature (Escobar, J. 155). In an essay La gran violencia. Though he often uses a fabular outline that ends from 1960 titled 50 años de atraso en poesía X-504 24 with an explicit statement, rather than the clarification of a socializing moral, the conclusions of his poems of- Agudelo, Dario Jaramillo. “La poesía nadaísta.” Revista Ibe- fer frustration or irreverence. The heinous massacres roamericana 50 (1984): 757-98. and mutilations of La gran violencia are represented in the plain detail and reportage of antipoetry, his narra- Baciu, Stefan. “Beatitude South of the Border: Latin tive and descriptive clarity a kind of nakedness (Galea- America’s Beat Generation.” Hispania 49.4 (1996): no 654). Because the body behind the text can never be 733-39. linguistically disrobed, the poet can only make a stylis- tic gesture toward the ideal of nudity. Cobo Borda, J.G. “El Nadaísmo: 1958-1963.” Gaceta Co- In sharp contrast, gonzaloarango’s work is generally cultura 28 (1980): 22-36.

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