Street Art and the Cartographic Legacy in Bogotá, Colombia

GRAFFITI AS COUNTER-CARTOGRAPHY: STREET ART AND THE CARTOGRAPHIC LEGACY IN BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA BY CATHRIN GORDON THESIS Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Art History with a minor in Latin American and Caribbean Studies in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2015 Urbana, Illinois Advisers: Associate Professor Oscar E. Vázquez, Director of Research Associate Professor Dara Goldman ABSTRACT GRAFFITI AS COUNTER-CARTOGRAPHY: STREET ART AND THE CARTOGRAPHIC LEGACY IN BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA El Grupo Excusado, a graffiti collective that emerged between 2002 and 2003, introduced stencil into the street art community of Bogotá, Colombia, and emerged as innovators of a style that exposed the relationship between status, identity, image, and representation through the provocative manipulation of recognizable icons and symbols. As members of Grupo Excusado related in interviews, manipulating icons and symbols at their index proved a more powerful tool to interrogate social hierarchies of power than creating original images. Furthermore, Grupo Excusado’s influence effected a new direction in graffiti production in Bogotá, distinct from that of earlier decades, when street writing entrenched itself in political strategy, opposition, and consolidation. Moreover, changes to infrastructure, such as increased access to telecommunications networks, the Internet, and travel, changed the quotidian experiences post-millennium of many Colombians. The types of images, styles, and approaches to street art that emerged in the wake of Grupo Excusado thus reflects the twenty-first century change in perspective concerning image, representation, and status. Notably, graffiti is not illegal in Bogotá, Colombia, in contrast to cities like New York. However, it is not legal either. Yet, theoretical analyses of street art foreground an assumption of graffiti as illicit. George L. Kelling and James Q. Wilson perceived this visual medium as a symptom of disorder and crime, Armando Silva focused on its value as iconoclasm, and others have considered urban art as an instrument of representation for hip hop or youth sub culture. Henri Lefebvre, Edward Soja and urban theorists consider the relationship between space in itself (physical/geographical) and political space (regimes of power). In particular, their focus is the economy of space in the urban environment, where one’s role in the economy reinforces ii one’s relationship to self, others, and to the spaces of production. In addition, Soja posited space itself as its own subject of discourse, capable of revealing strategies for consolidating influence, power, and control. Therefore, Soja and others like him, contend that the spaces of street art production also outline the dimensions of “thirdspace,” representative of alternative actors who can utilize its existence to subvert the dominant order. Yet, the ideas central to each theoretical framework are contingent upon graffiti’s illicit status, whether by law, rule, or custom. Graffiti’s gray legal status in Colombia: neither legal nor illegal, creates the discursive space necessary to consider its producers and its artistic value in a broader context. In addition, twenty-first century changes in everyday life and infrastructure, including access to Internet, provided means toward livelihood, resources, and community otherwise impossible through traditional state structures. In order to illuminate the value of the street art style pioneered by Grupo Excusado and further developed by artists and collectives Bastardilla, Lesivo, Guache, and Toxicómano, it is vital to utilize a different theoretical framework: that of cartography. Cartography, the process of stratifying objects and social types according to a hierarchy within the borders of declared national space, reinforces specific relationships between constituent social groups and those in power. More importantly, enlightenment-era naturalists acting on behalf of the Spanish crown used mapping expeditions into Colombia as a means to identify natural, financial, and social resources, often appropriating local knowledge for their own use and renaming or reclassifying a plant, animal, or social type according to their hierarchal system. The images of particular social types produced by these eighteenth and nineteenth-century expeditions became recognized as representations of a specific ethnic, gender, or social class, where one’s ethnic origin and phenotype often reflected spatial and social distance from the projected ideal of the ruling class. iii Similarly, one’s perceived identity reflected and impacted future possibilities for social and spatial movement throughout the land. Consequently, social and spatial perception of self and others relative to the ruling class strengthened the existence of a social ideal, and naturalized the relationship between image, identity, and representation. The street art images of Grupo Excusado and others like them manage to expose the tenuous relationship between image, representation, identity, and perception, and thus this thesis posits their style of graffiti as counter cartography. Grupo Excusado, Bastardilla, Lesivo, Guache, and Toxicómano create images that act as counter cartography, with the power to disrupt and deconstruct perception of social hierarchy through the manipulation of symbolic icons. In sum, utilizing cartography and thus counter cartography as theoretical framework broadens the scope to analyze and interrogate sign systems underlying the construction of representational images and images of representation that correlate with processes of mapping. iv Dedication I dedicate this thesis to Nicki, my greatest champion in all things. v Acknowledgements There are many people and institutions I would like to thank, whose support made this thesis possible. First, I want to extend my sincere appreciation to my thesis advisor and director of research, Dr. Oscar Vázquez. I could not have finished this work without you. I additionally thank the Tinker Foundation, Dr. Norman Whitten Jr. of the Anthropology Department, and the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, who provided funding to support research in Cartagena and Bogotá, Colombia. In particular, I would like to thank the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies Director Dr. Dara Goldman, who also served as thesis second reader, and Associate Director Dr. Angelina Cotler, both a source of encouragement and support throughout my graduate study at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. While in Colombia, I benefit from the resources at the Luis Ángel Arango Library, the National Museum, and the National Library of Colombia. In addition, I am grateful to César Peña for his ongoing friendship and support of my project, and for introducing me to Daniel Manjarrés and Nadia Moreno-Moya - both of whom arranged special accommodations while in Colombia. Furthermore, I am grateful to Dr. Susan Sidlauskas of the Art History Department at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ, for introducing me to Dr. Patricia Zalamea Fajardo of the Art History Department at the University of the Andes in Bogotá. I benefit greatly from the resources, support, and friendship of colleagues and faculty of the Art History Program at the University of Illinois. I am grateful to Dr.(s) Prita Meier, Lisa Rosenthal, alumna Abigail Gros, and PhD Candidate Laura Shea. Last, but not least, I am grateful to Dr. Kim Collins, Betsy Basch, Psy D., and Tim Cronin of the Disability Resources & Educational Services Center. Your belief in me made this possible. Thank you all. vi Table of Contents Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1: Living in Bogotá, Colombia ........................................................................................ 20 Neoliberalism, Shantytowns, and Slums ............................................................................................... 21 Significant events in Colombian Political History ............................................................................. 26 M-19 and political graffiti of 1970s Bogotá ......................................................................................... 30 Contrasts: Street Writing in 1970s New York City ............................................................................. 32 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................................... 40 Chapter 2: Historiography of Graffiti in Bogotá, Colombia .................................................. 42 Graffiti in Spanish America ....................................................................................................................... 42 Historiography of Contemporary Graffiti in Bogotá ......................................................................... 47 A new type of Urban Art ............................................................................................................................. 58 Lesivo ................................................................................................................................................................ 64 The Administration of Álvaro Uribe Vélez (2002 – 2010) .............................................................. 74 Grupo Excusado ............................................................................................................................................

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