a radical and authentic artist

Little known in Spain, Maria Teresa Hincapie (1956-2008) was the great pioneer of performance in Colombia and one of the most impressive figures in action art for its radical presence when inhabiting the spaces. His work arrived diluted in our country in collectives at the beginning of this 21st century, when it had already been recognized in major international biennials and museums. Therefore, only preceded by the small solo show at Madrid's Mira 1 gallery a few months ago, this first major retrospective, co-produced by MACBA together with the Medellín Museum, is quite an event. Successfully settled?

Added to the difficulty of dealing with any performative retrospective, multiplied by the absence of the protagonist, is the lack of quality records for Hincapié's unshakable position on the indissoluble relationship between art and life, forged in a work of resistance that opposed the vain spectacularization and gross materialism of our time.

The happy solution went through a intensive researchwho revitalized his collection donated to MoMA with interviews with close collaborators, the presentation of some of his spirals with objects and isolated elements of nature, and the contribution of artists who recreate his actions, such as Maria José Arjona It is theater map; or, they evoke, as in the wonderful video of fusco coconut over the island of the graves of the unclaimed dead (formerly due to AIDS, recently due to Covid), Hart Island, opposite the New York Bronx.

Hincapié spoke about activating masculine and feminine energies and defined feminist art with the slogan

A thematic and austere tour that manages to convey the authenticity of this artist. Self-taught, he came by chance to the anthropological theater of Beard and the poor of Grotowskiwhich led him to travel around the East to learn non-Western theater and dance techniques, training with which he would debut at the end of the eighties in an art system he barely knew and about which tried to stay on the sidelinesoccupying residual or exterior spaces that he inhabited for days.

[Colombian art before and after the boom]

It started from the affirmation of real existence through the “sacred” transcendence of everyday life to lead to the ancestral habitation of ethnicities in Mexico and Colombia.

It is said here, in a way, that she was not a feminist and that her position was androgynous. Like other artists of her generation, Hincapié spoke of activating masculine and feminine energies and defined feminist art with a slogan. But she dedicated a decade to presenting herself as a woman, with presentations as decisive as Showcase It is One thing is one thing. And just reviewing the curators she worked with and the group exhibitions of women she participated in in shows around the world a strong network of brotherhood.

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