Pre-Colombian Art
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts hosted several exhibits this summer 2023 – the first one we explored in a rush to absorb all art Montreal can offer, left us in awe and reverence – a ‘Portable Universe’. ‘Portable’ because the art transcends centuries. ‘Universe’ because the artifacts embodied a philosophy of life, values, and ‘one-ness’ with nature in all its forms. The exhibit showcases the splendor and thoughtfulness of pre-Colombian art of Americas.
Spawn from several years of close collaboration between the curatorial team and the Arhuaco community of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta region in northern Colombia, this large-scale exhibition presents new ways of approaching the world embodied in Colombian art.
Indigenous peoples of Colombia are the ethnic groups who have inhabited Colombia before the European colonization in the early 16th century – belonging to 115 different tribes. The exhibition attempts to restore millennia-old teachings of these groups by revealing the meaning and spirit of their artworks. It paints a vision of the world in which ancient works of art are relevant today and in the future.
The exhibition features some of the most remarkable artworks ever made in Colombia. They are not simply material objects but carriers of the memory and energies of ancestral knowledge, among other things, about the interrelatedness between our planet and all the beings that inhabit it.
‘Caring for humanity means caring for nature, and caring for nature means caring for humanity’ Jason Peres Villafana, Arhuaco elder
In the most surprising way, many of the exhibited objects are both ancient and modern, abstracted. Symbols recognizable for todays urban dwellers. Faces surprisingly human, minimalist yet expressive, individualistic, yet sufficiently simplified to infer generic and timeless personality traits…
It was the true revelation of connections that, regardless of culture or background, link us with our common ancient past. Evocative of and speaking to sensibilities of today. Despite centuries and millennia gone by…
Left Brain Artists 