fernandoherrera

Diego Pombo

A N T H O L O G Y
1
D I E G O P O M B O
A N T H O L O G Y
2
D I E G O P O M B O
A N T H O L O G Y
3
Cali, 2005
D I E G O P O M B O
A N T H O L O G Y
Ministry of Culture
4
D I E G O P O M B O
© Salamandra del Barco Ebrio Artistic Cultural Corporation
Concerted Room, Ministry of Culture and Cali’s Administrative Offi ce of Culture
ISBN 958 - 33 - 7775 -9
Editorial Management:
Diego Pombo
Carrera 36 No. 4A-31
Telefax: 554 2411 - 683 1858
E-mail:
Writings: William Ospina
Daniel Samper
Jotamario Arbeláez
Pedro Alcántara
Félix Ángel
Julián Malatesta
Carlos Fajardo Fajardo
Hoover Delgado
José Zuleta
Miguel González
Diego Pombo
Cover: The Miraculous Catch - 2005
Acrylic paint on canvas. 47.24 in x 35.43 in
Inside cover: Your Highness III - 2005
Acrylic paint on wood. 22.05 in x 22.05 in
Acknowledgements:
La Tertulia Museum of Modern Art
Ernesto Fernández Riva
Luis Mesa
Carfi col Ltda.
Layout: Art Department at Feriva Press S.A.
This book was printed at
Feriva Press S.A. in june of 2005
Calle 18 No. 3-33
PBX: 883 1595

Cali, Colombia
Pombo Buriticá, Diego Fernando, 1954-
Diego Pombo: anthology / writings: William Ospina … --
Cali: Salamandra del Barco Ebrio Artistic Cultural Corporation,
Feriva Press, 2005.
120 p.: il.; 28 cm.
ISBN 958-33-7775-9
1. Pombo Buriticá, Diego Fernando, 1953- - Pictorial work -
Expositions. 2. Colombian Art - Expositions. 3. Kitsch I. Ospina,
William II. Title
709.861 cd 19 ed.
AJD5574
CEP-Banco de la República-Luis-Angel Arango Library
A N T H O L O G Y
5
To Isabel, Beatriz and María,
the three women in my life.
6
D I E G O P O M B O
A N T H O L O G Y
7
Content
Diego Pombo’s Anthology _____________________________ 9
My relationship with the arts __________________________ 11
The Pombo, a tropical grotesque _______________________ 53
Pombo the bad _____________________________________ 61
Alcántara and Pombo in unison ________________________ 63
Diego Pombo and the rescue of memory ________________ 65
Maculate conceptions of Pombodernism ________________ 73
Pombo in his own ink ________________________________ 77
Pombo goes retro ___________________________________ 83
Diego Pombo: The validity of the obsolete _______________ 91
Diego Pombo and the most serious of all games __________ 117
8
D I E G O P O M B O
A N T H O L O G Y
9
Diego Pombo’s Anthology
Diego Pombo’s ultra baroque, pedantic, grotesque, poignant, prosaic,
direct, venomous work and often times of implacable diatribe, gathered
in this anthology and showing his multi-faceted productions as a painter,
drawer, graphic artist, object creator, designer, illustrator, gives us a
glimpse of his diverse interests. Musician, publicist, actor, stage designer,
cultural manager and artistic director to boot.
All of those experiences and tasks nurtured his production with
elements that characterized a very important artistic sector in the 80’s,
a decade during which he chose the visual arts as manifest activity. He
feeds his images off of the street fanfare, the peripheral mythology, the
otherness of what’s popular, the leafl et speeches; and with his unique
replying capacity and the vehement polyphony of his lapidary counterpoint,
he equally maculates and histrionices the erotic, the political, the
religious...
In contrasting and challenging colors, his work sustains a thoughtful
staging to recreate images that enclose art’s history, literary tradition
and popular icons; all staged in the most sovereign kitsch and the most
festive commonness. There, Pombo sets and reaffi rms his unmistakable
proposition generating rejection, constrained smiles, sparking lascivious,
anticlerical and perverse patriotic onslaught speculations, always on the
brink of dislocating on ambivalence, double meaning and the occult
humor, between sarcasm and wickedness.
An evident shamelessness drives the Sacred Hearts, the Procurer En10
D I E G O P O M B O
tourage, the Last Suppers, the Pregnant Virgins, the Negotiation Tables,
the Miraculous Catches, Wacky Guerra, Reigning Jovita, in an endless
masquerade that allegorizes the national scene, where violence, politics,
misery and religion get celebrity status. The same one that builds on the
fl ourishing taste for corruption and drug traffi cking in the ever-shocking
scenario of the armed confl ict and uncertainty. Pombo’s work functions
as a media-geared address on the onrush against aesthetic symbols and
the inoperative perpetuity of an art without comparatives.
MIGUEL GONZÁLEZ
Curator
A N T H O L O G Y
11
I was born in Manizales August 7, 1954.
My father was a sewing machine technician
and my mother, a schoolteacher. I spent my
fi rst three years in the countryside. The most
vivid images I recall from those years are
the cable cars my father built for me, which
traveled from the top of one armoire to the
other, hanging from a thread, just as the real
ones would, which departed from the Milán
funicular station with their fantastic cargo
of men, work animals and sacs, traveling
through the air at more than ninety eight
feet above, between the gigantic metal
towers crowned by pulleys, planted atop
each mountain in Old Caldas.
My father’s sequined suit of a matador
from his brief stint as an amateur bullfi ghter
and the day he lost his fancy after being
knocked down by a young bull, are some
other intense recollections that undoubtedly
marked my newly fl ashed image collection.
We moved to Cali in 1957 and started
school when I was fi ve, there I learned to
read and to fear the image of the huge cat
with striped pajamas which would return
My relationship with the arts
Selling Newspapers - 1956
DIEGO POMBO
12
D I E G O P O M B O
every night to take revenge on the boy that
had thrown him into the river during the
day, which appeared on the last page of the
elementary school book Alegría de leer.
I started going to a catholic school when
I was 7, coinciding with Óscar Muñoz. Soon
after, also out of fear, I learned to forge my
Mom’s signature fi rst, then that of my friend’s
parents, as well as altering the grades on the
grade cards, where teachers would indicate
disciplinary actions that had to be notifi ed
to our parents, which meant certain disciplinary
measures; the display of dexterity for
such actions, on which fortunately enough
I did not insist, undoubtedly constituted
my early and successful debut in the plastic
arts world, an experience that because of
its transgression, left a new, pleasant and
unknown sensation in me.
At fi fteen and after successive expulsions
from Cali’s and Manizales’ schools, my
aunt Lucy managed to enroll me in Hernán
Nicholls’ advertising agency, who was also
from Manizales, an experience that lasted
three years and allowed me to earn a living
from what I made and do as I pleased under
Carlos Duque’s lead in the art department,
working along Fernell Franco, Carlos Mayolo
and Andrés Caicedo, amongst other
important pioneering characters in Cali’s
70’s, whose gathering spot was there and for
whom like me, advertising was the military
My Grandmother and my Mother - 1955
Mi Father - 1930
María and I - 2005
A N T H O L O G Y
13
At Seville’s Alcázar with Pedro Alcántara, Rodolfo Vélez, Mónika
Herrán and Memo Vélez. Spain, 1986.
With Ferdie Fernández, Darío Jaramillo and Carlos Muñoz,
“Candela” Group. 1981
At an exhibit with Armando Barona and Guerra. 1990.
At the La Candelaria Theater with Santiago García during
the setup of “En la Raya”. 1993, Bogotá.
14
D I E G O P O M B O
Next page up:
Nostalgia -1981
Pencil on paper 39.3” x 27.5”
Next page down:
Allegory with Bessie Smith - 1982
Pencil on paper 39.3” x 27.5”
Picture in Seville,
Spain - 1986
At el Retiro Park with Beatriz Monsalve, Madrid - Spain - 1991
A N T H O L O G Y
15
16
D I E G O P O M B O
duty of fi ne arts.
My time at Nicholls meant the connection
with photography, art festivals, artists,
the shows at Ciudad Solar or La Tertulia,
rock concerts, psychodely and nothingarianism.
During the next four years I tried to
manage a parallel career in music, with
propositions that included salsa, jazz and
rock fusions; the scene would take place at
the Café de los Turcos, patronized by leftist
intellectuals and writers, from which I especially
remember William Ospina and Germán
Cuervo, besides musicians, poets, painters,
drug dealers and pimps; it was there were I
The Band of
Bandits - 1982
Pencil on paper.
59” x 47.2”
Intuition - 1982
Pencil on paper.
19.6” x 27.5”
A N T H O L O G Y
17
Dizzy Gillespie. Allegory - 1982
Pencil on paper. 27.56 in x 19.69 in
18
D I E G O P O M B O
began to sense Cali’s imagery and the main
characteristics of its identity, which will end
up being the heart and soul of my plastic
dissertation. Eventually, my musical journey
ended up dissolving with the decade, giving
way to painting as a career of systematic
dedication in my life.
The fi rst exposition in 1981 coincided
with my last presentation as a musician in
concert next to Ferdie Fernández and Larry
Joseph, at the Gaceta Hall. It was comprised
of pencil drawings on paper infl uenced by
surrealists and Peter Milton’s engravings with
aerial trains, giant snails, weightless nudes
and animated musical instruments that inhabited
a strange black and white world.
My love of jazz and a happy coincidence
took me to New Orleans by the hand
of Eduardo Mejía (r.i.p.), a friend and great
painter who managed to program one of
my expositions during the New Orleans Jazz
Festival in 1983 through his agent, it then
went on to the Jazz Museum at San Juan
de Puerto Rico, this being my fi rst tour as
an artist abroad.
That same year in Barcelona, at editor Felipe
Domínguez’ request, I made the Bolívar
en Guerra, La banda de Guerra, Sagrado corazón
de Guerra superstar and Adivina con
quién, lithographs at Vicente Aznar’s shop
(Joan Mirós work printer for many years),
From the series
Illogical zoo
1985.
Pen-style and
collage on
paper
A N T H O L O G Y
19
with which I participated at several graphic
arts biennials and expositions in Europe.
I moved to Bogotá in 1984 and became
part of the La Huella shop, where I alternated
with Lugo, Dioscórides, Rendón, Granada,
Roda and Caro, amongst other plastic artists;
there I created six or seven metal etching
editions.
The multiplying possibilities of the
graphic work and my admiration of Pedro
Alcántara’s work drew me near the Corporación
Prográfi ca de Cali, the most important
serigraphy shop in the country at the time,
led by the master, where works by artists
such as Portocarrero, Lam, Obregón, Torales,
Sánchez, Obelar and other stellar fi gures in
Latinamerican plastic arts were printed —
often times with the direct assistance of the
authors. Beginning in 1985 I took part in the
majority of the serigraphy portfolios created
by the Corporation, up until its dissolution
and started my phase as a true painter, using
the canvas as support and acrylics as the media;
that same year I made a series of collages
in black and white called El zoológico-ilógico
(The Illogical Zoo), inspired on the Max Ernst
series and the animalistic component of the
human condition.
My work’s main thematic character from
1985 to 1991 was «Guerra», a memorable
lunatic that lived off of giving blessings and
From the series
Illogical zoo
1985.
Pen-style and
collage on
paper
20
D I E G O P O M B O
whose holy ire inspired something like fear
of God. He died that last year in the middle
of the shooting of a short fi lm about him I
had undertaken in collaboration with Antonio
Dorado, which won the award as best
Colombian documentary at the Cartagena
Film Festival that year.
From the close cooperation I established
with maestro Alcántara during the 80’s
second half, which includes a series of oneof-
a-kind jointly created paints, I rescue the
specially shared taste for the theater in compositions,
the use of photographic collages
to reinforce the character’s gesticulations
and, above all, the enrichment of my politics
in art concept.
With the Corporación Prográfi ca’s group
I also traveled to Havana’s Biennial as a guest,
representing Colombia, and created a serigraphic
edition at René Portocarrero’s shop;
I also represented my country at the Arco de
Madrid Fair in 1986 and at Seville’s Biennial
that same year, and was part of Cali’s group
exhibit at the São Bento gallery in Lisbon.
During the following four years I continued
exhibiting nationally and internationally
on a regular basis, keeping the Colombian
social circus and its most accentuated features
as themes: from the erotic, the religious,
the political and histrionic to the acerbic;
specially featuring the exhibit at New York’s
From the series
Illogical zoo
1985.
Pen-style and
collage on
paper
A N T H O L O G Y
21
Barnard Biderman Gallery and the collective
exhibit by Colombian artists at the Queens
Museum.
The beginning of the 90’s marked the
beginning of my relationship with the world
of theater: fi rst as a poster designer and later
as scenographer, musician and eventually, as
an actor. The invitation made by the Festival
de Cádiz to do an individual exhibit in 1990,
the commission to design the poster for the
following year and another exhibit in the
1992 edition, as well as joining La Candelaria
Theater with the production of En la raya,
and the hundreds of exhibits by groups from
all over the world that I was able to enjoy
during those years, determined my defi nite
entrance into the world of theater.
Upon TEC’s breakup with Beatriz Monsalve,
Hoover Delgado, Henry Castillo, María
Fernanda Agudelo and Daniel Rodríguez
(r.i.p.) in 1994, which coincided with my
studio’s construction at the house I had
bought from my father’s family, together,
we decided to create a group that would
rehearse where up until then, it had been
my workspace. We called it Drunken Ship
(Barco Ebrio) and the place, Salamander.
The fi rst presentation took place in October
of that year with El Puente de Cuba Group
and we staged Crápula Mácula, an adaptation
of an essay by Riunosuke Akutagawa,
From the series
Illogical zoo
1985.
Pen-style and
collage on
paper
22
D I E G O P O M B O
which was invited to the leading Colombian
festivals and Spain’s Cádiz in 1995. Since
then, Salamandra has kept an important
uninterrupted programming — and has also
served as exhibit hall, auditorium, facilities,
concert hall, for studies, conferences, rituals,
banquets and even for wakes, as when our
sceneshifter Daniel Rodríguez “El Capi” was
killed in 1996.
In 1997 we presented Santo Ofi cio, with
a grant from Colcultura, written and directed
by Hoover Delgado.
That year, my plastic work had a great
Mixed amusing pieces - 1983
Etched on metal. 13.78 in x 19.69 in
A N T H O L O G Y
23
transformation when lithographic wastepaper
(paper used for proofs before and
after an edition) appeared, which I had
been using in collages on some areas of the
compositions, but now as features and sole
support, intervened with acrylic paint, which
I called Maculate Conceptions, and whose
themes derived randomly.
These pieces were shown to the public at
galleries, museums and Colombian universities
in 1996 and 1997, and at the Bonnat
Museum in Bayonne and Chateauneuf le
Rouge in France, as well as the Cádiz Theater
Guerra’s Band - 1984
Lithograph. 39.37 in x 27.56 in
24
D I E G O P O M B O
Festival in 1998. That same year, when new
talks began to take place between the FARC
guerrillas and the government, the Negotiation
Tables were born, a series inspired
on The Last Supper, with a Sacred Heart of
Jesus divided in half, embodying Colombia’s
role, which divides the country in two factions.
This series gave rise to the Miraculous
Catches a year later, which were visual metaphors
of the massive kidnappings, where
a Sacred Heart’s dichotomy turns it into fi sh
and fi sherman at the same time.
In 1998 Fanny Mickey proposed to us
the co-production of a street musical for
adults called Pombo by Pombo, in which we
recreated Rafael Pombo’s fables at a jazz and
rock rhythm, which premiered at Bogotá’s
Spanish-American Theater Festival’s V
version, where I debuted as an actor and
composer.
We presented Casting in 1999, which
was created and directed by Hoover Delgado,
where I played the part of an unscrupulous
businessman along with Barco
The Champ and His Fans - 1983
Acrylic paint on wood. 19.69 in x 27.56 in
A N T H O L O G Y
25
Empera the womanrefrigerator
- 1984
Mixed on
refrigerator.
59” x 27.5” x 27.5”
26
D I E G O P O M B O
The Divine Visage - 1986
Acrylic paint and barbed wire on wood.
9.8” x 7.8”
A N T H O L O G Y
27
The Thinker - Self portrait - 1985
Acrylic paint on canvas. 39.37 in x 27.56 in
Self portrait - 1985
Acrylic paint on canvas. 19.69 in x 27.56 in
Ebrio’s cast.
At the same time since 1999, together with
Salamandr