Colombian Trucks: a Moving Museum

Camion de Escalera

Hello!

welcome to my blog. I hope you enjoy the images and readings relating to my forthcoming exhibition:

Colombian Trucks: A Moving Museum.

The exhibition will comprise a family collection of around 20 Colombian popular art paintings. These pieces normally hang on the back of Colombian buses, called Chivas or Camiones de Escalera, and they are generally not intended for the Art Market, especially because the painters do not seek popularity but rather they consider the paintings as a medium to convey their culture and strengthen their relationship with the community by sharing this unique form of art.The paintings embody the character and habits of their culture and by travelling around the world distiguish themselves as 'travelling objects' that are part of a moving museum, that is the Colombian bus.

What makes these works unique is their location (back of the bus) and their mobility which makes it possible for them to be seen by a wider audience and, in the case of my family, to be shipped to another continent and continue their 'journey'.

Another key element that marks these paintings is the importance attributed by their community which celebrates them yearly in a colourful parade bringing together over 70 trucks followed by a cheerful audience. It is in this closeness with their community that these paintings stand out as carriers of histories and anecdotes, their buses being referred to as people with personalities, like works of art with a soul and their own name.

This project was born out of my dissertation for an MA in Museums and Gallery Studies, where I extensively researched the subject so as to put the paintings into context, both their original and new one and drew out on ideas of travelling objects, mobility, objects changing meaning depending on their context and objects accumulating histories like people. The idea is to launch this unique popular art in the art market and promote Colombian culture through these peculiar paintings.

Colombian Trucks: a Moving Museum

Tuesday 18 January 2011

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