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March 29, 2022 – Review
Wilson Díaz’s “Taste and Conflict: Reasons to Connect”
Noah Simblist
Wilson Díaz speaks to a violent history with tenderness and humor. Born and raised in Pitalito Huila, a rural area in southern Colombia, and now based in Cali, the artist has witnessed the effect on daily life of drug trafficking and violent clashes between the government’s military, leftist guerillas, and right-wing paramilitaries. Since it began, in the 1990s, his career has coincided with a number of significant moments in the country’s recent history: the drug cartels’ increasing power and political influence, growing neoliberal economic policies, and the incessant US intervention as a result of, among other things, the so-called War on Drugs.
Díaz’s solo show at Cali’s Museo La Tertulia mostly comprises paintings and drawings, whilst the exhibition’s layout makes use of immersive installation. A line of newspaper clippings, reproduced on one-to-one scale with adhesive vinyl, covers several walls with images including military generals and politicians in staged photo-ops. One story describes a director of police intelligence who is also an amateur painter, depicted with smock and easel in his living room. Above are two small black-and-white easel paintings: one of Pablo Escobar, another of a military jeep surrounded by dead bodies—a reference to a 1989 state-sanctioned massacre at La …