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December 2, 2013 – Review
María José Arjona’s “… pero yo soy el tigre”
Sophie Goltz
Who’s the tiger?
In 2012, the Wall Street Journal headed a report on the emerging economies of Colombia and Peru with the bold headline, “The New Tigers,” pitting them against the Asian “Tigers” of the 1960s–90s. Already projected to become the third largest economy in Latin America by 2014, Colombia is a country particularly rich in raw materials—including oil, coal, and gold—and it is one of the largest exporters of coffee worldwide. The streets of its capital city of Bogotá are often characterized either by slow-moving traffic or absolute gridlock, reflecting the ubiquitous, post-traumatic effect its repressive political policy imposes on the rituals of daily life.
Launched concurrently with artBO, the International Art Fair Bogotá (which recently celebrated its ninth installment from October 25–28, 2013), the up-and-coming Parisian galerie mor ∙ charpentier initiated María José Arjona’s continuous, four-week performance …pero yo soy el tigre (…but I am the tiger, 2013), which was curated by Eugenio Viola, as the inaugural event of their new branch in Bogotá. Since its founding in 2010, mor ∙ charpentier has primarily focused on artists from Latin America and its diaspora—such as Milena Bonilla, Maria Elvira Escallón, and Oscar Muñoz from Colombia; Teresa Margolles and Yoshua Okón from …