The Beatriz González retrospective at the Barbican is an exceptionally curated and powerful exhibition. We were lulled into a false sense of security at the beginning by her playful interpretations of Vermeer’s The Lacemaker, but her work slowly becomes more macabre and political as we meander through the Barbican’s brutalist corridors.
My favourite part of the exhibition was her series of paintings depicting a couple who died by suicide. Their picture was plastered all over the papers; González was drawn to the degradation of the newsprint image and emphasised that compositional flatness in her reproductions. She claimed she wasn't necessarily interested in their specific story, yet she noted:
"It amazes me how fast people forget the images from the news. The way that I fight against or try to prevent the memories from disappearing as fast is to use those images in my work."
I was moved by how this image of the couple has been immortalised in a bittersweet moment, successfully achieving exactly what she set out to do.
I am often drawn to art that looks naive and enjoy people underestimate the skill and intent behind it. González delighted in critiques of her paintings as "deliberately clumsy," while critic Marta Traba declared that they represented "a radical renovation of values."
As the exhibition progressed, González’s work focused on gruesome newspaper articles detailing murder and, in one case, a femicide. She painted onto patterned bedspreads to depict Catalino Díaz Izquierdo, a sex worker who had been murdered. The works at first appear serene and quite beautiful, but upon closer inspection, you notice the unusual twist of the body and the presence of blood.
Moving towards the end of the exhibition, her work shifted from satire to the sombre. It became overtly political and deeply emotional, embodying the harrowing history of her country. She turned her focus toward women, highlighting their grief, sorrow, and pain. In this section, she even included a self-portrait: Autoretrato desnuda llorando illustrating the profound impact that the escalating violence in Colombia had on her own psyche.
What really stood out in her later work to me was her use of curtains and borders to frame the canvas. These elements create a barrier between the audience and the imagery; they remind us that we are merely looking in on a tragedy. By keeping us "one step away," my take away is that González suggests while we can witness this pain, we can never fully inhabit or feel it ourselves.
