• item_info: "An absolute generosity" Installation Museo América (Madrid)/ Museo del Oro (Bogotá) 2018
• description: <p class="p1"><span class="s1">This project stemmed from an invitation by the <a href="http://www.banrepcultural.org/bogota/gold-museum"><span class="s2">Museo del Oro de Bogotá</span></a> (Bogota Gold Museum) in Colombia to intervene in its collection of Pre-Columbian art. As a Spanish artist, conscious of the colonial issues implicated in this commission, I decided to focus the project on the Colombian heritage plundered by Spain. </span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">The treasure of Quimbaya is a collection containing 122 pieces of gold that was purchased by the Colombian government from a <i>guaquero</i> (a looter of indigenous graves) to be exhibited in Madrid in 1892. It was assumed that these pieces would be returned to Colombia once the fourth-centenary celebrations of the discovery of the Americas had ended. But President Holguín decided to give them to the Queen Regent María Cristina de Habsburgo to thank her for her "absolute generosity" in helping resolve a border dispute between Colombia and Venezuela. </span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">In 2006, the European Union dictated that the treasure of Quimbaya is a cultural heritage that must be returned to Colombia. However, the Spanish government refuses to do so, saying that the treasure is a "piece of Spanish history which belongs to all Spanish people." The treasure can currently be found in the <a href="https://www.mecd.gob.es/museodeamerica/en/el-museo.html"><span class="s2">Museo de América</span></a> (America Museum) in Madrid.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">The Absolute Generosity project took the form of a display case in the Museo del Oro, containing 11 posters stolen from the Museo de América, and 11 empty spaces symbolizing the native Colombian cultural heritage that has been expropriated and retained by the Spanish government.</span></p>