Luis Carlos Barrios

Still in full creative bloom, Colombo-Mexican artist Luis Carlos Barrios (1953-2011) passed away in Mexico on July 9th. In Bogotá, his native city, Barrios studied with the renowned artist David Manzur. Like many of his compatriots, Barrios traveled to Mexico to further his studies, receiving a Masters Degree from the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. He continued to participate in Salons and exhibitions in Colombia, but settled definitely in Mexico since the 1980s. At the time, Barrios was already working on the objects that would characterize his oeuvre over the years. In general, he created works at a private scale, loaded with mystery and a subtle naiveté, and projecting a sui generis poetics. Barrios was able to create and sustain a language marked by unity¿each sculpture was independent, its shapes enclosed, with identificatory elements integrated into each work. He kept a low profile as an artist but worked with outstanding persistence and determination, as witnessed by the number of group shows in which he took part: more than eighty, along with almost twenty solo exhibitions. Many of these shows still echo in the memory of those who followed Barrios' career, for instance his exhibitions at Florencia Riestra's gallery, which in the 1980s convoked to its Zona Rosa space many "emerging" artists of the period. And there is no better word than "emerging" to remember Luis Carlos Barrios. That was the character of his works at the time. Who could have known that he would retain such aesthetic youthfulness through his fifty-eight years of life? Also from the eighties, we remember two more exhibitions: one at the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas, in 1987, and one at the Sloane-Racotta gallery, a couple of years earlier. In the following decades, the presentations of his objects multiplied, and he also exhibited paintings and drawings. Barrios received several honors in Colombia: an Honorary Mention at the First National Salon in Cucuta, 1981, and the Rafael Esteban García Award at the 14th Young Art Salon in 1983, among others. Luis Carlos Barrios developed objects as isolated, cut-out figures, joining together painting and sculpture and inserting his work in the space of the gallery or the private facilities of his collectors. The relationship established between Colombian and Mexican contributions to his development resulted in his admiration for (and evocation of) Colombia's pre-Columbian gold objects, as well as the presence in his sculpture of references to popular arts from both countries, especially through his closeness to traditional Mexican crafts. Intellectual concerns shape the structure of his works but are not revealed through, but rather "dressed in" those elements. The influence of his teacher David Manzur was always veiledly present in the work of Luis Carlos Barrios, yet he was able to create a language of his own. His work is found in private collections in Mexico and Colombia, as well as in public collections in his adoptive country. We remember with great respect the contemporary archaeology of this early emerging artist.