Miguel Ángel Rojas Essential

In the framework of the program of support for contemporary Colombian art, the commission agent firm Afin S.A. presented on October 22 the launching of the book entitled Miguel Ángel Rojas Esencial. Conversaciones con Miguel Ángel Rojas (Miguel Ángel Rojas Essential. Conversations with Miguel Ángel Rojas) by Natalia Gutierrez, curator and researcher at the Univesidad Nacional. The book contains 13 chapters¿250 pages of text in English and Spanish with 200 images¿and includes conversations between the artist and the author that occurred during a 3-year period. The launching of the book was organized in collaboration with the Galería Casas Reigner, and took place at N-ce Arte, a new four-hundred square meter (4,205.5 square feet) space dedicated to contemporary art. Miguel Ángel Rojas is a Colombian conceptual artist who approaches¿through drawing, painting, photography, installation, and video¿themes associated with sexuality, marginal culture, violence, and issues related to drug consumption and production. He took a series of photographs in theaters across Bogota¿especially in the Teatro Faenza¿that are regarded as some of the milestones of Colombian contemporary art, as they present a new perspective about some aspects of homosexual culture in our society. He was invited to participate with this work in the 2010 São Paulo Biennial. In his most recent works, Rojas uses coca leafs to approach themes associated with the current social and political reality of his country. His work has been widely exhibited around the world and is part of art collections as important as the ones at the MoMA, New York; the Daros-Latinamerica Collection, Zurich; the Ludwing Museum, Köln; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and La Caixa Foundation Contemporary Art Collection, Barcelona.