Exhibit Will Offer a Taste of Colombia and Its Art

Juan Felipe Goldstein has been surrounded by art his whole life.

And Goldstein, an architect, brought much of it with him when he moved from Colombia to Los Angeles three years ago, decorating his home with paintings, sketches, sculpture and a variety of folk art created in his native land.

But beyond this personal collection, including sketches by his artist great-grandfather, Francisco Antonio Cano, Goldstein and other Colombian expatriates have realized that Colombian art is little known in the United States. Organizers hope to expand that limited perception with a group exhibition of paintings, sculpture and woodcuts titled “ Nuevas Expresiones del Arte Colombiano/ New Expressions in Colombian Art” opening Wednesday at the Lankershim Arts Center in North Hollywood.

The show will present 40 works by 13 established and emerging contemporary Colombian artists, said Goldstein, who organized the exhibition with Yoana Walshop, an anthropologist, and Catalina Samper, a television director in Colombia. Both are sisters of painter and noted photographer Diego Samper Martinez, one of the artists whose work is being shown.

Among pieces on display will be the personal, expressionistic paintings by Samper Martinez. Other works by lesser-known artists offer a variety of styles and messages, from portraiture to violent splashes of color hinting at the nation’s domestic troubles.

Goldstein, 28, considers art “one of the best ways to show what the quality of the people is in a country.”

“In many ways, it represents the people, their aspirations, their willingness to communicate what’s going on. Some are more intense in that,” he said.

At first, Goldstein and Walshop received little encouragement from local gallery owners. Grim media reports in recent years of Colombia serving as headquarters for big-time drug lords overshadowed for many whatever artistic contributions the country offered. And at least one gallery owner suggested to Goldstein that he worried about becoming involved with something illegal during the shipping process.

“But the reality is that Colombia is an extremely interesting country with a variety of cultures and expressions,” Goldstein said. “We really want to show that.”

The Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department allowed them that opportunity, furnishing the gallery, insurance and publicity needed to mount the exhibition.

“It’s incredible,” Goldstein said, noting that Los Angeles is a city crowded with artists and sometimes profit-minded galleries where decisions on what to show often depend on what has already proven salable.

“Now there are a lot of artists, so it is very difficult for galleries to have a place for you,” said Genevieve Maquinay Gaviria, 28, another artist whose work will be shown at the Lankershim Arts Center. Her paintings have hung in galleries in Bogota, Colombia, Paris and in Brussels, where she studied art. “They say come back in two years.”

Goldstein estimated that it would have cost at least $45,000 to mount the exhibit privately. But donations from companies and individuals here and in Colombia, combined with the city agency, covered all the expenses.

The art will be sold at the exhibition, with part of the proceeds going to a trust fund designed to promote Colombian art, Goldstein said. He hopes that another show, with a new set of artists, can be mounted next year.

“We really are grateful because this is going to be very important,” he said. “The Colombian community is very happy about this. Everybody is talking about it and what’s being shown. This is going to open some doors.”

“New Expressions in Colombian Art” opens with a special reception at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday and continues through May 15 at the Lankershim Arts Center, 5108 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood. Free. For information, call (818) 989-8066.