The magic of photography began to astonish the world less than two centuries ago, prompting art to change and new forms of expression to emerge. The birth of photography is owed to something purely scientific: finding a way for light to capture an image. The earliest creations of Niépce and Daguerre, in the early 19th century, were complex machines that required long exposure times. This evolved both technically and aesthetically throughout the 20th century. In contemporary times, photography revolves around experimenting with representation and the visual treatment of the image as a communicative, documentary, conceptual phenomenon and a source of aesthetic enjoyment. Everything is conceived and created with a purpose in mind: to think, to reflect, to act, and to record. A balance is sought so that the image can be subjected to judgment and gain value in the eye of each viewer.
Photosphere
The magic of photography began to astonish the world less than two centuries ago, prompting art to change and new forms of expression to emerge. The birth of photography is owed to something purely scientific: finding a way for light to capture an image. The earliest creations of Niépce and Daguerre, in the early 19th century, were complex machines that required long exposure times. This evolved both technically and aesthetically throughout the 20th century. In contemporary times, photography revolves around experimenting with representation and the visual treatment of the image as a communicative, documentary, conceptual phenomenon and a source of aesthetic enjoyment. Everything is conceived and created with a purpose in mind: to think, to reflect, to act, and to record. A balance is sought so that the image can be subjected to judgment and gain value in the eye of each viewer.
This curatorial project is the third in a series of ten exhibitions marking the 60th anniversary of the MAC's founding in 1966, and on this occasion it coincides with the celebration of 70 years of Colombian television. The show connects neighborhood history with universal history. The works included in the collection are in dialogue with others by invited artists. The exhibition documents, in an artistic and dissident way, certain events, beliefs, and ideas connected to nature, territory, everyday life, living conditions, and individual or collective identity. The image and its meaning come together in each piece exhibited here, across different media and techniques.
This visual sphere is as current as painting, sculpture, or printmaking, and it is in dialogue with new media and technologies. The technique persists in some exhibition spaces, often playing with other forms of expression and at times taking on new shapes. In an act of resistance to preserve moments from a not-so-distant past, these are kept as works of art and as documentary records, to be exhibited again in times of great change, thereby revealing layer upon layer of other lives, moments, thoughts, and memories of this photo-bio-sphere that will never be the same again.
As part of this photography curatorial project featuring works from the MAC's collection, the moving image takes center stage thanks to the Fundación Patrimonio Fílmico Colombiano; on this occasion it brings this exhibition, which shows, through photography, posters, and objects, other narratives recorded with the new devices that precede the creation of the dark chamber. In creating other ways of telling stories, television emerges, and, like cinema, it opens a window onto the world that grows wider and, in time, massive. This new expressive form and technological medium has, in its wake, left behind other ways of living, of dressing, and of course of communicating among new generations.
A Window Toward the World
The small screen plays a leading role in culture; it has generated national narratives made up of a heterogeneous range of content as a sign of the entry into modernity. The Fundación Patrimonio Fílmico Colombiano, Canal Universitario ZOOM, and UNIMINUTO have designed an exhibition so that, through photographs and posters, we can reveal the diversity, creativity, and value of this important medium.
As the national audiovisual archive, the Fundación Patrimonio Fílmico Colombiano preserves not only the national film heritage but also our collective and historical memory; these records are linked to the history of Colombian TV, in which the Corporación Minuto de Dios, which preserves part of this memory, also plays a leading role. In this regard, it is worth noting that the first-ever broadcast of Colombian television took place on June 13, 1954, during the first year of General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla's government, and that same year, on January 10, the program Minuto de Dios was broadcast for the first time, led by its founder, Father Rafael García Herreros. The program quickly became an emblematic part of Colombian television programming and continues to air to this day.
Minuto de Dios is considered one of the oldest television programs in the world, broadcasting uninterrupted for more than 70 years, and many anecdotes have arisen over that time. Among those worth mentioning: the cross that became an icon of Minuto de Dios was made to solve a change to the usual set, improvised by a gardener out of two branches; on another occasion, Father García Herreros gave space to an Indigenous community so they could express their community needs, just as Father Diego Jaramillo — who hosts the program with total devotion to this day — recently did, giving space to a woman community leader.
Within the context of a model that grew increasingly mixed between state and private ownership, teleteatro (televised theater) was the first live television genre, integrating techniques, formats, and genres from radio, theater, and cinema. Later on, Pope Paul VI's visit to Colombia in 1968 and the Moon landing in 1969 would become two of the events with the largest television audiences in the country, marking a milestone in the reach of this important medium.
From its beginnings, television was an instrument of democratization, cultural outreach, and popular education which, over the years, diversified its programming. During the 1960s, alongside a financial crisis in the state television funds, the Instituto Nacional de Radio y Televisión (Inravisión) was born.Color arrived on television in 1979, bringing game shows with it. In the following decade, long-running comedies emerged that, with an urban and critical edge, made a difference across Latin America. During the eighties and nineties, regional channels developed that helped forge a national identity out of the diversity of the country's territories.
Here we record part of that history, as a tribute to what regional channels have contributed to the country. Likewise, we present this exhibition to pay tribute to Canal Universitario ZOOM, which, together with its public and private higher-education institutions such as UNIMINUTO, is part of this whole history from a different but no less important perspective, and which this year celebrates its 15th anniversary, marking a significant milestone in the dissemination of education, science, and culture. Since its founding in 2008, ZOOM has been a bridge between Colombia's public and private universities, society at large, and the world.
Returning to the general history of television, it is worth noting that the telenovela, a genre born in the 1960s, stood out by linking melodrama with the popular and came to dominate programming; meanwhile, the dramatized series became one of the most important genres in the narrative history of Colombian television, thanks to its real and complex characters in stories addressing social issues that blend fiction with reality.
In 2004, Inravisión became Radio Televisión de Colombia (RTVC), the Public Media System, an entity that today reaches the national territory with radio and television to inform, educate, and entertain.Television has shaped the memories of several generations, who have built a sense of belonging through programming that reflects their everyday lives and elements that identify us as a multicultural society.
Sebastián Jiménez Cortés
Curator of the MAC
Alexandra Falla Zerrate
Director, Fundación Patrimonio Fílmico Colombiano
Jorge Mario Vera
Curator–Technical Advisor, Fundación Patrimonio Fílmico Colombiano
Germán Pérez
Manager, Canal Universitario Nacional ZOOM
Megric Pacheco
Leonardo Pilonieta
Eugenia Vargas Pereira
Camilo Ara
Luis Oñoro
Carlos Castro
Mario Andrés Pantoja
José Sierra
María Fernanda García Crosby
Castañeda
Daniela Olave
María Eugenia Trujillo
Leo Matiz
Vladimiro Cruz
Pablo Batelli
Javier Vargas
Andrea Padilla
William Bahos
Pablo Adarme
Jorge Yoani Ruíz
Miguel Castel
Juan Miguel Paz
José Cosme
Verónica Giraldo
Alicia Larraín
Mateo López
Leonardo Cortina Hernández
Raúl Marroquín
Carolina Oltra
Nicole Hortua
Ademir Campo
Carolina Bacares
Jorge Acevedo Ayala
Nirma Zárate
Abel Azcona
Nicolas Williamson
Angie Mora
Victor Hugo Pinchao
Adriana Torres
Leo Carreño
Robert Peninton
Omar Castañeda
Carlos Saavedra
Colectivo Fotonautas
Juan Carlos Alonso
Juha Arvid Helminen
Carlos Salazar
María Paula Triana Stiebler
Tulio Elias Sampayo Martínez
Camila Ceballos
Dani Pineda Cortés
Francia Milena Botero
Gloria Astrid Ramírez
María Camila Zuluaga Soto