Jorge Marín's proposal for the exhibition "Heroes and Monuments" is consistent with a political and intellectual culture that thinks about the conflict and the militarization of politics along with the politicization of historical iconography.

Enzo Traverso reminds us that "History is always contemporary, that is to say political". Contemporaneity is, for Jorge Marín, to take the position of who is questioned by the acquis that constitutes the national visual memory, with which it is investigated by the subjectivity and the (living) spirit associated with national symbols as well as with the Liberator's imaginary and of the heroes of independence.

History is a bottomless pit. This path, already covered, and remarkably, by Bernardo Salcedo and Beatriz González, raises the difficulty of projecting to the present a normative ideal of liberal democracy over a different era, where institutions falter. How is the past updated? Can one remain indifferent to the iconic images that are associated with the legacy, the values and characters that gave shape to a liberating epic, based on the universal precepts of the French Revolution?

The critical perspective that Marín has adopted combines two fundamental dimensions from the position of the artist that investigates history: to controvert forgotten or denied aspects of a political imaginary, and reinterprets the symbolic value of a visual inventory to approach the understanding of our current relationship with an iconic and sculptural heritage that supposedly embodies our patriotic feelings.

Colombia ranked last in the Second International Study of Civic Education, a fact that highlights the inability to reconcile the heterogeneous composition of the Colombian population with a collective identification of the national ideology. It is worth asking: What national symbols are appropriate for a society subjugated by decades of war, daily violence and corruption?

It is interesting to note the decline of words like caudillo, hero, or father of the country. What is the real Simón Bolívar? What is he, of so many portraits, of so many bills? In the series of drawings, paintings and assemblies that make up this exhibition, Jorge Marín explores our weak links with history, highlighting the symbolic amnesia immersed in an opaque regime that has lost its north and permanently questions its own identity without finding refuge. No remedy.

Ana Patricia Gómez Jaramillo.