Javier Vanegas
Bio
Javier Vanegas (Bogotá, 1984) studied Fine Arts at the Universidad de los Andes and completed the Master of Research Art and Creation at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid full scholarship awarded by the Carolina Foundation in 2017. In 2019, he started his Ph.D. thesis, "KOGUI 2.0 Expanded Image in the Performance Society". He is pursuing his Ph.D. in Fine Arts at the Complutense University of Madrid, with photography as his research area. He had her first solo exhibition at the Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá, MAMBO, with his project “Portarretrato Postmoderno,” which obtained the recognition of meritorious thesis. In 2017, he received the “Scholarship for Colombians in the Process of Artistic and Cultural Training Abroad” from the Ministry of Culture.” He has participated in the international biennials of Asunción, Paraguay, and Curitiba, Brazil. In 2023, he received the National Photography Award the Ministry of Culture granted him for his career and photography dedication.
Statement
The visual work of Javier Vanegas invites a profound reflection on the parergon of the photographic device, challenging its limits and questioning the structure that sustains the colonized gaze in today's society of performance. Through his work, Vanegas explores and recognizes the ancestral knowledge of indigenous peoples, proposing a revaluation of these epistemologies as a way of resisting cultural homogenization. In this way, his artistic practice becomes an act of resistance and vindication of other ways of seeing and understanding the world.
2.5 x 4m / 98.4 x 157 in