Colombian artists tackle drug war— thru Escobar pet hippos
BOGOTA, Colombia—Colombian photographer Édgar Jiménez, 75, walked around a room exhibiting “Adam and Eve,” his portrait of two of the first hippopotamuses that were brought to Colombia in the 1980s by the late drug kingpin Pablo Escobar.
Jiménez, who once served as Escobar’s personal photographer, recalled taking the picture from only about 4 meters (13 feet) away, without any kind of protection and unaware of the danger they posed. That same pair of hippos later attacked and killed a camel.
“The hippos were bought from a zoo in the United States that buys and captures animals from Africa,” said Jiménez, who was also tasked with keeping an inventory of all the animals housed at Escobar’s Hacienda Nápoles in the country’s northeast.
Escobar continued adding to his hippo collection until his death in 1993. The population has since exploded to more than 160 specimens, which have been declared an invasive species in Colombia.
Political critique
Jiménez, who considers his photos of Escobar’s life to be documentaries, doesn’t typically exhibit them. But he was invited to participate in “Microdoses to Tame the Inner Hippopotamus,” a new exhibition in Bogotá featuring 20 artists who offer a political critique of what the hippos represent.
Curator Santiago Rueda said the show does not intend to be moralizing, but it invites visitors to see how Escobar’s hippos can be the subject of such a critique.
The exhibit features everything from oil paintings and graffiti to photographs. Rueda pointed to a tapestry by artist Carlos Castro as a prime example.
Depicting Escobar alongside wild animals descending two by two from a large military aircraft, the piece titled “The Great Narco Ark” (“La gran narco arca”) is clearly an allusion to Noah’s Ark, he said.
“It’s not just Escobar, it’s the narco-madness, the excess, the luxury,” Rueda said, adding that the narco-aesthetic is becoming dominant once again, not only in Colombia but throughout the world.
Another art piece features a hippo nicknamed “El Gordo” (The Fat One) with a sign offering a reward of up to $264,000 for its capture.
“It’s a parody of the drug cartels of the era, from the time when they were searching for Pablo Escobar and all the drug traffickers,” said artist Manuel Barón.
Hippo dung
The figure of the hippo takes a step further in the work of Camilo Restrepo. The artist discovered that hallucinogenic mushrooms, which he cultivated in his laboratory, can grow directly in hippo dung.
“It’s very contradictory that, due to the failure of the war on drugs, so much money accumulates in the hands of drug traffickers that they can bring in an entire zoo, and then the hippos remain living in Colombia,” Restrepo said.
He said he found it paradoxical that their waste is “the substrate where these hallucinogenic mushrooms grow, which dissolve the ego,” unlike cocaine which “elevates it.”
The exhibit opened on Nov. 6 at Casa Échele Cabeza, a project focused on drug regulation and harm reduction, run by nonprofit Acción Técnica Social.
