Beatriz González (1932–2026) engaged systematically with political violence and experiences of grief across a multimedia practice encompassing painting, printmaking, interventions on furniture, and installation. Drawing from newspaper photographs, magazine clippings, and popular reproductions of European Old Masters in Colombia, González treated both traumatic historical events and iconic images of a male-dominated artistic canon with the same vivid palette and graphic visual language. Framing disparate registers of suffering, power, and tradition with a bold, vibrant aesthetic, her work foregrounds a productive tension between irony and mourning, accessibility and critique. Humour and stylisation emerge as critical strategies for bearing witness, shaping historical memory, and probing the affective dimensions of political consciousness.
The event takes as its departure point two unlimited editions of posters from 1983, which rework two newspaper images: the first, Frieze of Comedy, is of outgoing President Julio César Turbay Ayala at an official ceremony; the second, Frieze of Tragedy, is of a former corporal who had murdered his friend’s girlfriend and then committed suicide. Hosted in collaboration with the Barbican Art Gallery in conjunction with González’s retrospective exhibition, the event celebrates this central figure in Colombian modern and contemporary art. Bringing together scholars and practitioners, the programme explores how tragedy, grief, comedy, and joy become entangled in artistic responses to ethical and political turmoil.
The afternoon will feature a keynote lecture by art historian and curator Cecilia Fajardo-Hill (Arizona State University), followed by a panel discussion with Amalia Pica (artist), Rory O’Brien (University of Cambridge), Sofia Gotti (Courtauld Institute of Art), Barbican curator Lotte Johnson, and assistant curator Diego Chocano. The roundtable situates González’s practice within broader contexts of Colombian history and popular culture, and debates about political representation and dissent. Panelists will examine how popular imagery circulates across social and political spheres, and how and to what end artists negotiate the ethical challenges of depicting violence, loss, and collective trauma.
Organised by Dr Sofia Gotti (Courtauld), Lotte Johnson and Diego Chocano (Barbican), this event is convened in partnership between the Courtauld Centre for the Art of the Americas and the Barbican Art Gallery, where the exhibition Beatriz González is presented from 25 Feb to 10 May 2026.
Speakers:
Cecilia Fajardo-Hill
Cecilia Fajardo-Hill is a Latina/British/Venezuelan art historian and curator of modern and contemporary art, focusing on Latin American and Latinx art. Fajardo-Hill has published and curated extensively on contemporary Latin American and international artists. She was co-curator of Radical Women: Latin American Art 1960– 1985 (Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, California, 2017) and Xican-a.o.x. Body (Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art and Culture, Riverside, California, 2023; Pérez Art Museum, Miami, Florida, 2024). She is editor of Remains-Tomorrow: Themes in Contemporary Latin American Abstraction (Berlin: Hatje Cantz, 2022). Fajardo-Hill currently works as Associate Professor of Museum Studies and Art History and Director of the Northlight Gallery, Arizona State University.
Amalia Pica
Amalia Pica is an artist who lives and works in London. Pica received her Bachelor of Arts from the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes P.P. in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 2001. In 2020, she was awarded the Zurich Art Prize, which included a solo exhibition at Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich, Switzerland, and in 2011, she participated in the 54th Venice Biennale, Italy. Her works are represented in many major collections worldwide. Solo exhibitions include Museo Jumex, Mexico City (2023); Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia (2017); Kunsthalle Lissabon, Lisbon, Portugal (2013); Chisenhale Gallery, London (2012); and Malmö Konsthall, Sweden (2010) among many others.
Rory O’Bryen
Rory O’Bryen is Professor of Latin American Literature and Culture at the University of Cambridge. He has published Literature, Testimony and Cinema in Contemporary Colombian Culture: Spectres of La Violencia (2008), Latin American Popular Culture: Politics, Media, Affect (2013), Latin American Cultural Studies: A Reader (2017), and Transnational Hispanic Studies (2020). His current research project focuses on Colombia’s Magdalena River in the nineteenth and twentieth-century literature and history.
Sofia Gotti
Sofia Gotti is an art historian and curator specialising in modern and contemporary art with a focus on South America. Her work broadly examines the intersections of radical politics, art, and popular culture, to consider how patriarchal, colonial and racial orders can be destabilised or diffused. She has curated exhibitions in a variety of contexts, from commercial galleries to institutions, and in 2024 she was part of the curatorial team of Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere, the 60th International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia. She currently co-leads the MA Curating at the Courtauld Institute and has previously lectured at the University of Cambridge.
Lotte Johnson
Lotte Johnson is a curator and art historian based in London. She is Curator at Barbican Art Gallery, London, where her previous curatorial projects and publications include Beatriz González (2026), Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art (2024, co-curated with Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam) and Carolee Schneemann: Body Politics (2022), as well as solo commissions by artists Citra Sasmita (2025), Toyin Ojih Odutola (2020), SERAFINE1369 (2019), Yto Barrada (2018) and Bedwyr Williams (2016). She has contributed to several other Barbican exhibitions and accompanying books including Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art (2019), Basquiat: Boom for Real (2017) and The World of Charles and Ray Eames (2015). She previously worked at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. She is a regular contributor to exhibition catalogues, publications and public programmes on modern and contemporary art.
Diego Chocano
Diego Chocano is a curator from Lima, Peru, currently based in London. He is Assistant Curator at Barbican Art Gallery, London, and has held similar positions at Tate Britain and the University of Essex, where he was also a researcher and lecturer. He has curated exhibitions internationally in England, Scotland, Argentina and Chile. His writing has featured in outlets including Burlington Contemporary, Artishock Revista and MAP Magazine, and in publications for major art exhibitions including Beatriz González (Barbican Art Gallery, 2026), Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art (Barbican Art Gallery, 2024) and Foreigners Everywhere (60th Venice Biennale, Italy, 2024).
In collaboration with
