The Blind Spot: in Bogotá the government withdraws works from the National Museum, protests and accusations of censorship

The Colombian government led by Abelardo de la Espriella has ordered the withdrawal of at least 30 works from the National Museum in Bogotá: pieces linked to feminism, the Lgbt community, the victims of political violence and the 2016 peace agreement. On Saturday, hundreds of protesters gathered in front of the museum to protest against what they describe as a form of censorship.

The relevance criterion of this story for readers here does not concern Colombia in itself, but a more general question: who decides what a public museum can show, and to what extent a government can intervene on the historical narrative held by a cultural institution. It is a question that concerns any country with publicly funded museums, Italy included, and this is why the Colombian case deserves attention even beyond its borders.

The Museum of Modern Art in Bogotá and five other museums across the country have signed a joint statement of concern, calling for guarantees on the autonomy of museum institutions. “No government should decide what we see of our history based on political affinity” (transl. from Spanish), reads the text signed by the museums.

On the opposite side, Culture Minister Paola Holguín defended the decision, arguing that the museum cannot serve as a tool of political indoctrination. Among the protesters gathered in front of the museum, a pointed slogan was also circulating: “we are artists, we are not terrorists” (transl. from Spanish).

The confrontation that emerges is clear-cut: on one side a government claiming the right to review the contents of a public institution, on the other a network of museums and artists who see in that review a dangerous precedent for cultural autonomy. There are, at the moment, no elements in the available material to establish which of the two readings will prevail in the coming weeks, nor whether the withdrawal of the works will be temporary or permanent.

At the time of publication, none of the leading Italian outlets appear to have covered the story. The case currently appears only in Colombian sources and one international agency in Spanish, while the Italian press remains focused on other fronts of international news on the same day.

Sources: France 24 (Spanish edition); Infobae Colombia