Curator José Roca chose an auspicious moment to organize José Alejandro Restrepo’s midcareer survey: The year 2001 marks the bicentennial of Alexander von Humboldt’s explorations of South America—long a point of departure for the Colombian artist. Through irony and metaphor, Restrepo has generated a rich body of work commenting on the dynamics of power and representation that helped shape colonial life in the New World. The show will include some ninety works—video installations, photographs, films, drawings, performance, and multimedia projects—in which the artist examines various models for postcolonial discourse and investigates the relationship between geography, history, and collective memory.

— Mónica Amor