Painting, Literature and Film in Colombian Feminine Culture, 1940–2005: Of Border Guards, Nomads and Women by Deborah Martin (review)

Colombian women’s creativity has garnered increasing critical interest in recent years, and this book is a welcome addition to this discussion. The author summarizes the aims of the book in the following way: “to bring together an analysis of historical and social processes—and their various relationships to gender—with an awareness of a range of feminist discourses, and the identification of distinct and nuanced feminist positions, thus highlighting the contingency of both gender constructs, and the discourses surrounding them” (p. 23). This she does succinctly, in a well-written text that draws on a range of theoretical fields to analyze the creative output of women in Colombia.

Employing largely French feminist theory and those heavily indebted to it, Martin sets up the terms of her discussion clearly. This is familiar territory for critics of Colombian art, literature, and film and serves her arguments well. In addition, Judith Butler, Nelly Richards, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, and others are deployed to challenge hegemonic ideas about sexuality and positions of power and call for a decentered multiple never becoming that allows for multilayered readings.

Martin intelligently moves among multiple fields—art, photography, literature, and film—to discuss a range of visual, audiovisual, and literary objects that in themselves are in dialogue with their predecessors, other forms of creativity, and their contemporaries. For example, in her discussion of nudes by Débora Arango Pérez, she sets up the socio-historical context of Arango’s artistic output and how her work was received by the public and the art world of the time; in addition, Martin carries out close readings of Arango’s works. The plates of the paintings, included in the text, are useful for those unfamiliar with Arango’s oeuvre and greatly enhance the discussion. Similarly, in the analysis of Laura Restrepo’s postmodernist novel Leopardo al sol, Martin considers how it was greatly influenced by the television soap opera. Making particular reference to the important work carried out by Jesús Martín-Barbero on the signification of the telenovela for the masses in Latin America, Martin maps out how Restrepo uses its narrative tropes and characterization to critique conservative Colombian political and social attitudes toward women and toward others who are categorized as outsiders.

One of the strong threads running throughout this multidisciplinary text is a consideration of how Colombian gender relations have been shaped by the country’s violent history. Martin argues that excessive masculine violence is valorized and that women are perceived as property on whom violence is performed, or who must be protected against the same. A telling example is Martin’s analysis of the short film La mirada de Myriam (1986), made by the women’s film collective Cine Mujer; it tackles systemic violence as well the traumatic effects it has on an individual. Martin also positions this film against the backdrop of film practice and philosophies of filmmaking throughout the Americas at this time, as well as contemporary transnational experimental women’s filmmaking.

The structure of the text is unusual. The introduction lays out the framework very clearly, and each section is dedicated to a particular art form (painting, literature, film), with subsections including case studies; however, these sections lack conclusions. That being said, the concluding chapter is strong and engages with all of the themes and case studies, as well as drawing in new theoretical debates. The title suggests a vaguer and overly ambitious text than the tautly argued and contained book that this one is. These are minor complaints. For those wanting an insightful and engaging exploration of contemporary Colombian feminine culture, this book certainly provides it.