Nonuya and Muinane sage and ecological artist Abel Rodríguez (Don Abel) died yesterday, April 9, as confirmed by his representing gallery Instituto de Visión. Recognized each by his ancestral title Mogaje Guihu and lovingly as Don Abel, Rodríguez is remembered for his shiny ink-on-paper drawings of the plush natural world of the Amazon basin, his inherited data of endemic vegetation and their medicinal properties, and as one of many few remaining audio system of the Nonuya language.
The artist died peacefully in Bogotá, holding the hand of his lifelong companion Doña Elisa. He’s additionally survived by his kids Paulina, Carlos, and Wilson (a practising artist below the title Aycoobo), in addition to his grandchildren. Hyperallergic couldn’t verify his age at time of demise as information point out completely different delivery years, starting from 1934 to 1941.
Rodríguez was born in La Chorrera, a city and municipality within the southern Colombian Division of Amazonas alongside the Igara Paraná River. Belonging to the Indigenous Nonuya ethnic group, Rodríguez was designated as a “Plant Name-Giver” at an early age and his uncle, a sabedor (man of information), taught him all the pieces about tropical vegetation of their ancestral space of the Amazon basin. Rodríguez turned an knowledgeable in figuring out a whole lot of endemic vegetation’ medicinal properties and the way they need to be ready, progress patterns and bodily traits, and their ecological and cosmological relationships with the atmosphere and different animals.
Abel Rodríguez, “Cananguchal” (2018)
Rodríguez’s data was not solely an extension of his heritage, but additionally invaluable to the Fundación Tropenbos Colombia, a non-profit worldwide analysis group geared toward defending and managing tropical rainforests by means of incorporating Indigenous data. Through the ’80s, Rodríguez served as a scout and information for the researchers, astounding them along with his encyclopedic experience of the encircling biodiversity.
Through the Nineteen Nineties, Rodríguez, Doña Elisa, and their kids had been displaced from the Amazon basin amid the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia’s occupation and exploitation of the land and sources. They settled within the outskirts of Bogotá, and the Fundación Tropenbos supplied Rodríguez with artwork provides as a way of bodily archiving his data of the Amazonas land below menace. This was the artist’s first foray into visible arts, and he recalled that his outcomes got here out “very poorly at first,” earlier than he bought the cling of it.
Rodríguez basically transcribed his reminiscence onto paper, utilizing succulent inexperienced inks to meticulously paint 1000’s of leaves cascading off the branches of bushes and sprouting from vines.
‘‘The form of the bushes are at all times there in my head and I bear in mind each tree, the right way to seize the branches to increase them to their full dimension, the colour of the bushes and the colour of the bark,” he recalled in an interview with the journal The place the Leaves Fall.
Abel Rodríguez, “La centro montaña” (2022)
From labeled botanical research to explosive, large-scale compositions incorporating birds and different animals, Rodríguez’s work is instantly charming — offering folks with a lens into 1000’s of years of ecological and cosmological recollection rigorously held in a single individual’s reminiscence. His exhibition debut passed off in Colombia itself, beginning along with his inclusion within the Historia pure y politica group present in Bogotá’s Museo Botero in 2008.
Worldwide recognition trickled in upon his 2014 Prince Clause award, and Rodríguez started exhibiting from Amsterdam and Frankfurt to Santa Fe and Pittsburgh earlier than his inclusion in documenta 14 three years later. Rodríguez’s effective artwork profession exploded in 2021 upon his inclusion within the thirty fourth Sao Paulo Biennial in addition to the Culturescapes artwork competition in Basel, Switzerland. Between the 2 following years, he exhibited within the Toronto Biennial of Artwork, the Biennale of Sydney, and the Gwangju Biennial.
Abel Rodríguez, “El árbol de la vida y la abundancia” (2020)
Regardless of his success, Rodríguez didn’t take into account himself an artist. In a 2024 function within the Museum of Trendy Artwork’s journal, he famous that the place doesn’t exist within the Nonuya language — although he did point out that his observe had left him wanting for nothing.
“In my language, we speak of knowledge, work, intelligence, and craft — that is what is behind images,” he stated.
Fly excessive, Don Abel.You had been beneficiant, joyful, and sensible —you gave me unforgettable moments,tales that bloomed like flowers,and above all,You modified the way in which I see the world.
Nothing feels the identical now.Your tales of La Chorrera,the dances within the Maloca,the dimensions of the good anaconda,and the style of the cabritos —They had been the sweetest phrases I’ve ever heard.
In the present day, sorrow wraps round me,however I do know I’ll discover you in every single place —in each leaf that falls,within the track of the birds,and within the clouds above.You as soon as advised me you noticed my face within the sky —Now, I’ll search for and see yours.
Abel Rodríguez, “La maloka con sus frutales” (2023)
An exhibition view of Abel Rodríguez’s Lineage (2023) at Instituto de Imaginative and prescient in New York Metropolis
