Miguel Ángel Rojas

MIGUEL ÁNGEL ROJAS
[1946, Colombia]

Miguel Ángel Rojas is a conceptual and multimedia artist whose work addresses subjective experience, identity, and politics. His projects have included indictments of international drug trafficking and violence, and much of his work focuses upon experiences of marginality. In 1964, he began studying architecture at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, where he remained for six semesters. Deciding not to pursue a career in architecture, Rojas enrolled at the School of Fine Arts at Universidad Nacional de Colombia (UNAL) in Bogotá in 1969. His earliest experiments with long-exposure photographic portraits and self-portraits began during this period in the mid-1960s and continued throughout the 1970s.

In 1973, he began one of his most important series of photographs, the Faenza series. Rojas took these photographs—of encounters between gay men at B-movie theaters in Bogotá—secretly, hiding his camera in a suitcase or under a jacket.  The resulting images are ghostly records of the affective and physical experiences of a largely invisible community. The series also marks Rojas’s first exploration of his own subjectivity as central to his work, and it was his first extended foray into photography. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Rojas also worked with engraving, drawing, video, intaglio, stitching, and photographic reductions.

In the mid-1990s, Rojas began using coca leaves in his work. Initially, the works explored histories of indigenous life in Colombia, but over time Rojas began using them to comment upon the production of cocaine for consumption in the first world.  Since the 1990s, he has used coca to reconstruct pop imagery, bringing consumerism into dialogue with widespread political and social problems.

Rojas’s works have been shown in numerous selected exhibitions, including Medellín, Une Histoire Colombienne, Les Abattoirs, Musée - Frac Occitanie Toulouse, France (2017); Re-Aligning Vision, Archer M. Huntington Art Gallery, The University of Texas at Austin, Texas, USA, Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, Arkansas, USA, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey (MARCO), Mexico, Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas, Venezuela, El Museo del Barrio, New York City, New York, USA, and Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), Florida, USA

2022
Yo, usted y el Clan, Galería Casas Riegner, Bogotá, Colombia

2021
Regreso a la Maloca, Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá (MAMBO), Bogotá, Colombia

2020
El Jaguar y la Mariposa, Museo Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia

2018
Greed and Desire, Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino, Houston, TX, USA
Una y otra vez, las tardes suspendidas, Galería Casas Riegner, Bogotá, Colombia

2015
Un Jardín para Inés, Museo Claustro de San Agustín, Bogotá, Colombia
Miguel Ángel Rojas: Unas de cal y otras de arena (Quimbaya), Museo Nacional de Artes Decorativas, ARCO Madrid 2015, Madrid, Spain

2013
El camino corto, Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros, Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico
Negocios Grandes y Pequeños, Galería Casas Reigner, Bogotá, Colombia

2012
Camino Corto, Museo de Arte Universidad Nacional, Bogotá, Colombia
El Nuevo Dorado, Solo Project invitation, ARCO: Feria Internacional de Arte Contemporáneo, Madrid, Spain

2011
At the Edge of Scarcity, Sicardi Gallery, Houston, TX, USA

2009
Pueblito, Museo Bolivariano de Arte Contemporáneo, Santa Martha, Colombia

Banco de Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico

Casa de las Americas, Havana, Cuba

Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO), Miami, FL, USA

Coleccion de la Rectoria de la Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia

Coleccion Embajada de Colombia en España, Madrid, Spain

Daros Latin America Collection, Zürich, Switzerland

Diane and Bruce Halle Collection of Latin American Art, Scottsdale, AZ, USA

Embajada de Francia, Bogotá, Colombia

Fundación La Caixa, Barcelona, Spain

Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, Mexico

Les Abattoirs Musée-FRAC Occitanie Toulouse, Toulouse, France

Museo de Arte Americano de Managua, Managua, Nicaragua

Museo de Arte Banco de La República, Bogotá, Colombia

Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León (MUSAC), Leon, Spain

Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey, Mexico