BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) 鈥� Colombian photographer 脡dgar Jim茅nez walks around a room exhibiting 鈥淎dam and Eve,鈥� his portrait of two of the first that were brought to Colombia by late drug kingpin in the 1980s.
Jim茅nez, who once served as Escobar鈥檚 personal photographer, recalls taking the picture from only four meters (13 feet) away, without any kind of protection and unaware of the danger they posed. That same pair of hippos later attacked and killed a camel.
鈥淭he hippos were bought from a zoo in the United States that buys and captures animals from Africa,鈥� recalls the 75-year-old photographer, who was also tasked with keeping an inventory of in the country’s northeast.
Escobar continued adding to his hippo collection until his death in 1993. The population has since exploded to more than 160 specimens, which have been in Colombia.
Jim茅nez, who considers his photos of Escobar鈥檚 life to be documentaries, doesn鈥檛 typically exhibit them but he was invited to participate in 鈥淢icrodoses to Tame the Inner Hippopotamus,鈥� a new exhibition in Bogot谩 featuring 20 artists who offer a political critique of what the hippos represent.
Santiago Rueda, curator of the exhibition, said the show does not intend to be moralizing but invites people to see how such a paradoxical figure as Escobar’s hippos can be the subject of a political critique. The exhibit features everything from oil paintings and graffiti to photographs and a unique cultivation of psychoactive mushrooms grown in hippo dung.
Rueda pointed to a tapestry by artist Carlos Castro as a prime example. Depicting Escobar alongside wild animals descending two by two from a large military aircraft 鈥� an allusion to Noah鈥檚 Ark 鈥� Rueda explained the piece is called 鈥淭he Great Narco Ark鈥� (鈥淟a gran narco arca鈥�).
And 鈥渋t鈥檚 not just Escobar, it鈥檚 the narco-madness, the excess, the luxury,鈥� said Rueda, noting that the narco-aesthetic is becoming dominant once again, not only in Colombia but throughout the world.
Another piece features a hippo nicknamed 鈥淓l Gordo鈥� (The Fat One), offering a reward of up to $264,000 for its capture.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a parody of the drug cartels of the era鈥� from the time when they were searching for Pablo Escobar and all the drug traffickers,鈥� said artist Manuel Bar贸n.
The figure of the hippo takes a step further in the work of Camilo Restrepo. The artist discovered that hallucinogenic mushrooms, which he cultivates in his laboratory, can grow directly in the dung of the animals.
Restrepo highlighted the irony: 鈥淚t鈥檚 very contradictory that, due to the failure of the war on drugs, so much money accumulates in the hands of drug traffickers that they can bring in an entire zoo, and then the hippos remain living in Colombia.鈥� Paradoxically, he said, their waste is 鈥渢he substrate where these hallucinogenic mushrooms grow, which dissolve the ego,鈥� unlike cocaine, which 鈥渆levates it.鈥�
The exhibit opened Thursday at Casa 脡chele Cabeza, a project focused on drug regulation and harm reduction, run by the nonprofit Acci贸n T茅cnica Social.
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