Tauromaquia: The Art of Bullfighting

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My interest in bullfighting began when I opened my studio in Bogota. My art studio was on the 27th floor of the Torres del Parque towers that are directly adjacent to the Plaza de Toros de Santamaría bullring.

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From my window, I could see at my leisure everything that was happening outside and everything that was happening inside the round yellowish sand of the ring.

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Every Sunday there was a bullfight and every bullfight was full of surreal and sometimes bloody scenes. These scenes quickly made me get a direct idea of what they call “The Art of Bullfighting” and these scenes made me take sides.

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Every year at the beginning of February the Santamaria Fair is celebrated, these are three long days of fiesta. For the event posters they always hire the most famous bullfighters of the moment. Bullfighters always ready to give a great show to the almost 15,000 passionate bullfighting spectators who gather in the Santamaria.

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After five years watching as a direct witness the tragedy and drama of those defenseless animals and observing those handsome bullfighters dressed in their colorful dresses of lights that announced an imminent death without mercy, as I said before, I had taken sides.

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That helpless creature was, vulnerable, deafened, and hurt; his life was going away in each onslaught. Each one of the onslaughts was cheered by a crowd eager for death and blood by long shouts of ole, ole, ole ... while the bullfighter and all the other characters that formed his entourage, methodically dropped their violence with cold fury on the animal, encouraged by the diverse mass of people who enjoyed the morbid spectacle. And so, the bullfighter with his sensual and studied dance towards his last macabre act, when with the long metal sword of sharp edge penetrates the heart of the exhausted defenseless bull which is completely alone among a raging, stupefied by alcohol and unconscious crowd.

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In each new "bullfight", I only begged the universe that the bull be so brave and strong to be worthy of an "Indulto" (pardon) of the forgiveness granted that allowed him to continue living.

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After leaving Bogotá and having art studios in many places on the planet, life leads me to live in Mexico City. It leads me to the charm of the Mexican culture, full of history, art and so many experiences that made me work and grow as an artist. There, in that surrealist Mexico of Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo, I meet by chance, again, “The Art of Bullfighting”, however, this time seen from a different angle. I became friends with one of the most important owners of ranches of toros de lidia (bulls which are raised specifically for bullfights) and my vision of the bull changed. I saw the strong and healthy bulls graze peacefully without knowing what they were preparing for. I was very upset to know that eventually each great bullfighting specimen was going to be taken to its final destination and without escape, to be bullied and in most cases killed in the Monumental Plaza of Mexico. Without warnings and after a life of diligent care the animal was taken to be sacrificed in an afternoon of sun, screams, pain and tragedy.

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On these two different occasions of direct experiences, I made for each one a series of paintings on bullfighting. These series were a silent farewell to those animals that left life without knowing what was happened, and why the humans outraged him to death. These paintings observed with the artist's eye is a profound reflection on our idolatrous humanity; it is a crying tear on the canvas, where I always took the side of the animal, an animal that for most human being qualifies as a beast. But I always wonder: Who is the beast in this pagan festival?

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Mari Gamarra