Exhibition 'Suficientemente negro?' Reclaims Memory of Colombia's Black President

In 2018, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos installed a portrait of Juan José Nieto Gil, the country's first Afro-Colombian president, in the presidential palace. However, this portrait symbolizes a history of racial whitening and erasure. Nieto, who served for six months in 1861, had his original portrait sent to Paris to lighten his skin tone and alter his features. The painting was later abandoned in the Palace of the Inquisition after a 1974 restoration. In 2016, National Museum director Daniel Castro commissioned a new portrait from Justiniano Durán for the Palacio de Nariño, but it was not placed alongside other former presidents. This new portrait inspired the exhibition 'Suficientemente negro?' (Sufficiently Black?), organized by the Centro Colombo Americano de Cali for Black History Month in February 2019. The show features reinterpretations by eight artists, including Margarita Ariza, whose ongoing project 'Blanco Porcelana' (since 2011) examines aspirations of whiteness. Artists such as Mónica Restrepo, Fabio Melecio Palacios, and Liliana Vergara explore themes of racial identity, representation, and colonial erasure. The exhibition runs until March 30, 2019, at the Centro Cultural Colombo Americano in Cali, Colombia.