Materials for a makeshift shack

my generation was already working with a gallery, or they had made a name for themselves, and dealing with galleries was something that didn’t interest me very much. So we rented a house, along with Rafael Ortiz, Marta Combariza, Paige Abadi and María Victoria Durán. We had studios and would sometimes show our own work there, but it wasn’t really a space in the proper sense... that was before Gaula... and there wasn’t a space like it at the time, at least not that I knew of. So we would work there and put together a show monthly or bimonthly, roughly speaking. The first show was me and Rafael Ortiz, works by the two of us. We worked a lot on it, towards the end we were able to get some help from the Centro Colombo Americano, we made a catalog and had an opening, but such was our luck that the day of the opening was the day when the Palace of Justice was seized. Very few people showed up, the people from Casa Negret came, I think even [Edgar] Negret himself showed up. One of Rafael’s works included a radio that was switched on, so everybody was listening no Rafael’s piece, bombs going of in the Plaza de Bolívar and the reporters describing the scene, and everybody was scared.

My mother had a job at the senate, so I was also very scared. It was horrible.

Víctor: And where was Magma located?

Jaime: On 69th and fifth. It was one of those spacious English-style houses. Let’s say that, in terms of how the space operated, it was somewhat similar to how MIAMI works today, to the extent that they also have studios there.

So we would just work there without any expectations; the artists involved weren’t part of a “boom” in abstraction or anything like that, we just had our studios. So people would come, we would screen German film series borrowed from the Goethe Institut, we would set up a projector and screen the film. Many of the films we screened were silent, so we had the idea of adding music to the films. It was a challenge but also very relaxed. We also had shows by people who were only starting out at the time: Nadín Ospina, Eduardo Pradilla, Rafa, we did a show with graffiti, we would serve chicha... it was a very calm setting and much more relaxed than Gaula, where we did try to play an active part in the art scene and were, if you like, more “ambitious”...

Víctor: How long did Magma last?

Jaime: Magma lasted for about two and a half years. From ’85 to ’87. It was a very cool place and nice to work on... I like that kind of space. It didn’t have the need for promotion that spaces have today. Since we had the studios there people would simply show up and look at works. Often 16