A Trip from Here to There

March 15–July 30, 2013
Over the course of two years, from 2008 to 2010, the artist Mateo López traveled through his native Colombia, from Bogota to Cali to Medellin. Crisscrossing vast expanses of territory via Vespa, López made drawings, rendering the ordinary objects he encountered in precise detail. In a country occupied by government forces and paramilitary rebels, traveling itself—and the diaristic drawing that served as documentation—became an act of resistance. Using López’s Viaje sin movimiento—an installation of his drawings from this journey—as a starting point, A Trip from Here to There explores practices and works generated by walking and wandering. As members of exploratory expeditions and surveys, painters and draftsmen have long played key roles in the plotting and investigation of place. However, in the second half of the 20th century, the journey itself became both medium and subject for many artists. In some works, a walk or sojourn is precisely documented via maps and charts, dates and times, while in others, wandering’s inherent detours and deviations are exploited, resulting in collages of impressions or graphs of explored terrain. For some artists, drawing is both nomadic and solitary, while for others it is a way to engage with one’s environment and its inhabitants. To view images of these artworks, please visit the Online Collection at moma.org/collection.
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