Posters
Colombians can't sell worth a damn! Why, is that some learned helplessness?
My neighbor and I were discussing posters, and how you can get this beautiful posters from the Cuban Film Institute, and you know, they are not only propaganda but also expressions of an art that had to accommodate an ideology. They are, right now, poignant if not downright hilarious; nostalgic, definitively, and we cannot but help to marvel at the extreme naïveté of those times.
So of course we go to the store of the Central Bank Library, which is the one that has one of the biggest collections of art and history in Colombia. Its name is even evocative, appealing, musical: exopotamia, that area that is outside of the water. Don't ask.
What a nightmare! You can, after clicking in thirty obscure links, get to the listings of what this people sell: Paramo de las Papas and Salto del Tequendama, two anonymous paintings from the Humboldtian School. Fernando Obregon, Beatriz Gonzalez, Dario Morales, Debora Arango, Gonzalo Ariza, Luis Caballero, Maripaz Jaramillo, everything from the Museo del Oro and Museo Nacional!
But, oh the humanity! This is a listing - meaning no images, no pointers to even the smallest thumbnail, and worst of all, even if you decide to throw away your money on things you cannot see, there is no way to buy anything! Perhaps calling them, I think, but that strikes me as stoopid and primitive.
I have to write to this people.
UPDATE: I emailed them: they only check their email on even numbered days, but not during Lent, unless said email came from before Lent. I just can email them with proof that said email came before Lent, but then again, they may be able to check their email only after Lent. And yes, we do ship overseas and take credit cards and of course would you like to have something shipped oops it is four o'clock goodbye you can call again Monday morning have a nice day.