Last October, a guerrilla army at war with the state attacked a town only 40 kilometers from the capital, and Ms. Cuervo called Paris to cancel the show. Verger talked her out of it. Days before the opening, a collector wanted to yank five paintings and put them in New York's International Fine Art Fair. But Verger won out again. But, this being Colombia, the story has a magic-realist plot twist.
Museums go on a country's reputation, even if the people in charge have never been there.
This isn't necessarily correct, but it's the way things are. You should always try to bring peace with art. I'm sure it wasn't intentional, but the guy couldn't have picked a better example. Spain's reaction to the Basque rebels and their separatist violence is always held up by media here as a model, since hundreds of thousands take to the streets to protest bombings and shootings. These protests have been instrumental in building cease-fire accords.