juan alonso

ATTENTION!!! CLOWNS ON YOUR WAY

Thesis / "They belong to Bogotá but nobody takes notice of tem": Juan Carlos Alonso.
Advertising clowns are icons of the urban culture of Bogotá. A young artist realized his Fine Arts Thesis about these characters. A series of photographs are exhibited in bus stops of the city.
PAOLA VILLAMARÍN

Very little is known about their lives. If there were disputes among those who were part of circus teams and those who learned how to be advertising clowns in the street. If for performing their work they must bring along their own costume and their own megaphone. If they belong to a trade union, or it is safe to go around in the streets advertising for shoes or quick lunches.
“They belong to Bogotá but nobody notices them”, says Juan Alonso, an Arts student at Los Andes University. His interest on these specific street workers prompted him to choose them as the main theme for this thesis.
His work consisted in making in making a research on the origins of these clowns and a plastic proposal about them. The latter was turned into a series of photos of large format of advertising clowns that is being exhibiting at present in the new bus stops of the city. The color image of the character, with all its iconographic value, contrasts with the background of the city in black and white in which the clowns perform their work.

The owners of the bus stops (National Urban Equipments of Colombia) understood that Alonso’s project was of cultural nature and authorize him to include his photos in one of the sides of these metallic structures. Every two weeks the photos are moved around different spots of the city. At present they are placed at 68th  Avenue  with Red Cross, and at 68th Avenue and Cafam School.
“These characters are unique in the world”, says Alonso. With his research he discovered that advertising clowns are a patrimony of Bogota, that they charge between 4000 and 8000 Col $ (2 to 4 US$) per hour, that they had a trade union, and there are about 200 of them in the city. Also, he found rivalries among them since those who never worked on a circus and charge less. They all have numberless of amusing and sad stories to tell.


El Tiempo, Thrusday January 31, 2002

 
         
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