In a country ravaged by violence, the war against drug trafficking has led to the emergence of numerous nouns formed through the substantial trivialization of the formant narco-, giving rise to one of the most noteworthy linguistic phenomena of recent times. Thus, derived from the definition of a narcotic as a substance causing a depressive effect on the central nervous system, the term narco-, originating from the abbreviations narcotráfico and narcotraficante, entered common usage. When combined with other semantic units, this autonomous compositional element could generate new words—linguistic mutations reflecting a complex and violent reality.
The press played a pivotal role in this linguistic transformation. Expressions incorporating terms like narco-politics, narco-terrorism, narco-guerrilla, narco-state, narco-messages, narco-military, narco-bomb, and others began to surface in newspapers, marking the initiation of a discourse where the media sarcastically highlighted the infiltration of drug trafficking and its culture across all societal domains. Narco-language thus evolved into a social phenomenon and a lexical development with metonymic and metaphoric creations, appealing to readers' knowledge and imagination.
The recent exhibition 'Perpetual' by Colombian artist Camilo Restrepo delves into the proliferation of these neologisms and analyzes the present condition. In 2021, El Tiempo newspaper published 2,182 words with the prefix narco-. By meticulously tracking these publications, Restrepo has curated a visual documentation of time's passage, naming it the PERPETUAL narcoCALENDAR. A suspended calendar functions as both a drawing and a document—a network connecting narco-words, cyclically appearing and disappearing in an infinite loop perpetuating and reinforcing endlessly.
The drawing features two sides: one housing the newly coined nouns extracted from the medium chronologically, interconnected by color-coded hoses. On the flip side, the concealed consequences of drug trafficking emerge in an almost childlike portrayal of violence—wherein black blood and 'moco e'pavos' (Restrepo's caricatured alter egos) undergo torture through contraptions maneuvering guns around the drawing via pulleys. The installation of paper sheets enables their folding, transportation, and trafficking. Each packaged month represents a bale of coca, encapsulating that eternal cycle wherein the infinite repetitions narrate everything created and eroded in a world whose mechanisms respond to criminality.
Perpetual, the recent exhibition by Colombian artist Camilo Restrepo, delves into the proliferation of these narco-neologisms and analyzes the present state. Through the systematic tracking of this publication, Restrepo has created a visual record of the passage of time, which he called the PERPETUAL narcoCALENDAR. A suspended calendar is both a drawing and a document, a sort of circulatory system connecting narco-words that appear and disappear in a closed loop that repeats and amplifies infinitely. This vicious eternal return also points to the negative situations that reinforce and perpetuate each other, summarizing the failure of the war on drugs.
The installation is accompanied by two large-format drawings: 'Bowling for Medellín' and 'Meracalentura.' Both pieces correlate with Colombia's most violent years of drug trafficking. The former references the infamous 'Acuario' bowling alley of the 1980s—a gathering spot where youths from diverse social strata mingled with narcos and young hired killers. Pablo Escobar features in the artwork alongside murders, explosions, internet-sourced images, and handwritten narratives portraying experiences either lived or closely witnessed by the artist, transferred onto paper, and subjected to a simultaneous process of degradation and restoration.
In 'Meracalentura', the Hydra of Lerna, an aquatic monster in the form of a multi-headed serpent guarding one of the entrances to the Underworld, symbolizes the drug trafficking system. Similar to the Hydra, which regenerated two heads for every severed one, drug lords' capture or demise resulted in several more, increasingly avaricious and violent. The scene, reminiscent of Pandemonium, is populated by additional characters, intensifying the ferocity of the imagery. Restrepo constructs an image that speaks of the rupture within a nation's social fabric, the devastating environmental impact of the drug war, and the psychological aftermath of a life permeated by the chaos and suffering it engenders.
