Antonio Caro
Colombian, 1950–2021
Manuel Quintín Lame (I), 1978
Ink on paper
Manuel Quintín Lame (1880–1967) was a Páez revolutionary from the southern highlands of Colombia. A self-taught lawyer, he led an Indigenous movement to reclaim land, defend cultural traditions, and promote Indigenous rights through education and legal reform. He closed his groundbreaking writings with a signature that combined his Spanish name with an ornate pictogram. A play on the elaborate signatures that conveyed Spanish royal power, Quintín Lame’s incorporates Indigenous visual motifs. This is one of several works in which Caro explores Quintín Lame’s signature in varying formats, paying homage to its declarative and irreverent take on a colonial writing system.
