Olga Kostakowsky, better known as Olga Costa, was a painter and influential cultural promoter of Mexican Modernism. In Costa’s Autorretrato (1947), we encounter a self-assured painter on the patio of a traditional house in the Mexican countryside. Sitting in the shade on a hot day, Olga looks at us with an unwavering gaze, scrutinising our attempts to observe her. Perhaps it is the intensity of her almost turquoise blue eyes, a distinctive trait seldom found among the people in Mexico, that elicits profound admiration. Yet, dressed in her traditional Mexican blouse and handcrafted earrings, Costa lets us know that she belongs to the same people, regardless of her origins. Painted in the same year that Costa became a Mexican citizen, Autorretrato shows Costa’s commitment to her new homeland and belongs to her oeuvre of depictions of Mexican culture.
This is the first time the work of Olga Costa is presented at Biennale Arte.
—Eva Posas
