The Hyped-Up Event That Never Happened

Back in June 2010, there was an event that underwent weeks of planning and had the youth of the city hyped-up and ready to party – the only problem was that it never happened. Set to be the 5th installment of 4ojos, the event was on the agenda of thousands of people. 4ojos is a group of artists that take over a house for a week and create an entirely new space, culminating in the mother of all house parties where live bands rock out, DJs play till’ dawn, and a place where drugs, sex, and performance art seem to happily blend together; at 4ojos there are no spectators, if you come, anything goes. After the event the house is restored to its normal condition, or in the case of this installment, the house belonged to an ex-drug lord and was going to be abandoned indefinitely.

After months of hype, Friday night arrived and by 10pm a wall of police officers had closed the event down. Meanwhile, other officers herded 600 people off the property and into the rain. Their reason – 4ojos did not have a permit for selling tickets, nor did they have a permit to sell alcohol. The exodus of people were pushed out into the rain, washing away the hopes and aspirations of the night, as well as the one-night-only gallery of underground artwork. Even as the mass of people were leaving, taxi after taxi kept dumping more people into the crowd. With the gates closed for good, people began questioning  if their tickets would be refunded. Over the next few weeks organizers sent out  emails with plans to reschedule the event, but after a few failed attempts the only display of the mansion was a weekend afternoon get-together where only a small handful gathered. Above is a video courtesy of “Karma Films Medellin” who documented the days leading up to the original event.

The inability to assure artists the exposure they deserved has damaged the reputation of the 4ojos crew, not to mention the monster let-down they presented to hundreds of Colombian party goers. We hope that it is is not the end for 4ojos, however if they do attempt to make the 6th instalment of their art project it will require rebuilding trust with both the artist community and Medellin’s party culture.

Addendum

Much of the bottled-up energy for the 4ojos party its chance to be released a few weeks ago at an event by the Estereopsis and Medetrash crew (above). While not the full eruption of mad-crazy party mayhem everyone was hoping for, this was a banging event nonetheless for Medellin, Colombia.