Crosscurrent Passages

Dissident Tactics in Peruvian Art, 1968-1992

Curators: Miguel López, Emilio Tarazona

Hugo Salazar del Alcázar, Lucy Angulo, Luis Arias Vera, Teresa Burga, Jorge Eielson, Rafael Hastings, Taller E.P.S. Huayco, Francisco Mariotti, Alfredo Márquez, Yvonne von Möllendorff, Grupo Paréntesis, Herbert Rodríguez, Jesús Ruiz Durand, Emilio Hernández Saavedra, Juan Javier Salazar, Sergio Zevallos and others

Crosscurrent Passages is an attempt to review a series of dissident practices and artistic output that were in conflict with consensual systems of representation and social and political situation, framed between the 1968 military coup and president Alberto Fujimori’s self-coup in 1992. The 1968 military coup marked the start of a dictatorship that was singular in many ways: it attempted to accelerate the breakdown of the oligarchy and to support industrial modernisation through radical reformist measures, which at the same time generated a persecutory police climate. In the seventies entailed a splitting of the course of experimentation in the plastic arts in two directions. On one hand, there was a surge of a ‘conceptual’ institutional criticism of the art system. And on the other there was an emergence of new forms of collective production in dialogue with Andean culture, protected by the military government.
The crisis of the military government and the reinstatement of democracy in 1980 created an atmosphere of critical thought that corresponded to the start of the armed struggle against the government by the subversive group Shining Path culminating in genocide politics against broad sectors of the population, carried out by the seditious group as well as the army. In the eighties, launched by the collaborative activities of various art groups, art became accepted as a space of political denunciation and redefinition based on an ‘Andean modernity’. Through performances and interventions other artists allegorised the psychological and physical repercussions of violence. (Miguel López, Emilio Tarazona)

WORKS
All texts, unless otherwise noted: Miguel López, Emilio Tarazona

Lucy Angulo, Hugo Salazar del Alcázar, Jesús Ruiz Durand, Mario Pozzi-Escott and Leslie Lee
Por el derecho a la vida (For the right to life), 1985
Video documentation of the collective installation, Translation and subtitles by Janine Soenens
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In January 1985 a group of artists presented an installation under the title For the Right to Life at the Miraflores public gallery in Lima. This exhibition was one of the first examples of artists within the official art world turning their attention to the attacks on human rights in Peru, committed by the Army and by the clandestine group PCP Shining Path. This documentary video – screened here for the first time – shows images of the set-up and a series of interviews with artists, intellectuals, politicians and activists of the time, who give their opinion on the situation of violence.

Teresa Burga (1940, PE)
Autorretrato. Estructura. Informe. 9-6-72 (Self-Portrait. Structure. Report. 9-6-72), 1972
Installation with graphical work, photos, sound-light unit, among other materials, Courtesy: Teresa Burga and Miguel López/Emilio Tarazona archive
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Under the notion of 'self-portrait', Teresa Burga displayed a series of documents and diagrams that provided an approximation of herself. The installation was divided into three areas: Face Report, Heart Report, Blood Report, displaying data collected in the course of a single day (June 9, 1972).

Contacta. Festival de Arte Total (Contacta 71. Total Art Festival), 1971–1979
Initially driven by artists such as Francisco Mariotti and Luis Arias Vera and subsequently supported by the Military Government through SINAMOS (National System for the Support of Social Mobilisation), the Total Art Festivals project was to become one of the most exceptional examples of multidisciplinary arts experimentation in the seventies. The festivals, based on an open call for participation, took place in July 1971 and 1972 over four days – 24 hours, non-stop – in public space, mixing 'official' arts with experimental arts, theatre, poetry, music, cinema and traditional arts and crafts. The success of Contacta 72 led to other festivals being organised in inland Peru, such as the Inkarri Festivals (1973). In 1979, a few artists from Colectivo Paréntesis and Francisco Mariotti organised a further Contacta Festival.

Jesús Ruiz Durand (1940,PE)
Cuatro afiches de difusión de la Reforma Agraria (Four propaganda posters for the Agrarian Reform),1969-1972
4 Offset prints, 100 x 70 cm., Courtesy: Museo de Arte de Lima Collection, Contemporary Art Acquisitions Committee 2007
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Under General Juan Velasco’s military government, Jesús Ruiz Durand designed a propaganda strategy to publicise the regime’s Agrarian and Industrial reform, which aimed to return land to peasant communities and change Peru’s social structure. Unlike other reform processes in Latin America, the implementation of the reform in Peru did not emerge in response to mass actions. Rather, it was the official line promoted by the technical and military leadership, forcing the Government to generate mass diffusion strategies. The posters produced by Durand in collaboration with SINAMOS (a public institution created to channel independent social organisations without links to the government) were heavily distributed among Andean and peasant communities. The artist subverted and resignified North American pop art in order to produce a vernacular, Andean 'pop' with reminiscences of myth.

Jorge Eielson (1924, PE – 2006, I)
Subterranean Sculpture, 1966-1969
Series
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During the late 60s, Jorge Eielson conceived a series of sculptures specifically designed to be buried in various cities he had some kind of connection to. Subterranean Sculptures brought together ten objects, utopian in their intentional concealment and their impossible manufacture. The project – unfinished in the end – included ‘sculptures’ thought up for Rome, the Eninger Weide in Reutlingen, Paris, Lima, Antwerp, Bangkok, Sardinia, New York and Tokyo, together with an additional object that Eielson unsuccessfully conceived for the Moon, and even sent to NASA.

Rafael Hastings (1945, PE)

Untitled, 1970
Documentation of the installation, three photos, Courtesy: Miguel López/Emilio Tarazona Archive
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A newspaper announced the artist's solo exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Lima under the headline 'Hastings to judge Peruvian painting', highlighting the fact that he ‘renounced’ painting. Hastings exhibited two sets of diagrams: one panel related to the evolution of Peruvian painting; the other diagram contained data relating to the life of Peruvian art critic Juan Acha, openly exposing the role of the critic as just one of many elements in the system of social and political relations that permanently constitute the art system.

Projet de non-réalisation (Non executable project), 1971
Print on paper, 114 x 84 cm., Courtesy: Private collection
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Non-executable Project is part of a series of projects that the artist carried out around the role of criticism, ‘conceptual' art and audiences. It is a work conceived to be sent by post and/or distributed as photocopies, which could be exhibited anywhere, and which Hastings created in response to French critic Jean Marc Poinsot’s invitation to participate in his Mail Art exhibition organised for the Paris Biennale in 1971. Hastings explicitly addressed this ‘conceptual art’ work to Poinsot – without actually mentioning his name – in order to confront the role of the critic, who he sarcastically challenges to 'resolve' or 'complete' the work.

Taller E.P.S. Huayco (Francisco Mariotti, Maria Luy, Rosario Noriega, Herbert Rodríguez, Juan Javier Salazar, Armando Williams, Mariela Zevallos), 1980–1982

Arte al paso (Art on the way), 1980
Documentation of painting on the surface of 10,000 empty cans of evaporated milk, Courtesy: Francisco Mariotti
Sarita Colonia, 1980
Documentation of Painting of the portrait of unofficial saint Sarita Colonia on the surface of 12,000 empty cans of evaporated milk, Courtesy: Francisco Mariotti
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In 1979 a group of young artists began to carry out a series of projects combining experimentation with ‘poor’ materials with a reworking of the imaginary of urban and popular icons, from the political left. This was the start of the E.P.S Huayco workshop, which would remain active for almost two years.
One of its most important projects was Art on the Way, presented at Galería Forum in Lima. The artists reproduced images of ‘salchipapas’, a kind of fast-food, by creating a carpet of painted tins that covered the floor, referring to the dots of color used in Pop art. They also circulated a manifesto with a text by left-wing critic Mirko Lauer that confronted the bourgeois taste of art.
Not long after this, the artists reproduced the image of a non-official saint, Sarita Colonia, who was worshipped by a broad community of migrants to Lima, and by marginalised social groups. The image, again placed on tins, was presented this time at the Panamericana Sur highway: the landscape of a migration route soon becoming a site of pilgrimage for many of the faithful.

Cojudos (Assholes), 1980
Silkscreen on board, 65 x 50 cm., Courtesy: Museo de Arte de Lima Collection, Gift of Jorge Gruenberg
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In 1980, Taller E.P.S. Huayco reused the image of leftist poet César Vallejo to produce a series of screen prints and stickers. The phrase placed over the poet’s head – “COJUDOS” (“Assholes”) – seems to attempt to reactivate the political aspect of his writing, in contrast with the official image that had involuntarily transformed him into the paradigm of the 'melancholic poet'.

Ernesto Maguiña, Leonor Chocano, Consuelo Rabanal, and others
Untitled, 1970
Documentation of graffiti on the facades of commercial galleries, photographs, Courtesy: Ernesto Maguiña
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1970 a group of artists got together to secretly graffiti the tag "Arte=$" on public streets – including the façades of art galleries.

Francesco Mariotti (1943, CH)
Lavatorio artificial para uso especial (Artificial wash basin for special use), 1975/2009
Intervention in the public restrooms, Courtesy: Francesco Mariotti
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Artificial Wash Basin for Special Use was originally produced for inclusion in an exhibition at the Banco Continental gallery in Lima in 1975, but the installation was never exhibited, and like several other works from the same period, it was subsequently destroyed. The work offers a critical comment on the context of repression and the economic, social and political crisis that the country was going through. The updated version of this never-exhibited work is now presented as an intervention in the two public restrooms at the Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart.

CARLOS MARX canta y baila para usted LA INTERNACIONAL (KARL MARX sings and dances THE INTERNATIONALE for you), 1984
with Gerardo Zanetti
Assemblage with mechanism and video (Video: Ulrike Buck), Courtesy: Francesco Mariotti
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In 1984, Francisco Mariotti and journalist Gerardo Zanetti manufactured an amusing mechanical object which presents the figure of Karl Marx. The piece is a critical allegory of the iconic and discursive uses of communism's most influential theorist, here symbolically transformed into a mere toy.

Alfredo Márquez (1963, PE)
CHINACHOLA, 2006
Silkscreen on paper, 74 x 55 cm., Courtesy: Museo de Arte de Lima Collection,  Contemporary Art Acquisitions Committee 2007, with donations from Manuel Velarde and Carlos Marsano
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In 1989, Taller NN (a name taken from the initials used to label the corpses of unidentified persons) was invited to the 3rd Art and Architecture Biennial of Havana, where the group produced a screen print showing the face of Mao Zedong superimposed with a photograph of prisoners of the subversive group the Shining path caught by the army, and with the slogan: “Viva el Maoismo” (Long live to Maoism!). In 1994, one of the Taller NN artists, who had authored this print (Alfredo Márquez), was kidnapped, arrested and tried by faceless judges during the dictatorship of Alberto Fujimori. Accused of ‘defence of terrorism’, virtually the whole series of the edition was destroyed.

Yvonne von Möllendorff (PE)
Untitled, [Ballet verbal] (Verbal Ballet), 1970
Documentation of performance executed in Institute of Contemporary Art in Lima (August 6h)
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Choreographer Yvonne von Möllendorff presented a dance “performance” at the Institute of Contemporary Art (IAC) in Lima. The artist remained immobile before the audience, while a recorded voice described the steps involved in the dance pieces that had been previously announced as part of the event. Möllendorff handed out a manifesto in which she declared: “It is necessary to bring about a cultural revolution, because there can be no social revolution without one." In this way, she openly spoke against the reformist restrictions and rhetoric of the so-called Revolutionary Government of the Armed Forces.

Grupo Paréntesis (Lucy Angulo, Fernando Bedoya, Emei [Mecedes Idoyaga], José Antonio Morales, Rosario Noriega, Juan Javier Salazar, Raúl Villavicencio), founded and disbanded in 1979.
Proyecto mecenas (Patron Project), 1979 [10-03-79 / 18-03-79 / 25-03-79]
Three newspapers adverts, 58 x 37 cm. each one, Courtesy:  Museo de Arte de Lima Collection, Contemporary Art Acquisitions Committee 2008
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Grupo Paréntesis made its first appearance in Lima with the publication of three advertisements inserted into the cultural section of El Comercio – a newspaper with a large circulation among the middle and upper classes – containing the phrase: “Plastic artists seek patron”. The phrase includes an ironic play on words ('me'-'cenas', roughly 'you dine me'), aimed at the plastic arts market in Lima.

Herbert Rodríguez (1959, PE)

Perú, 1984
Assemblage, 62 x 96 x 46 cm., Courtesy: Herbert Rodríguez
Tenga esa figura que siempre soñó (Get the figure you ever dream of), 1983-1984 ca.
Photomontage, 36 x 25 cm., Courtesy: Herbert Rodríguez
Taller y Proyecto Arte-Vida (Workshop and Project Art-Life), 1986-1991
Documentation of the workshop and intervention in public space, Courtesy: Herbert Rodríguez
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From the mid-80s Herbert Rodríguez, an ex-member of Taller E.P.S Huayco, carried out a series of precarious works in response to the internal violence in Peru, which combined images of sex, politics and religion. In 1986, he began the project Art-Life at the Carpa Teatro in Puente Santa Rosa (Lima), through an experimental materials workshop to create precarious objects and photomontages in different public spaces, with an aesthetic influenced by punk and dada. Since 1988, he moved his workspace to the University of San Marcos and then to the Catholic University and other exterior spaces, from which he produced mural newspapers and paintings as a space of resistance and struggle against discouragement and death.

LUZCA BELLA CADÁVERES (LOOK BEAUTIFUL CORPSES), 1984-2000
Book made of photocopies, 42,5 x 30 cm., Courtesy: Herbert Rodríguez
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Since 1984, Herbert Rodríguez created a series of photocopied notebooks consisting of dozens of collages and photomontages made from photographs, phrases and fragments of text from the press, conceived as a kind of chronicle of death. LOOK BEAUTIFUL CORPSES is a compilation of several of his early notebooks and can be read as an alternative, subversive and politically incorrect story of the internal violence between 1980 and 1992. Its rough aesthetic is antithetical to recent attempts by the official Peruvian cultural powers-that-be to review war crimes.

Emilio Hernández Saavedra (1940, PE)
Galería de arte (Gallery of Art), 1970
Photographies printed in the catalogue (reprinted 2007), 124 x 124 cm., Courtesy: Emilio Hernández Saavedra and Miguel López/Emilio Tarazona Archive
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For his exhibition Art Gallery Emilio Hernández Saavedra used photographs, diagrams and descriptions to visually dismantle Galería Cultura y Libertad, a place that was known for having hosted several of the most daring exhibitions of the time. The artist exposed the institution's mechanisms of production, circulation and exhibition. At the same time, he circulated a publication showing conceptual art projects. Erased Museum of Art for example presented an overhead view of the Historic Centre of Lima from which he symbolically deleted the Lima Museum of Art, one of the decisive authorities of art and the official historic tradition.

Juan Javier Salazar (1955, PE)
Náufragos (Shipwrecked), 1985-2006
Installation, Courtesy: Juan Javier Salazar
Ñoba Ritual (Ritual Wash), 1986
Silkscreen on board in both sides, 60,5 x 46,5 cm., Courtesy: Private collection
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Juan Javier Salazar, a member of E.P.S. Huayco, developed highly ironic work that was critical of the art system and the circulation and commercial nature of art objects. In 1985, he put together the exhibition Ritual Wash, which made reference to the shipwreck of a city and a country (Lima, Peru) due to an absence of rain, in spite of excessive ambient humidity. Applying the idea of rain as an act of purification as well as press footage of floods and overflowing rivers in the North of the country a few years earlier, the artist used the wood from a rundown small boat to give shape to these images.

Luis Arias Vera / Sub-dirección de Recreación Socio Cultural del INRED, Instituto Nacional Recreación, Educación Física y Deporte (Sub-direction of Socio-Cultural Recreation, of National Institute of Recreation, Physical Education and Sports)
Carrera de Chasquis (Chasquis Race), 1974 and 1976
Documentation of relay Race in different provinces of Peru, Courtesy: Luis Arias Vera
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The Chasquis Races were a cultural and sporting event organised by the artist Luis Arias Vera in 1974 and 1976 for the National Institute of Recreation, Physical Education and Sport (INRED) of the Military Government. Arias Vera divided the event into different stages, which aimed to connect more than 250 rural settlements in the North and the South of Peru. The project consisted of a relay race in which every settlement that participated was transformed into a space for sharing multidisciplinary artistic forms of expression. The word ‘chasqui’ is a Quechuan word that means ‘recipient’ or ‘messenger'. These 'races' were thus a reference to the messengers of the Incan Empire who transmitted messages on foot using a system of relays passed through sections spread through the entire territory.

Sergio Zevallos (D, 1962, PE)
De la serie Rosa Cordis (from the series Rose of my Heart), 1986
Fine art Print on Hahnemühle paper, 11 photos of 50 x 37 cm.
Courtesy: Sergio Zevallos
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As part of a collective work project that had been developing on the outskirts of Lima (in the Chaclacayo district) since 1983, Sergio Zevallos began using the body as a critical vehicle in response to violence. Although the group’s work was ignored on the local scene, their visual output became one of the most important reference points of art-based political production – and one of the most repressed. The series Rose of my Heart shows a semi-nude figure wearing make up, a black tunic and a crown of thorns, in direct reference to Santa Rosa de Lima, America's first Saint.