Peruvian Art in the Twentieth Century

Luis Rebaza-Soraluz

The 20th century began with painting as the dominant media and genre, its main Peruvian practitioners living and being trained abroad, primarily in Europe. In 1919, the foundation of the Escuela de Bellas Artes de Lima promoted local artistic production and its institutionalization. It also revealed a cultural process in which three major areas - European traditions, pre-Columbian traditions, and the increasing presence of popular culture - clashed and conversed. During the first half of the century, this process is reflected in the sequence of aesthetic ideas subscribed to by the directors of the ENBA, among them José Sabogal (1932) - leader of the Indigenista movement - and Ricardo Grau (1945).

Indigenismo as a movement appeared within the context of the Soviet and Mexican revolutions, the strengthening of regional political ideologies such as the APRA, and of groundbreaking archaeological and anthropological studies of the Andean world. These not only fuelled the agenda for the socio-political vindication of the 'Indian' during the 30s and 40s, but also, during the 50s and 60s, gave rise to an aesthetics of cultural mestizaje subscribed to by abstract painters and sculptors, such as Fernando de Szyszlo and Emilio Rodríguez Larraín, who differentiated themselves from the nativist figurative tendencies that successfully dominated public exhibitions, including the Salons of Independent Artists aimed at moving away from the ENBA.

While the diverse tendencies of abstract art quickly spread after 1950, artists and critics engaged in heated polemics that polarised cultural concepts: abstract vs. figurative, international vs. national and modern vs. ancient and ancestral, all within a context of urban development, the increasing role of the mass media in society, and greater US political and economic influence. In 1968, an initially left-wing military government assumed power for 12 years and embarked on an accelerated process of social participation. During the 70s, the graphic arts, Pop art, Op art, conceptual art, happenings, performances, environments and even Surrealism competed against abstract art and painting for cultural dominance. This move was accompanied by the bestowing of the National Cultural Award, in 1975, to Joaquín López Antay (1897-1981), a long-time representative of the popular arts. Such recognition reignited recently articulated polemics, further fuelled by antagonisms such as arts vs. crafts and aesthetics vs. functionality. The 70s closed with the second Festival de arte total, Contacta 79 and the arte colectivo carried out by groups such as Paréntesis, Huayco and Artistas Visuales Asociados.

The last two decades of the 20th century were dominated by the violence brought about by a 'dirty war' between the national army and the rebel groups 'Shining Path' and MRTA, with political and economic crises resulting from governmental mismanagement and human rights violations. In addition to numerous collective art forms based on themes taken from popular culture - carried out in public spaces using recyclable and 'poor art' materials and accompanied by urban rock music - the artists' individual responses included the use of multimedia, photography and materials such as ceramics and adobe. During these years, the main national and international stage was the Biennial of Trujillo (1983-88).