title: The quest for representation: the experimental art scene in Lima under Peru’s military government (1968-1975)
Creators: name: Valdivia Bruch, Verónica Katerina
Publisher: name: University of Reading
Year: 2024

description: This dissertation examines the experimental art scene in Lima during the first term
of the Revolutionary Government of the Armed Forces in Peru (1968-1975), led by
General Juan Velasco Alvarado.1 While this administration is known for the reforms
introduced in relation to land redistribution, the cultural policies have been
understudied.
Velasco Alvarado’s government was characterised by being a leftist-oriented military
regime with original social, cultural and educational reforms. Within this
framework, it implemented a series of cultural policies that promoted the
democratisation of art and culture. To achieve this, the military hired a group of
artists and intellectuals, who were committed to state policies, either working for the
government or supporting its initiatives. In this study, I focus on the social aspect of
art. Based on this, I establish a correspondence between the government’s cultural
policies and the artistic debates in the Latin American context of the time. I argue
that they had an impact on the understanding of the arts in Lima, as well as affected
and redirected the experimental art scene towards social and local concerns.
From a curatorial perspective, I consider that this historical moment has been
romanticised by a group of Peruvian curators, who have created a new and
fictionalised history around it, which differs from the original circumstances of the
time.This new version of the art history of the period has portrayed the government
as repressive and violent, blaming it for the disappearance of the experimental art
scene in Lima.2 This depiction has led to equating this government with other
military administrations of the period in South America, characterised by state
violence, manifested through systematic repression, massive killings, rape, and tortures. Through this argumentative move, this theory has introduced the
experimental art scene in Lima from the mid-1960s to mid-1970s within the theories
of Latin American conceptualism. Against this backdrop, I argue that Velasco
Alvarado’s administration constitutes an exception in this context. To explain this, I
introduce the historical circumstances of the period and the particularities of this
military government. Contrasting the idea that the experimental art scene was
interrupted, I give examples of a group of experimental artists who continued with
their practice, and include the work by those who contributed to the government’s
cultural policies. In addition to this, I analyse examples of exhibitions, focusing on
the ways Peruvian art under this military rule was presented to foreign audiences.
This study highlights the government’s cultural policies and their efforts to bring
about a more inclusive and decentralised cultural field in Peru. It also draws
attention to the artists’ contributions to state-led cultural programmes, which have
been left unnoticed in curatorial essays and exhibitions since the mid-2000s. This
dissertation contributes to a reflection on how the art scene during Velasco
Alvarado’s regime and the military were introduced in international exhibitions and
academic circles, questioning how a group of curators carried out art historical
research.