Abstract/Summary

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.