This essay by the curator Lourdes Blanco was published in the catalogue for Autocopias, the exhibition of works by Claudio Perna. In her essay, Blanco explains that details about the conceptual artist’s life and work were hard to find, so she approached him directly. She says that she found Perna “interesting” from an artistic point of view, but that his work was “frenetic and scattered.” Blanco reviews Perna’s career and lists the different media he has used, including photography, folded-paper [origami], collage, wrinkled fabric, disposable objects, super-8 movies, stamps, drawing, team works, and silk screen. Having thoroughly examined Perna’s work and his artistic approach, the curator concludes that his photocopies, Polaroids, and super-8 movies are, in her opinion, the most important parts of his work.

This essay by the Venezuelan curator Lourdes Blanco (b. 1941) appeared in the catalogue for Autocopias (Caracas: Museo de Bellas Artes, 1975), the exhibition of works by the Italian-Venezuelan geographer and visual artist Claudio Perna (1938–97). Blanco explains that her goal is to discuss “Perna’s first major exhibition.” In addition to her review of Perna’s work, the curator includes a humorous account of her decision to study a subject about which there is a distinct lack of available information. The reader can also appreciate the difficulty Blanco faced in trying to approach a creative universe as vast and varied as Perna’s. Throughout her review, she refers to Perna’s work as an “activity” that she never actually describes as artistic: “I then realized that I would have to research this subject by talking to the man responsible for an activity that had deeply moved me but that I considered to be extremely frenetic and scattered. I feared that his enthusiasm might be contagious enough to make me lose my objectivity; or that what I had admired and enjoyed would pale when no longer in the thrall of his conversation.”   

This article, written in 1975, acknowledges the difficulty—much greater at that time—of classifying Perna through the prism of the visual arts, even for a specialist like Blanco, to whom we are indebted for having produced one of the most important collections of reviews of Venezuelan conceptual artists. This challenge can be appreciated from the fact that, other than the retrospective at the Biblioteca Nacional (in 1998, a year after he died, despite having been awarded the National Prizes for Photography and Visual Arts in 1994 and 1995, respectively), several years were to pass before a large exhibition of his works was presented at an important Venezuelan museum, Arte Social: Claudio Perna (Caracas: Galería de Arte Nacional, 2004). Essays by the curator Zuleiva Vivas, Luis Enrique Pérez-Oramas, and Gabriela Rangel were published in the catalogue for this event.

To read other articles about this artist, see by Margarita D’Amico “1: Hoy es arte lo que no era” [doc. no. 1068360]; by Luis Enrique Pérez-Oramas “El autocurrículum de Claudio Perna, escultura social y novela hiperrealista” [doc. no. 1161917]; by Roberto Guevara “Claudio Perna o cómo ser libre en la marginalidad” [doc. no. 1080814]; by Elsa Flores “(Sin título) [Vivir quiere decir dejar huellas…]” [doc. no. 1063156]; by María Elena Ramos “Arte–idea–geografía” [doc. no. 1080766]; by Mara Comerlati “Claudio Perna. Lo fundamental es inventar. El domingo expondrá más de cincuenta dibujos en la Sala Mendoza” [doc. no. 1068403]; and by José Napoleón Oropeza “Claudio Perna. Disfruto el estilo de no tener estilo” [doc. no. 1067382]. See also the following articles by Zuleiva Vivas: “Las opciones del tiempo para el nuevo espíritu” [doc. no. 1065674]; “Visión panorámica de las nuevas cartografías” [doc. no. 1157158]; “Los nuevos procesos y la representación figurativa” [doc. no. 1157174]; “Claudio Perna y el arte del pensamiento” [doc. no. 1163950]; and “Intervención creativa en el contexto social” [doc. no. 1161969].