In this essay Mirko Lauer discusses two approaches to the contemporary interpretation of the visual arts during the pre-capitalist period. Lauer uses the latest ideological definition of creative expression as an umbrella term under which he includes all the visual art forms that do not fit in the category that the current system refers to as “artistic” (handcrafts, folklore, and traditional art). In the case of the former, the author says, the essential feature is the relationship between mythology, control, and representation. In the Andean region of Peru that relationship is affected by a double negative: the “major myths” and the specific issue of the visual artists themselves. With the arrival of capitalism and its attendant ideology in the 1960s, a series of absences and presences that were essential characteristics of visual art expression in pre-capitalist times began to go their own way, and “the forces that participated in the capitalist market” became agents of the change. The most important of those forces was the government which, in its role as promoter, created and encouraged an ideology of “handcrafts” whose roots could be traced to populism.

In Peru this process came to a head in 1975–76 during the debate that began when the National Culture Prize for art was awarded to Joaquín López Antay, the altarpiece artist from the Andean region. This led to a conflict between “cultured art” and “popular or traditional art” that exposed “many aspects of the dominant group’s ideas about handcrafts.” This is what caused the misunderstandings between the Estado Revolucionario del Perú (1968–75)—that, in awarding the prize, recognized only the most “artistic” part of that category—and the professional artists who opposed the decision because they considered the prize-winning work to be “non-art.” This process, says Lauer, reflects what Néstor García Canclini called the “strategy of de-contextualization and resignification that the hegemonic culture imposed on the subordinate cultures.”   

In this review the Czech-born Peruvian writer and critic Mirko Lauer (b. 1947) discusses the debate sparked by the jury’s decision when awarding the 1975 National Culture Prize. Lauer supported some of the more radical policies of General Juan Velasco Alvarado’s regime, including the decision to award the prize to López Antay. Lauer had also worked in the Agrarian Reform press office, where he wrote the copy for several important agrarian reform propaganda posters that were designed by the artist and designer Jesús Ruiz Durand (b. 1940). Lauer would return to the subject of the López Antay controversy in articles such as “Lo andino en el arte peruano” (Sociedad y política N° 8, Lima, February 1980) and Crítica de la artesanía. Plástica y sociedad en los Andes peruanos (Lima: DESCO, 1982), both of which were reprinted for this project.

An announcement on December 26, 1975 confirmed that the National Culture Prizes (for the 1973–74 biennium) had been awarded by the Peruvian government through the Instituto Nacional de Cultura to honor the greatest contributions to the development of Peruvian culture. The jury’s decision in the art category (which had traditionally included painting, sculpture, music, and architecture) ignited one of the most heated debates in the history of Peruvian art. The ensuing controversy underscored simmering tensions and suspicions regarding the cultural policies of the revolutionary government of the armed forces led by General Juan Velasco Alvarado (1968–75). This administration claimed to be committed to a progressive agenda, a claim supported mainly by the Agrarian Reform of 1969 which was accompanied by the government’s enthusiastic attempt to glorify the image of the peasant population and lifestyle at the expense of other forms of cultural expression that were considered more “Western.” On this occasion the prize was awarded to Joaquín López Antay (1897–1981), who was chosen over well-known visual artists such as Carlos Quízpez Asín (1900–83) and Teodoro Núñez Ureta (1912–88) and the German-born academic musician Rodolfo Holzmann (1910–92).   

[As complementary reading, see in the ICAA digital archive the following articles by this author: “Lo andino en el arte peruano: la mutación andina: arte y sociedad en el Perú entre 1960 y 1980” (doc. no. 1136429); “Crítica de la ideología del arte” (doc. no. 1136512 ); “Juan Javier Salazar: la refrescante aventura de un anti-plástico” (doc. no. 1293689); “Representación y soporte material in memoriam Walter Benjamin” (doc. no. 1098871); and “Szyszlo 50” (doc. no. 1142996)].