In this essay Rodrigo Quijano describes the period as having “contributed to the consolidation of a specific direction in Peruvian contemporary art” that, in his opinion, was characterized by “a virtual fragmentation of subjectivities” and by “a return to individualized and introspective work,” but was also responsible for “the loss of a precise bearing.” He bases his arguments on the work of four visual artists presented at the Puntos Cardinales 2001 exhibition, claiming that “each of them somehow, in their own way, embodies different aspects of the decade’s essential coordinates.” He detects in these four artists “new ways of expressing themselves, a fresh approach to space and materials, and a concern for a particular kind of discursive coherence.” Quijano explains that the decade played out against the political and social backdrop of President Alberto Fujimori’s authoritarian regime that imposed “very definite ideological limitations in the cultural and artistic area. But those years also ushered in a period of global opening to telecommunications and the resulting influx of international images.” He concludes that “in contemporary Peru, despite the country’s modest international connections, the cardinal points seem neither very obvious nor very fixed.”

Rodrigo Quijano (b. 1965) is a curator and art critic. He was a founding member of the Lima group La Culpable and director of the Espacio Ex La Culpable, an independent art gallery. He has contributed to Peruvian publications and others farther afield. He has written books of poetry, and was a member of the editorial board of the important Peruvian magazine Hueso Húmero, where this essay appeared.

This essay, in which Quijano presents a broad overview of Peruvian art and its cultural and historical context during the 1990s, appeared in the catalogue for Puntos Cardinales 2001. 4 artistas visuales peruanos, the exhibition presented at the Sala Luis Miró Quesada Garland in Miraflores (Lima). The event included works by four artists—Fernando Bryce (b. 1965), Iván Esquivel (b. 1971), Sandra Gamarra (b. 1972), and Gilda Mantilla (b. 1967)—curated by the QUIDAM project, which was directed by the Peruvian art critic Jorge Villacorta (b. 1958) and Cécile Zoonens (June–October 2001). 

[As complementary reading about this group, see the following articles by Rodrigo Quijano in the ICAA digital archive: “La ciudad: el camello por el ojo de la aguja” (doc. no. 1293706); “Historia, modernidad y ruina peruana: notas sobre identidad y espacio en la obra de Carlos Runcie Tanaka” (doc. no. 1293738); and “El Museo Hawai: una naturaleza muerta de la cultura: notas acerca de la serie The Progress of Peru” (doc. no. 1146533)].