Western society in the sixties protested against power structures tied to industrial production, to neocolonial domination, and to rapidly expanding consumer culture. The hippie movement, student and worker uprisings, and struggles for national liberation were all manifestations of that situation. Meanwhile, emerging artists challenged the traditional value of the art object. The practices of what was called action art—chief among them happenings and performances, installations, and environments—were envisioned as vehicles to connect art and life. Groups such as Fluxus in Germany and Gutai in Japan rekindled the ideas introduced at the events and gatherings of the early twentieth-century avant-gardes, specifically Futurism and Dada.
In this text, visual artist Silvio de Gracia (b. 1973) explains why, in his view, “action art” has been so important in Latin America. According to Uruguayan artist Clemente Padín (b. 1939), it was a political instrument, another tool for reflection, and a defense of human rights. In other words, “in the seventies and eighties, many artists committed to the defense of human, social, and political rights before the outrages of anti-democratic regimes found in performance a genre efficacious for public condemnation and consciousness raising.”
