The essayist and historian Gabriel Peluffo Linari (b. 1946) interviewed three well-known Uruguayan artists, the sculptor Germán Cabrera (1903–1990), the artist and performer Teresa Vila (1931–2009), and the painter and engraver Anhelo Hernández (1922–2010). The interview highlighted the role the visual arts played in the political and social landscape of the country as an agent of change, in addition to the problems introduced by new forms of cultural universalism, such as novel resources, economic underdevelopment, artistic education, and education of state politics and policies, among other things. All these massive problems became apparent through the involvement of mass media communication, the financial market, and contemporary agents of power, particularly concerning problems that began to be perceived and discussed from the late 1960s. Each one of the interviewees observed the conditions of Uruguay from different ideological and generational parameters. Therefore, Peluffo questioned each one on different viewpoints confronting the “itinerary that has brought us to the present situation within the visual arts and the difficulties of engaging with the spectator.” This article was published in December 1972, a few months before the coup d’état of 1973. Cabrera intervened with some humor throughout the interview, pointing out that in the culture existent today, mass media and those who hold power, force the artist to take active stands. Already for Hernández and Vila, whom both derive from historical stands that are more ideological in nature, the visual arts in Uruguay had been successively influenced by Europe, (and that goes back from the neoclassicism of Juan Manuel Blanes). However, they lived under different problems. The trio lived [during the period where] art [served] as the “agent of social change” with nuances. Cabrera believed that all opportunities for change should be harnessed, while Hernández and Vila are more critical of the “agents of power” that promote these possibilities. Simultaneously, everyone opposed autodidactic ideas, leaning toward training that would require state support for local artistic teaching, something that is nonexistent. [For additional reading, please refer to the ICAA digital archive for the following texts written by Olga Larnaudie: “Unas pocas reflexiones y muchas interrogantes en torno a las Artes plásticas en el Uruguay de los últimos años” (doc. no. 1185426) and “Reflexiones en torno a la supuesta crisis de las artes plásticas” (doc. no. 1185539)].
