The art critic Justo Pastor Mellado examines the connections between politics and the visual arts in Chile from 1970 to 1983, from the election of Salvador Allende and the Unidad Popular (1970–73) to the tenth anniversary of the dictatorship imposed by General Augusto Pinochet (1973–90). On the whole, Pastor Mellado bases his analysis on what he calls the “leftist culture” that he bookmarks between El pueblo tiene arte con Allende (The People Have Art with Allende, 1970) and Ahora Chile (Now Chile, 1983), two landmark events separated by the collapse of democracy under the military regime. In the author’s opinion, given the failure of attempts to criticize reductionist Marxism (at a political and cultural level) begun in 1977, efforts to revive democracy in Chile—at the time of writing—once again reiterate the political subordination of the visual arts, especially as regards partisan representation and the medium’s illustrative nature.     

This analysis appears in the section “Referencialidad política en el campo de las artes visuales” (Political Referentiality in the Field of the Visual Arts) in Cuadernos de/para el análisis n°1 (Notebooks of/for Analysis no. 1) that includes read or published texts referring to exhibitions organized by Galería Sur in 1983. It is a space used as a debate platform to analyze works of a critical-political nature.  

The analysis in question dates back to May 11, 1983, the first day of National Protest against the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. The strike was originally called by copper miners (affiliated with the Confederación CTC) who were soon joined by vast numbers of people to create a wave of spontaneous protests. As the country’s unions—including, in the area of culture, the APECH (Asociación de Pintores y Escultores de Chile)—rose to the occasion, a call went out to visual artists, filmmakers, videographers, photographers, and representatives of cultural centers to take their work to galleries such as Sur, Época, Espacio, Cal, Gráfica Latinoamericana, and Centro Cultural Estación Mapocho, and to theaters, streets, and towns during the month of October. The goal was to create a momentous exhibition called Ahora Chile (Now Chile) and to come together as a free and democratic culture. Each individual exhibition also organized forums to analyze the problems inherent to the creation of art. Mellado’s text was part of those national events.    

[A later, more exhaustive discussion about the political subordination of art, written by the same author, can be found in the ICAA Digital Archive: “Breve nota sobre pintura chilena: 1950–88” (doc. no. 736085)].