This article by Francisco Brugnoli is, as the title suggests, about the publication of Nelly Richard’s book Margins and Institutions. Art in Chile Since 1973. The text is divided into three points, which, in turn, are divided into sub-points. The article begins by highlighting the “reflection scene” prompted by the works, which values them and nullifies earlier discourses. It also considers the “cultural break” that happened as a result of the military coup d’état. Brugnoli claims there is no break; he goes on to describe a succession of processes that indicate continuity. In point 2 he discusses the Taller de Artes Visuales, linking this alternative space with the Escena de Avanzada; he also talks about cultural organizations that were against the dictatorship, and how artists returning from exile were getting involved with this “new” art scene. Brugnoli includes a criticism of the Avanzada and how it represents the marginalized space from which it speaks. He looks back at the works he produced before 1973 and insists that they were also critical of art; he ends by asking about local conditions in the field of an internationalizing strain of contemporary art.    

The artist Francisco Brugnoli (b. 1935) wrote “A propósito de Margins and Institutions, y en el propósito de distanciamiento de su provocación y recorte: una extensión, una opción” (1987) for Arte en Chile desde 1973. Escena de Avanzada y sociedad, the seminar organized by the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencia Sociales (FLACSO), the Galería Visuala, and Francisco Zegers Editor. The event was originally inspired by the publication, in Australia, of Margins and Institutions. Art in Chile Since 1973 (1986), by the cultural critic Nelly Richard (b. 1948); it included artists who were part of the Escena de Avanzada as well as writers and theorists, philosophers, artists, and social scientists who were close to the scene. The texts collected and published in Document No. 46 address the “discussions about Chilean art among the avant-garde after 1973,” as noted in the introduction to the issue, a compilation designed to provide material for analysis and discussion about Chilean society’s relationship with art.  

Brugnoli, the artist, played a fundamental role in the field of the visual arts during the Chilean dictatorship; on top of contributing with his work he was involved in the organization of various events that facilitated gatherings and promoted resistance to the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. He founded the Taller de Artes Visuales (TAV), a visual arts workshop, after having been relieved of his position at the Facultad de Bellas Artes de la Universidad de Chile. TAV was a print shop that doubled as a meeting place for artists, some of whom were in the same situation in which he found himself. They organized exhibitions and seminars and took part in group activities that put them in touch with various associations in the world of culture and the defense of human rights. It also became a place where Avanzada artists could gather and talk to artists involved with left-wing alternative cultural organizations.   

From an art perspective, the work begun by Brugnoli and by artist and TAV member Virginia Errázuriz (b. 1941) in the mid-1960s was one of the first challenges to the pictorial tradition, since their experimental approach introduced the object beyond the frame. This expansion of the possibilities of art, prior to the coup d’état in 1973, was not recognized by the Escena de Avanzada as a precedent, something Brugnoli questions in this article about Margins and Institutions. Art in Chile Since 1973. Though Brugnoli’s work sought to ignore pictorial logic and an art tradition that could be linked to a traditional left wing, Richard criticizes the type of installations created by Brugnoli and Errázuriz and their work’s relationship to politics. [For more information about this matter, see “Desde el andén” (doc. 729866) by Nelly Richard; “Paisaje” (doc. 730016) by Justo Pastor Mellado; and “Berlín-Berlín: ¿Dónde estoy?” (doc. 736090) written by Brugnoli.]