José de Nordenflycht discusses Justo Pastor Mellado’s curatorial vision for Chile 100 Años Artes Visuales. He mentions the area that included five painters who all studied at the Universidad de Chile: José Balmes, Samy Benmayor, Bororo, Natalia Babarovic, and Adolfo Couve. He comments on the curator’s historiographical, museological, and curatorial approaches, each one of which, in his opinion, represents a simultaneous “nodal diagram” that responds to the questions raised by the works. His essay addresses the pictorial concepts of “Mark,” Surface,” and “Border” as seen in Chilean painting from the 1970s to the 2000s, noting a certain continuity during that time. Here, “Mark” (referring to daubs and statements) is represented by the work of Balmes; “Surface” (humidity, transfer of porosity, evidence of support) by the works of Benmayor and Bororo; and “Border” (limits, demarcations) by the works of Babarovic and Couve.     

The art historian José de Nordenflycht (b. 1970) wrote “Historias de mancha: marca, superficie y borde” for the catalogue for Transferencia y Densidad (1973-2000), the exhibition curated by Justo Pastor Mellado (b. 1949) as part of Chile 100 Años Artes Visuales, a major event held at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes. The event was arranged chronologically in three periods: Primer período. 1900-1950: modelo y representación, presented by the art historian Ramón Castillo (b. 1966); Segundo período. 1950-1973: entre modernidad y utopía, curated by Gaspar Galaz (b. 1941); and Mellado’s contribution, Tercer período. 1973-2000: transferencia y densidad. It was an ambitious exhibition (running from April to December 2000) that sought to cover a century of art production by showing an extensive selection of works and artists. It was attended by countless viewers and included a number of debates sparked by curatorial readings and, of course, the participating artists.   

Mellado’s exhibition was divided into eight sections, each one housed in a separate room at the museum: Historias de Anticipación, Historias de Cuerpos, Historias de Manchas, Historias de Disposición, Historias de Localización, Historias de Identificación, La Cita de la Historia, and Historias de Recolección. Nordenflycht’s essay (on Marca, Superficie, and Borde) begins with a focus on José Balmes (1927–2016), whose work is credited with introducing modernity into Chilean painting. Balmes’s political convictions are apparent in his work. As a teenager he and his family came to Chile seeking refuge from the Spanish Civil War; he was active in the Communist Party, then went into exile again after the Chilean coup d’état in 1973. His return, in 1984, was a landmark event in the Chilean visual arts.     

Nordenflycht addresses the second aspect of his subject by discussing two artists who were part of the “Promoción del 80,” Samy Benmayor (b. 1956) and Carlos Maturana (b. 1953), better known as Bororo. [For more information on this matter, see the following in the ICAA Digital Archive: “Promoción 80” (doc. no. 740347) by Milan Ivelic.] These two artists took a conservative stance by “returning to painting” at a time when conceptual art was the dominant force in Chilean art circles. In the 1980s this approach prompted a debate with the Escena de Avanzada, the name Nelly Richard (b. 1948) coined for a group of neo-avant-garde artists. [See “Return to the pleasurable” (doc. no. 743686) by Nelly Richard.]

To round out his essay, Nordenflycht reviews the work of Natalia Babarovic (b. 1966), a painter from a younger generation who emerged in the Santiago art scene in 1989, and the writer and painter Adolfo Couve (1940–1988), a “modernist” painter (Facultad de Artes de la Universidad de Chile). [Regarding the latter, see “Sobre Couve: Couve, la instantánea imposible” (doc. no. 748429) by Mellado.] Nordenflycht connects these five painters based on a tradition of art instruction and practices at the above-mentioned institution where, despite the changes there have been, he detects a measure of continuity.