This is a letter written by art critic Élida Román, who at the time was the director of the Museo de Arte Italiano,an art gallery dependent on the Instituto Nacional de Cultura, addressed to the leadership of said institution. The letter advises Jorge Cornejo Polar of her resignation due to her disagreement with projected visual arts policies. The letter states that though in various previous decisions her opinions and criteria were taken into account, as it was accordingly explicit with institutional policies of having an “attitude that was consistently cognitive of responsibility, a vocation to autonomous information and a desire to make sound and knowledgeable judgments,” she was absolutely not consulted on the Peruvian artwork sent that year to the XIV São Paulo Biennial. Her dismay lied on the fact that the selection was made exclusively on Folk Art, a decision that “could not count with my support and with my tacit consent in any case, or I would have expressed my position on such a selection.” This pushed her to “publically resign in order to manifest and make known my disagreement.”

This letter of resignation written by the art critic Élida Román was published on October 12, 1977 in the magazine Equis. It was addressed to Jorge Cornejo Polar, the Director of the INC (Instituto Nacional de Cultura) from 1976 to 1978.

In 1977 a selection of artwork composed of Folk Art pieces was sent to the XIV Biennial of São Paulo as the only representation of Peruvian art. The decision was made by the Organizational Committee of the biennial, which had invited Peru to participate in the section of “anthological exhibitions”. The purpose of this section of the biennial, according to its regulations, was to exhibit works of art that would “enhance and appraise an already actualized cultural and artistic past” through works of a recognized artist or through a selection of works pertaining to a specific artistic movement, time or place [this data comes directly from the XIV São Paulo International Biennial under São Paulo: Prefeitura do Município, Governo do Estado, Governo Federal, 1977, pp. 3, 8]. In Peru, however, it was thought that the INC had locally determined the type of works to be sent. This led to a flare up on the debate that had emerged towards the end of 1975 when the same institution awarded the Cultural National Award of Art to Joaquín López Antay (1897–1981), the prominent Peruvian altarpiece artist. This selection sent to the biennial led a group of intellectuals and people in the visual arts to again protest for considering that the so-called “native arts and crafts” lacked artistic validity, and secondly because they thought the INC was acting against the development of “true” Peruvian Art. It is within this context that Élida Román resigned her function as Director of the Museo de Arte Italiano pertaining to the aforementioned institution. This gallery, at the time, was used for temporary contemporary visual arts exhibitions, hence its denomination as a “gallery.” 

[Please refer to the ICAA digital archive for the following texts on this event: “Fundamentación para el dictamen por mayoría simple a favor del artista popular Joaquín López Antay” by Alfonso Castrillón, Leslie Lee and Carlos Bernasconi (doc. no. 1135896); “Premio a López Antay suscita controversias. Unos: consagración del arte popular. Otros: una cosa es arte y otra artesanía” by Alfonso Bermúdez (doc. no. 1135879); “Artistas plásticos cuestionan premio” by Francisco Abril de Vivero, Luis Cossío Marino and Alberto Dávila (doc. no. 1135960); and “‘No todos nos quieren ni en Lima ni en Ayacucho’: así comentó sobre cuestionamiento a premio” (without author) (doc. no. 1135930)].