The artist Leslie Lee writes about the debate that erupted over the shipment of arts and crafts to the Bienal de São Paulo. Stating that the people are creators par excellence who produce useful objects every day that are not necessarily works of art. Art, he states “is a product of its roots and those roots are in the people.” He believes that any discrimination in art is based on “self-interest,” which is why many great figures were considered revolutionary: “often openly opposed to the outdated ideas” that govern society. He cites Giotto [Giotto di Bondone 14th century Italian artist] as one example, who painted scenes of saints performing Earthly tasks. He also refers to Hokusai and Hiroshigue from eighteenth-century Japan [Katsushika Hokusai and Utagawa Hiroshige were ukiyo-e artists of the Edo period] and to Rembrandt [Rembrandt van Rijn] in Flanders in the seventeenth century, all of whom, in their way, took their inspiration from ordinary life rather than from the “decadent life of the court and its acolytes.” He posits that “artistic genius consists of communicating the greatest amount of information as sensibly as possible (...).” He explains that, for many centuries, Lima turned its back on the country; whereas the common folk from all over the county have reclaimed the genuinely Peruvian face the nation now wears.” Lee thus acknowledges “a national movement that heals a grievous old injustice” inflicted on traditional folk art.

This article, written by the visual artist Leslie Lee (1932-2014), highlights the importance of popular or indigenous art as part of the broader art scene in general and in Peru in particular. The artist was a member of the jury that decided what Peruvian folk art would be sent to the XIV Bienal de São Paulo, resigning from the ASAP (Asociación de Artistas Plásticos del Perú) which took a belligerent approach to this initiative. 

In 1977, a collection of folk art was sent to the XIV Bienal de São Paulo as Peru’s sole contribution to the event. The biennial’s organizing committee had invited Peru to participate as part of the “Retrospective Exhibitions,” one of the event’s three sections, whose objective, according to the rules, was to show works that would “reflect a participant’s cultural and artistic past” through works by a recognized artist or a collection of works from a particular movement, period, or place.” [XIV Bienal Internacional de São Paulo (São Paulo: Prefeitura do Municipio, Governo do Estado, Governo Federal, 1977), pp. 3 y 8]. In Peru, however, it was thought that the INC (Instituto Nacional de Cultura del Perú) had specified the nature of the shipment. This misunderstanding revived the controversy that had arisen in late 1975 when the same Peruvian institution granted the art prize or Premio Nacional de Cultura to the folk artist Joaquín López Antay (1897−1981), a retablista who created traditional altarpieces. What happened in the case of the São Paulo biennial once again prompted a group of “highbrow” visual artists (or those with greatest access to the market) to air their complaints, on the grounds that the so-called “arts and crafts” were not real works of art and that the INC was blocking the development of true art.

[Regarding this Brazilian event, please see the following texts in the ICAA digital archive: “Protesta contra INC manifiestan plásticos” (no author) (doc. no. 855211); “Populismo inframarxista” (doc. no. 855232) and “¿Autenticidad o exotismo?” (doc. no. 855918), both by Francisco Abril de Vivero; “Humillados y ofendidos” by Ismael Pinto (doc. no. 855252); “El Perú en la Bienal de Sao Paulo” by Jorge Caillaux (doc. no. 855937); “Arte popular peruano en Sao Paulo” by Alfonso de la Torre [Seymour] (doc. no. 855899); “Presidente de Bienal de Sao Paulo elogia participación peruana” (no author) (doc. no. 855956); and “Arte popular do Peru: 14a. Bienal Internacional de Sao Paulo ’77” (no author) (doc. no. 857172)].