Guerra cultural en América Latina: debates estéticos y políticos (original) (raw)
During the Cold War the official exhibitions became political and symbolic spaces that functioned as instruments of imperialist power. In most Latin American countries, artistic events that had the support of the Organization of American States (OAS 1948) and multinational corporations were organized In actuality, these exhibitions were part surreptitiously of a “culture war” planned by United States in order to design cultural policies seeking interventionist strategies to eliminate political representations and promote abstract signs, among other factors, such as emotional and neutral language and poetic expressions. Along with the identification of communist cells, this strategy triggered a paradigm shift in the design of Latin American cultural policies since it became part of the official acceptance of abstract art. In this article, I propose to analyze this process through two Inter-American Biennials of Painting and Engraving (1958-1960) and the Esso Hall (1965) organized by the Mexican government, approachings these international exhibitions as spaces of political and symbolic power. In order To do this, I will take into account the relations established between U.S. and Latin American cultural policies as well as the aesthetic and political controversies and the stylistic and ideological movements that appeared in the international arena during the Cold War.
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