Chilean Traumatized Identity. Discourse Theory and the Analysis of Visual Arts (2008) (original) (raw)
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This article presents an analysis of the mural titled Memoria Visual de una Nación (Visual Memory of a Nation) with a focus on its panel Los Conflictos (The Conflicts) , by renowned Chilean artist Mario Toral. The representation of divisive events in MVN raises the following questions: Why did Toral include conflictive issues in a mural representing national identity and memory? And, how did Toral deal with national identity and its demand for unity when faced with a divisive and traumatic history? The article deals first with the interconnectedness of meaning-making and social and political context and then addresses the tension between the realm of the political -or antagonism- and the realm of hegemonic politics -or order- in search of a deeper understanding of this work of art and its representation of Chilean history and identity. Link to the article: http://druzboslovne-razprave.org/clanek/2015/79/1/
2016 The Murals of La Victoria Imaginaries of Chilean Popular Resistance
Muralism is one of the most striking expressions of one of Chile's most emblematic working-class neighborhoods, La Victoria, which is known for the land takeover in which it originated and its resistance to the military dictatorship. Muralism served as the physical carrier of messages of resistance during the dictatorship and later consolidated an imaginary of political condemnation and venting in the face of repression. With democracy , muralism has made the memory of the neighborhood graphic, propitiated a dialogue between the experience of the land occupation and the dictatorship, and generated a discourse that, emerging from the popular, continues to confront the mechanisms of forgetting circulated by the official truths imposed by the compromised democratic transition. El muralismo es una de las expresiones más propias de uno de los barrios populares más emblemáticos de Chile: La Victoria, conocida por la toma que le dio origen y por su resis-tencia a la dictadura militar. El muralismo cumplió la función de ser el soporte físico de mensajes de resistencia durante la dictadura, consolidando posteriormente un imaginario de denuncia política y de desahogo frente a la represión. Con la democracia, el muralismo ha tenido la función de hacer gráfica la memoria de la población, propiciando un diálogo entre la experiencia de la toma y de la dictadura, generándose una discursividad que, desde lo popular, continúa enfrentando los dispositivos de desmemoria accionados por las ver-dades oficiales impuestas por la transición democrática pactada.
Mouffe, although highly influential in poststructuralist Social Sciences, Cultural Studies, and the Humanities, has so far been rarely used in a systematic study of (popu-lar) culture. 1 Although such an ambitious task cannot be accomplished in a single chapter (or even a book), my contribution aims to show that some major categories of discourse theory can be fruitfully applied in order to interpret and understand cultural objects (works of art). The case I discuss here is that of the monumental mural painting Memoria Visual de una Nación (Visual Memory of a Nation), by the renowned Chilean artist Mario Toral. 2 The key categories of discourse theory are very useful analytical tools for carrying out political and cultural analyses for two main reasons: first, they take into account the interconnectedness of meaning and the social; and, second, they do not reject but rather admit the tension between the realm of the political, or antagonism; and the realm of hegemonic politics, or o...
¡Hasta La Victoria!: Murals and Resistance in Santiago, Chile
Identities, 2011
The article considers in detail mural painting in Santiago, Chile. It examines the history of mural painting, from the early days of support for Salvador Allende's attempt to combat inequality and provide for the basic needs of all citizens, through the repression of the military dictatorship, to the reemergence of the phenomenon in the transition to democracy and up to the present day. It identitifes a range of themes in the contemporary murals: resistance to repression and misrepresentation, past and present; memorials to dead and disappeared people with varying degrees of fame; the situation of women (their roles in resistance and building the future, as well as their specific demands for an end to violence against women and for reproductive rights); and the struggle of the indigenous Mapuche people of Chile for recognition and justice. Analysis explores examples of murals on each of these themes from a number of areas throughout Santiago, with a particular focus on La Victoria, an area noted for solidarity in the face of state repression and the inequalities fostered by neoliberalism.
Chilean Muralism in Exile: On Solidarity and Transnational Memory
Alternautas, 2024
50 years after the coup d`état in Chile, cities such as Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Leeds, Milan, Belgrade, Los Angeles, and Chicago, still display traces of Chilean exile on the walls of cultural centres, universities, theatres and other buildings. These are the remains of hundreds of murals, painted by brigades created by Chileans in exile to encourage their host countries to show solidarity with their resistance to the Pinochet dictatorship. The complex experience of Chilean exile and its long-lasting and intergenerational repercussions have only slowly been integrated into research and memory practices. This article examines three case studies of Chilean murals in exile as atypical forms of testimonial sources, with the aim of gaining insights into the multi-layered network of actors behind them, in particular into the testimonies of Chilean exiles and actors of international solidarity. It also explores the memorial dimensions of postephemeral murals and how these can function as carriers of a collective, transnational memory of Chilean exile.
Dismantling the Nation Contemporary Art in Chile, 2023
The first academic volume to theorize and historicize contemporary artistic practices and culture from Chile in the English language, Dismantling the Nation takes as its point of departure a radical criticism against the nation-state of Chile and its colonial, capitalist, heteronormative, and extractivist rule, proposing otherwise forms of inhabiting, creating, and relating in more fluid, contingent, ecocritical, feminist, and caring worlds. From the case of Chile, the book expands the scholarly discussion around decolonial methodologies, attending to artistic practices and discourses from distinct and distant locations—from Arica and the Atacama Desert to Wallmapu and Tierra del Fuego, and from the Central Valley, the Pacific coast, and the Andes to territories beyond the nation's modern geographical borders. Analyzing how these practices refer to issues such as the environmental and cultural impact of extractivism, as well as memory, trauma, collectivity, and resistance towards neoliberal totality, the volume contributes to the fields of art history and visual culture, memory, ethnic, gender, and Indigenous studies, filmmaking, critical geography, and literature in Chile, Latin America, and other regions of the world, envisioning art history and visual culture from a transnational and transdisciplinary perspective.
The role of Muralism in the construction of Latin American nations
This paper aims to respond how muralism as a visual expression could transmit political ideas for the construction of a national identity in Latin American countries. In that sense, in the first part of the analysis it is briefly explained the importance of the construction of a “nation” for Latin American countries. In addition, the text points out the significance of art in that process of self-affirmation. Thereby, it is develop the relevance of art as an instrument for social change, which can be understood as an “art of compromise”. Then, attention is centered in Muralism as an inclusive and popular artwork that has particular characteristics which allows the artist to promote political ideas. Moreover, the paper remarks the origin of Muralism in México. In this context it is mandatory to talk about the political ideas and consequent programme carried out by José Vasconcelos. Regarding that, the paper explains the role of Vasconcelos in the construction of pillars that sustain the development of the muralist movement: an artistic and political project borned in Mexico but then expanded through the rest of Latin American countries until today. Finally the paper argues that this artistic movement, Muralism, which started as a political project to create national identity, was converted in a regional movement that creates also bases for a Latin American identity. Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO) Sede Académica Argentina. Global Studies Programme Department: Culture & identity in Latin America “Latin American Social Ideas"
The Brigada Ramona Parra and the art of muralising protest during the Pinochet Regime
2019
In 1946, while demonstrating in support of a group of striking nitrate workers, a twenty-year-old female communist named Ramona Parra was shot to death by police in Santiago, Chile, in what has come to be known as the Bulnes Square Massacre. A product of political marginalisation, the details of Parra’s life are sketchy. But for fleeting mentions in art history books she is otherwise a mystery. Her death, however, has had a far-reaching significance, for she became and remains a martyr symbol of the Chilean struggle against oppression. In particular, her name was proudly taken to identify the artistic movements of the muralist brigade of the Chilean Communist Party (CCP), the Brigada Ramona Parra (BRP) in 1968. On September 11, 1973, Chile, and with it the CCP, was thrown into turmoil. The country that homegrown poet Pablo Neruda once described as a ‘long petal of sea, wine, and snow’ was transformed from Latin America's foremost social democracy under Salvador Allende to the region's darkest dictatorship under the military regime of Augusto Pinochet. The latter ushered in a period of widespread torture and the murder of an estimated 3000 Chileans. Furthermore, the regime carried out an assault on culture that saw the erasure of swathes of leftist literature, film, music, and art, which included the whitewashing of BRP murals that had for five years colourfully decorated and secured Santiago’s streets for Salvador Allende. As Geoffrey Hutton stated in the immediate aftermath of the coup, ‘Now, a bullet through the head is more effective than a vote in the ballot-box’. In the process of writing a brief history of the BRP collective, this article contextualises the violence imposed on Chile by Pinochet’s Military Regime; and in doing so documents how members of the left perpetuated modes of artistic expression and protest at home and in exile throughout dictatorial rule. By attributing meaning to the murals of the BRP, the aim is also to contribute, if only moderately, to the reconstruction of a fragmented, distorted, and, in part, whitewashed (i.e., destroyed) past. Interwoven is an acknowledgment of the role the BRP played in the 1988 ‘No’ campaign; in this respect, the efforts of the BRP, which are largely without recognition, to paint and ultimately reclaim Santiago’s streets served as an essential subsidy to the widely lauded and successful savoir-faire TV campaign orchestrated by Eugenio García.