The artistic-visual movement during the military dictatorship in Mendoza (Argentina) The artistic-visual movement during the military dictatorship in Mendoza (Argentina)

Abstract

The present work asks about the circulation dynamics of the visual arts in Mendoza during the last military dictatorship. Specifically we ask about the particular dynamics of circulation in times of extreme political polarization, restriction of freedoms and banning of all party activity.

To begin with, the censorship of the military government was one of the most evident determinants in the particular configuration that acquired the circulation map of the period. We refer to the cultural repression that is perceived in the difficulty that many artists found to exhibit their work in museums of the province and to apply to the most representative salons and contests of the period, as recorded in periodic sources and confirmed in interviews with active producers in the 70s.

However, there were also positive determinants, such as the ideology of the left that compromised intellectuals of the period, within which we find Mendoza artists. In this sense we understand the exhibitions held in union headquarters or in alliance with different unions, which argued that "art should be at the service of the people and their liberation" (Diario Mendoza, June 17, 1973).