Un espacio ambiguo

Abstract

This essay focuses on the circulation of visual arts during a specific period of the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile: between 1975 and 1981. It was during these years that the economic measures that led the country to a neoliberal economy began to be implemented, while policies of intervention and censorship continued. This article will examine relationships between intervention and censorship in Chile and their impact on the circulation of art by means of a case study on the contest known as the Colocadora Nacional de Valores, which was held annually between 1975 and 1981 at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, an institution under government control. In this contest, works that commented on the country’s political situation were exhibited and given prizes. This article attempts to link the contest’s sponsors to Chile’s economic turn to account for this turn’s cultural facet. Studying the history of this contest enables us to reflect on the various factors that influenced and allowed the circulation of visual arts at a time when an official defense of freedom (of economic activity) coexisted with government policies of control, censorship, and intervention.