Abstract

PAZ MOSCOSO, Valeria. Making Art as an Exercise in Autonomy. Rev Cien Cult [online]. 2018, vol.22, n.40, pp.57-80. ISSN 2077-3323.

This article proposes a reading of Roberto Valcárcel's Erotic Movement (1983) in the light of Marcuse's ideas on repression and art. The interpretation is informed by Marcuse's concepts of surplus repression and performance principle, and by his proposal that making art could be a non-repressive and, therefore, autonomous activity. The two versions of the Erotic Movement -first at the Emusa Gallery in La Paz and then at the Bienal de São Paulo- propose alternatives to the invisible repression from within artistic practice itself. Moreover, the author argues that the work itself alludes to the specificity of implicit repression in the contexts and spaces in which it was exhibited: the authoritarian mentality in society in Bolivia around 1983 and the implicit repression in the Bienal and similar events where art ended up being reduced to one more object of consumption in the cultural industry.

Keywords : Valcárcel; art; repression; autonomy; authoritarianism; Marcuse; culture industry; Frankfurt School.

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