The Chaclacayo Group was an arts collective of queer artists founded in Chaclacayo, Peru in 1982 by Sergio Zevallos, Raúl Avellaneda and Helmut Psotta. The collective sought to challenge gender binarism amongst other things.[1][2][3]
History
editThe origin of the Chaclacayo Group can be traced back to the Art School of the Catholic University of Peru in 1982. In March 1982, Helmut Psotta from Germany was appointed as a guest teacher to teach composition and design classes. As a part of the course work, Psotta required his students to gather newspaper cuts related to torture, which triggered hostile reactions from some of the students and the college authorities. As his teaching practices were met with opposition, Psotta and two of his like minded students, Sergio Zevallos and Raúl Avellaneda, moved to a house located in the Chaclacayo country district of Lima.[4]
The move to Chaclacayo was an effort to isolate themselves from the homophobia and social conservatism in the official art scene. Between 1982 and 1989, this house-workshop would become their space for artistic creation.[5] The members of the Chaclacayo Group took photographs, and made drawings, sculptures, collages and performances on various religious iconography, oppression of dissident sexuality and war related violence.[2] The group also occasionally collaborated with other artists.[5]
The emergence of the Chaclacayo Group is closely linked to the emergence of the Peruvian "Subway Movement" (Movida Subte) of the 1980s.[5] The movement consisted of counter cultural responses to the traditional structures of the time, expressed through music, the visual arts, performing arts and poetry. Creations associated with it portrayed various themes social crisis, urban chaos and disappointment of the political class.[6] The Chaclacayo Group shared the themes of the movement especially the need to address the exacerbated violence spread by the press about the Peruvian internal armed conflict.[4][7]
Exhibitions
editIn November 1984, the group held the exhibition "Perú, un sueño..." ("Peru, a dream...") at the Lima Art Museum with the help of the German art critic Wieland Schmied.[4]
Shortly before the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the group moved to Germany explore possibilities there amid the financial difficulties in Peru. Their work was presented under the title of Todesbilder. Peru oder das Ende des europäischen Traums ("Images of death. Peru or the end of the European dream") in various German cities and covered a wide range of topics ranging from colonialism in Latin America to the fall of communism in Europe. It included performances, images, texts and music. The works were later given to the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations in Stuttgart, the Museum of Bochum, the Badischer Kunstverein in Karlsruhe and the festival Fest III in Dresden shortly before the Chaclacayo Group was dissolved in 1995.[1][4]
In November 2013, the Lima Art Museum inaugurated the exhibition Un cuerpo ambulante. Sergio Zevallos en el grupo Chaclacayo ("A traveling body. Sergio Zevallos in the Chaclacayo Group") in association with the Centro Cultural España (Spanish Cultural Centre).[8][9][10]
References
edit- 1 2 López, Miguel A. (1 January 2014). "Un cuerpo ambulante. Sergio Zevallos en el grupo Chaclacayo (1982-1994) Parte 1" [A Wandering Body. Sergio Zevallos in the Chaclacayo Group (1982-1994) Part 1]. Retrieved 6 April 2024.
- 1 2 Preciado, Beatriz (2014). Hacer el amor con el cuerpo de la necropolítica: la práctica artística del Grupo Chaclacayo en los límites de la soberanía [Making love with the body of necropolitics: the artistic practice of the Grupo Chaclacayo at the limits of sovereignty] (PDF). Lima: Museo de Arte de Lima. pp. 50–57.
- ↑ Mitrovic Pease, M. (2020). "Escenas, retratos y reflexividad. Tensiones en el trabajo de Sergio Zevallos" [Scenes, portraits and reflexivity: tensions in the work of Sergio Zevallos]. Revista Arte Y Diseño A&D (in Spanish) (6): 8–22. Retrieved 11 April 2024.
- 1 2 3 4 Miguel A. López (2014), Exorcisms tóxicos. Sergio Zevallos in the Grupo Chaclacayo [Toxic exorcisms. Sergio Zevallos in the Grupo Chaclacayo] (PDF), Museo de Arte de Lima, pp. 1–19
- 1 2 3 "Queer corpses: Grupo Chaclacayo and the image of death" [Queer corpses: Grupo Chaclacayo and the image of death]. e-flux journal. 2013. Retrieved 11 April 2024.
- ↑ Greene, S. (2017). "Pank y revolución: siete interpretaciones de la realidad subterránea" [Punk and revolution: seven interpretations of subversive reality]. Memorias (in Spanish). Translated by Julio Durán. Retrieved 14 April 2024.
- ↑ "On queer identity, death and androgyne religion: resistance techniques and decolonialism in Velatorio (1983) by Sergio Zevallos" [Sobre lo queer, la muerte y la religión andrógina: técnicas de resistencia y descolonialismo en Velatorio (1983) de Sergio Zevallos] (in Spanish). CONCYTEC. 2023. Retrieved 16 April 2024.
- ↑ "Grupo Chaclacayo". Making Queer History. Retrieved 7 April 2024.
- ↑ "Sergio Zevallos y el Grupo Chaclacayo" [Sergio Zevallos and the Grupo Chaclacayo]. MALBA (in Spanish). Retrieved 11 April 2024.
- ↑ "Sergio Zevallos – Composición con imágenes de referencia usadas para la serie Suburbios y otras obras del Grupo Chaclacayo" [Sergio Zevallos – Composition with reference images used for the Suburbios series and other works by Grupo Chaclacayo]. Museo Reina Sofía (in Spanish). Retrieved 11 April 2024.