“Remembering” the Suffering of Others: Male and Middle-class subjectivities in the Visual Arts of Postgeneration artists in Peru

• In Event: Representing the Violent Past from a Postmemorial Position in Argentina and Peru

Abstract

There is a growing artistic and cultural production that contributes to debates about the legacy of political violence in Peru. Some of these artworks correspond to the “post-memory generation” who did not experience the violence directly. This paper will examine the work of two visual artists, Santiago Quintanilla and Rudolph Castro, who were born between 1982-1983 when the armed conflict was in its early stages. My analysis will focus on Quintanilla’s “Lo mejor está por venir: Historia gráfica de Lima y sus desastres 1983-2008” and Castro’s “Mi (l) Novecientos Noventa”. Each artwork deals with the trauma of war from the point of view of the child, and the concomitant anxiety to reconstruct a past that pends on dim childhood memories and the memories of others. Quintanilla transfigures newspaper headlines about events of political violence with comics he read as a child, creating in turn a chronology of his life. Castro uses Lego pieces, Playmobil toy figures and other children’s toys in his paintings, installations and videos as after-images and after-effects associated with his postmemory experience. I am particularly interested in what these works reveal about male and middle-class subjectivities, how trauma is imagined from these particular perspectives, how they respond to the suffering of others, and what are the implications in the current political context, especially with regards to battles over memory in Peruvian society.

Author

• Olga M Gonzalez-Castaneda, Macalester College