The Political Art and Art Politics of Jorge Miyagui

• In Event: The Politics of Memory Art in Peru Today

Abstract

“Art=Life, Life=Politics, Politics=Ethics”. This title of Jorge Miyagui’s first solo exhibition in 2002 succinctly defines the artist’s political-aesthetic philosophy and grounds his work as an activist-artist to this day. This paper will examine certain key moments in Miyagui’s trajectory, with a focus on his controversial “Kimono para no olvidar,” (2003, exhibited as recently as 2018); a series of “memory paintings” from 2012; and his work with the “Museo itinerante arte por la memoria”, whose most recent artistic-political act was an intervention on the fence surrounding the iconic “Ojo que llora” monument in Lima. Drawing on Jacques Rancière’s notion of the “distribution of the sensible” and Alain Badiou’s proposal of an “ethics of truths,” this paper examines Miyagui’s memory art and artistic endeavours as political acts that mobilize memory to address current issues of gendered and racialized marginalization. By highlighting past acts of political violence and heroic resistance and by giving new value to popular iconic images, Miyagui complicates current issues of gender, race, ethnicity, and power. I argue that Miyagui’s work is engaged in and animates a struggle for recognition, and ultimately justice, for subjects who are victims not just of a traumatic and violent past but also of a precarious and divided present.

Author

• Anne M Lambright, Trinity College