Expanded Pop: Politics, Popular Culture and Art in Argentina, Brazil and Peru, 1960s

This thesis investigates how Pop art emerged in Argentina, Brazil and Peru, during the 1960s.

Stemming from a growing necessity to expand the art historical canon, the thesis questions the significance of Pop as a cultural label. By de-centring the genealogy of Pop to distinct locales, the investigation allows access into contemporary issues, ranging from the tension between vernacular and imported culture, to current mappings of artistic movements. The thesis’ original contribution to knowledge is the retrieval of the Pop art narratives of Argentina, Brazil and Peru, which have only partially been recognised. Through the extensive analysis of primary materials (often never translated from Spanish or Portuguese, and seldom considered in prior investigations), the thesis offers a comprehensive review of a historiography of Pop during 1960s, also establishing an alternative framework for study in this field.

The first chapter of the thesis examines the Pop practices that emerged in Argentina especially around the Instituto Torcuato Di Tella (ITDT), considered one of the most important centres of artistic innovation in the continent. Suspended on the deconstruction of key terminologies, such as Informalismo, Camp, Lunfardo and Art for Consumption, the chapter seeks to explain from a localised perspective, the radical changes in art production that took place between roughly 1960 -1970. Beginning with an analysis of the writings of Jorge Romero Brest, a prominent intellectual and later director of the ITDT, the chapter traces the emergence of a participatory language that became embedded in the argentine iteration of Pop. Marta Minujín’s colourful sculptures made of mattresses, combined with a bursting happenings phenomenon, reveal Pop as the keystone of a multifaceted artistic itinerary.

The second chapter of the thesis explores how Brazilian artists turned to Pop as a language of resistance against hegemonic cultural models. Rising from the ashes of a modernist utopia that eclipsed with the establishment of a military dictatorship in 1964, artists including Antônio Dias, Antonio Manuel, Claudio Tozzi and Nelson Leirner, employed Pop as the most widely intelligible idiom. Furthermore, they were animated by fervent anti- Americanism, and they sought to resist the (pro-American) regime by challenging cultural orders, often through interventions in the public sphere. A Pop aesthetic was also widely adopted by some lesser-known women artists, including Teresinha Soares and Regina Vater, who sought to propagandise female sexual liberation.

The third and final chapter of the thesis looks at Pop art practices in Peru. Reflecting the necessity to redefine the meaning of ‘Peruvianism,’ a Pop aesthetic was adopted by a young avant-garde – in particular the Arte Nuevo Group - to counter the hegemonic and traditionalist cultural scene in Lima. Examining how the establishment reacted to newer art practices, the chapter argues that Pop reflected the country’s faltering cultural and political arenas. Following the military coup in 1968, the parallelism between politics and culture is explored through an analysis of the Pop posters produced by Jesús Ruiz Durand to advertise the extensive agrarian reform launched by the regime in 1968. In parallel, the evolving practices of the Arte Nuevo artists are analysed to reveal how artistic discourse was suspended as a consequence of the regime’s oppression.