Incisiones en el papel. Tecnologías para el dibujo político

Abstract

This paper analyzes the series of drawings The Caravan of Death by the Chilean artist Javier Rodríguez which, although made in 2013, is exhibited for the first time this year 2023 at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Quinta Normal, in Santiago de Chile. How does handmade drawing destabilize the documentary function? Does the use of archive or found footage problematize the aesthetic representation? What elements of cinema can be distinguished in the practices of muralism or comic? The article interrogates the notion of “political drawing” based on a brief analysis of Latin American artistic activism of the 20th century and the artistic decisions and processes related to the object of study, from the perspective of the intermediality and graphic gesture. The conclusions establish that artistic work, even that carried out within the framework of the contemporary art circuit, has a possibility of generating social change, according to the degree of archive, interdisciplinary or contextualization of the artistic processes.