Justo Pastor Mellado
is participant at
Where is Art Contemporary? The Global Challenge of Art Museums II
Abstract
Rethinking the Museum in Latin America
Within the frames of reference of two different instances in which the concept of museology is rather fragile—as is the case in Chile and Paraguay—two examples of practical work on a micro political level are being embarked upon: The Museo del Barro in Asunción, Paraguay and the Salvador Allende Museum of Solidarity in Santiago, Chile. Beginning with the appearance of Gordon Matta-Clark at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Santiago, Chile in 1971, two different visions of the museum have taken shape:
1.) The Museo del Barro, which articulates flexibly and in an equally proportionate manner three collections (popular art, indigenous art, and contemporary art), giving rise to the production of a combined and uneven contemporaneity, which developed as an independent project, and that has led to cultural institutionalism that is outside of state control; and
2.) The Salvador Allende Museum of Solidarity, which arose as a political gesture of artists and critics protesting against mass media, and who were organizing a news boycott against the popular government of Salvador Allende in 1970. Today, this museum houses in a single building a memorial, a in situ Museum of Repression, and a collection of contemporary art. Finally there is a discussion of the changes that have occurred with respect to the notion of solidarity within the climate of present-day Chile.
