This article appeared in the last of the three catalogues that were produced for Chile: 100 años de artes visuales, the three-part exhibition presented from April to December 2000 at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Santiago, Chile), an event designed to review the full range of twentieth-century Chilean art, with each part overseen by different curators. This third part, 1973–2000: Transferencia y densidad (October 19–December 31), curated by Justo Pastor Mellado, focused on the most critical period. It included thirty-three works, one by each participating artist, and was spread over eight different rooms: Historias de Anticipación, Historias de Cuerpos, Historias de Manchas, Historias de Disposición, Historias de Localización, Historias de Identificación, La Cita de la Historia, and Historias de Recolección. The controversial curatorship prompted the withdrawal of some artists who objected to, among other things, the absence of group works.
This article takes a critical revisionist approach to the history of recent Chilean art, in which Mellado identifies a systematic exclusion of prior artists and trends at the critics’ whim, in an attempt to protect a hegemonic visual discourse. Regarding the relationship between literature and the visual arts, he notes how objects (or actions) have been displaced by texts. In his opinion, both are transfers, which he seeks to counter by reclaiming the visual aspect of the priority given to politics and literature.