“Only with freedom and courage is a true society built”

April 22 is the day of the inauguration of the Peruvian pavilion in the Venice Biennale. Already the work of Herbert Rodriguez, the murals that he displayed in the Faculty of Letters of San Marcos to confront the Shining Path threat in the eighties, are in full assembly work in the Peruvian pavilion. The proposal curated by Jorge Villacorta and Viola Varotto, takes this original material, prudently preserved by the artist for more than 30 years, to the City of Canals, to be exhibited in a 250-meter circuit, recreating the furious university walls.

This fifty-ninth edition bears the motto “The Milk of Dreams”, inspired by the homonymous book by the surrealist artist Leonora Carrington, which describes a magical world in which life can change and transform. But the dream that Cecilia Alemani, general curator of the biennial, postulates, rather generates nightmares in these days of uncertainty, be it due to a still present pandemic, or because of the war fears that run through Europe after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

We are talking about a complex year, in which Venice itself was not sure of holding its biennial, says Armando Andrade, curator of the Peruvian pavilion. When its start-up was announced, work times had already been shortened, and the Cultural Board of Peru, the organizing institution for Peru’s participation in this world event, chose to choose the project that had been in second place in the contest of curatorial proposals convened for the 2019 biennial. Presented by the curator Jorge Villacorta, “Arte vida” gathers the experience of artistic activism of the artist Herbert Rodríguez in the mid-1980s. “As a board of trustees, deciding to take this project to the biennial was part of our policies of absolute freedom. Today, when we are all aware that a nuclear war appears as a threat to humanity, the proposal that we are taking to the Venice Biennale is inserted in a very poignant way. It is linked to what we are experiencing, but it is also relevant to the moment of violence that is shaking Europe today”, affirms Andrade.

—“Arte vida”, the project dedicated to the work of Herbert Rodríguez, is a work of art created in a context of war. Hence the provocation of him…

Herbert Rodríguez is like that character who stopped in front of the tank during the Tiananmen Square riots. He was aware of doing an artistic act knowing that he was risking his life. He is of unprecedented courage in Peru. A demonstration that only with freedom and courage can a true society be built.

“(Herbert Rodríguez) was aware that he was doing an artistic act knowing that he was risking his life”

Armando Andrade Curator of the Peruvian pavilion at the Venice Biennale

—However, many maintain a certain resentment towards your work, because it intervenes in Senderista images and icons. Why do you think that some consider an apology what is a clear criticism of Sendero Luminoso?

One of the central problems of our society is to deny the existence of the other. We have not learned to socially incorporate the other, the one who thinks differently. For some reason, we have become a society that assumes that the other is the enemy. And precisely for this reason we do not yet have a social agenda of minimum consensus. Herbert Rodríguez is a person who in the 1980s decided to disappear from the art and gallery system. He has always been the uncomfortable artist, the marginal, the stone in the shoe. When in San Marcos he develops his “Arte Vida” project, confronting Sendero Luminoso, what he also does is reveal the separation that existed then between life and art. He always assumed both as a unit. He stood up to the path and with his work he said he preferred life. For me, that gesture was redemptive in our society. A gesture of great freedom and great courage. For Venice, Herbert wanted to make a catalog with his insolent language and extreme visuality. It is something that we not only respect but also support. The exercise of the Cultural Patronage is that of the maximum exercise of the freedoms of the artist to communicate what he wants.

—Herbert Rodriguez’s work was carried out in the context of the Faculty of Letters in San Marcos, where the enemy was…

That is something fundamental. There you realize the importance of art. A gesture of this nature, of enormous courage, did not have the repercussion that it should have as it did not have a media echo. In times of the Russian invasion in Ukraine, “Arte vida” is a proposal that takes on a singular importance. It is a proposal whose fundamental axis is life.

—Given the projection that your work is beginning to acquire in Europe, is the presence of Herbert Rodríguez in Venice a way for us Peruvians to recognize your work?

Herbert made the decision to get out of the art system in the 1980s and 1990s, and very few people collect it. Rather, it is from outside that his work, his marginality, his unprecedented activism are vindicated. He has always been very aware that his language has been one of extreme visuality, which appeals to the visual extremism of his photomontages to wake up a sleepy society. The interesting thing is that this carefree and violent language, insolent and even unpleasant at times, was constructed from the images of the media of that time, recirculated them and put them in front of us. As an artist, he has always put his finger on it. That is why I think it is a fantastic gesture that Peru brings to Venice, after what we have experienced, this proposal for peace and life before the world.