Appropriating the Improper: The Problem of Influence in Latin American Art

This paper centers on the problem of influence in Latin American art analyzing some of the changes its conceptualization underwent during the 1970s and 1980s. Taking the case of Chilean conceptual practices during Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship known as “escena de avanzada,” particularly the art actions of the collective CADA, and the isolationist discourses woven around it, this article attempts to reconnect what has been regarded as original political art forms to larger networks of relations where the question of what is proper to Latin American art was disputed.