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How did Carlos Leppe use performance art to criticize repression in Chile?
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Latin American art
Detail from Popular History of Mexico, mosaic mural by Diego Rivera, 1953; on the Teatro des los Insurgentes, Mexico City.
In the context of Latin American art, the Chilean artist Carlos Leppe utilized performance art as a powerful tool to critique the repression and abuses of the military regime that followed the 1973 coup.
As a member of the Avanzada group, Leppe sought to expose the restrictive nature of the state and the suffering of its citizens. In a notable 1980 performance, he had himself videotaped while imprisoned in a plaster cast. Through this act, he created a visceral metaphor for his own confinement and the broader abuse inflicted upon individuals by society under the regime's oppressive rule.1