ELÍAS ADASME

(Illapel, 1955)

As a visual artist Adasme experiments with a wide diversity of conceptual works, which take the form of installations, performances, digital graphics, visual poetry, and mail art. A Chile (For Chile, 1970-80) is one of his signature works. Four of the five panels show actions performed by the artist between December 1979 and December 1980; the fifth one gives an account of the public places where the images of the photo-performances were displayed. As a whole, the photographs in the work trace a map of pain, represented by the artist’s semi-nude body, standing upright or hanging upside down next to a map of Chile. The presence of the artist’s body brings to mind the torture and subjugation imposed by the Pinochet regime. The location of one of the actions inside Santiago’s Salvador metro station also evokes the previous government of Salvador Allende.