Teresa Burga. The Tightrope Walker

Today the Peruvian artist Teresa Burga (1935–2021) has long been considered to be one of the important pioneers of Pop Art and Concept Art in Latin America; her oeuvre has been displayed at the major institutions and important biennials of this world. For a long time, however, her artistic output was basically neglected on both a national and an international level. Economic crises as well as reprisals and isolation within Peru’s military dictatorship prevented exchange or visibility on a cultural level. Only at an advanced age did she receive the recognition for her work that she so very much deserved.

Ever since the 1960s, Teresa Burga showed herself to have a great eye for detail in recording the social conditions around her. Her extensive creative output includes not only paintings and environments that can be assigned to Pop Art, but also conceptual drawings, objects, installations, and cybernetic experimental arrangements.

The exhibition Teresa Burga. The Tightrope Walker accordingly concentrates on the extensive graphic oeuvre of the artist, especially the sheets done from 2013 to 2021. Many of the exhibited works are being shown to the public for the first time. The graphic sheets on which the artist worked right up to her death in February 2021 are linked at the Weserburg with drawings, linocuts, and a space-encompassing object installation from the 1960s. In this way, a bridge is extended from the late oeuvre back to the early works.

Teresa Burga. The Tightrope Walker has been organized in collaboration with MUSAC, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León (Spain).

The show is being curated by Janneke de Vries at Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst and Helena López Camacho at MUSAC.