Tuesday Art ATTACK- Teresa Burga "Self-Portrait (1972)"

By Christian Franzen

Teresa Burga was born in Iquitos, Peru in 1935. She is a contemporary multimedia artist that lead the pack in the emerging areas of media, technology, and installation based art in Peru. 

Burga studied art at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, from which she graduated in 1964 and went on to receive her MFA at the Art Institute of Chicago thanks to a Fulbright Grant.

Throughout the 1960's, Burga was associated with the artist collective in Peru known as Arte Nuevo. This group launched the Peruvian art scene into contemporary context by mixing the avant-garde styles of the time with a Peruvian attitude. In the early 1970's, Peru fell under the power of a military government lead by General Juan Velasco Alvarado. Under his regime her experimental art practice was deemed undesirable. This made it nearly impossible for Burga to exhibit work in Peru so she resorted to showing her work throughout the United States and Mexico. 

During the second wave of feminism in Latin American countries in the early 1980's, Burga began a multidisciplinary investigation into the status of women across Peru. This is considered the most accomplished work of her career. It was shown throughout almost all of the South American countries and all of her research was repackaged into a self published book.