From La Protesta to Malba, circuits of intervention for Juan Antonio Ballester Peña´s woodcuts

Abstract

The present article focuses in a set of six woodcuts of the Argentinian artist Juan Antonio Ballester Peña produced in the late 1920s, and which since the beginning of the 21^th Century is part of the collection of the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (Malba). Considering their place in Verboamérica (2016), a new exhibit concept of the collection, the prints of this artist acquire a new public status and a renewed potency. On the basis of the analysis of this set of prints, this paper seeks to address some of the contributions of Ballester Peña in the construction, consolidation and visibility of the relationships between art and politics in the Argentina of the 20^th Century, aiming to expand the local printmaking canon and to outline their dialogs with the contemporary art scene.