Teresa Burga

Since the 1960s, the iconic Peruvian artist Teresa Burga has been on the forefront of conceptual and experimental practices. Her early work, created individually and with the Grupo Arte Nuevo, helped usher in a new era of art across Latin America. Burga’s pop art-inflected, research-intensive works address the female body and state violence. For her seminal installation Profile of a Peruvian Woman (1981), she collaborated with a famed psychologist to create an illuminating portrait of middle-class female life based on statistics and data. During Peru’s 1968 military coup, Burga eschewed aggressively nationalistic work in favor of more socially complicated subjects. “Art is not something you make look pretty just to be sold,” she has said.