Description

Claudio Jimenez Quispé (Peru), 2016
Painted plaster sculpture in painted wood box
(7″ h. x 6 1/2″ w. x 2″ d.).

This little retablo is both a masterpiece of Claudio Jimenez’s miniature work and a chilling historical document.  It tells the story of Peru’s bitter civil war between the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerilla group and the Peruvian military through the experience of Claudio’s own family.  We see time compressed with masked soldiers tying, torturing and killing naked peasants in the background, while the central foreground (and present day) image is of a forensic exhumation of the grave of one of Claudio’s relatives – white-coated technician examining a bone with a magnifying glass while a grieving woman and her children look on.