Chapter One
I give you back your image
Ever since his childhood, he knew that he would devote himself to art, as he was always close to it. He
grew up in a rich artistic environment of that time in northern Chile, and then moved to Valparaíso where
he studied at the School of Architecture at the Universidad Católica, a career he ultimately did not
pursue, to totally devote himself to art. In the 60s, he made public interventions that used language,
words, objects and austere materials to transmit a message to be codified by the spectator, who has a
role of vital importance for the artwork, as the artist states. In the late 60s, he formed the Colectivo
Acciones de Arte.
More than stressing political topics that divide people, Castillo appeals to human beings and their different relations and ways of expression
C.A.D.A. (Art Actions Collective) with Lotty Rosenfeld, Raúl Zurita, Diamelta Eltit and Fernando Bacells;
was a group that set a change in Chilean contemporary art, responding to the country’s political situation
of the time and influenced also by foreign aesthetic trends, like the Fluxus group. After C.A.D.A’s
dissolution, Juan Castillo continues with his work, that more than stressing political topics that divide
people, appeals to human beings and their different relations and ways of expression.
This can be seenin one of his projects, “Minimal Barroco” (Minimal Baroque), which takes a truck around different cities of the world, projecting videos onto it’s back of it’s residents narrating their dreams.
At the end of 2017, he showed part of his work together with other 27 artists in the group show “Manipulate the World” in the Moderna Museet Stockholm, in Sweden, where he is based since 1981. For Juan Castillo there are no territories nor limits.
For Juan Castillo there are no territories nor limits
Images courtesy of the artist