The Bolivian muralist whom the dictatorship could not erase

The perennial tribute to Alandia, the Bolivian muralist whom the dictatorship could not erase

La Paz, July 24 (EFE) - A permanent exhibition hall and a replica of a mural destroyed during René Barrientos' military dictatorship are part of the Bolivian National Museum of Art's (MNA) tribute to the visual artist Miguel Alandia Pantoja, the "painter of the revolution," also considered one of Latin America's great muralists.

The inauguration of the "Miguel Alandia Pantoja" Permanent Hall represents "two great dreams achieved." One of them is to have a space where the artist's work "will be appreciated for many years to come," MNA director Claribel Arandia explained to EFE.

The second was proposed by Alandia's family to replace the mural "History of the Mine," which the artist painted in the former Government Palace, or Palacio Quemado, which was destroyed at gunpoint during the dictatorship.

The gallery is "an early gift" for the bicentennial of Bolivia's independence, which will be celebrated on August 6, and also "a tribute to Bolivian artists who preserve the craft of painting," Arandia added.
Miguel Alandia Pantoja was born in 1914 in the mining town of Catavi, in the Andean region of Potosí, and was a self-taught painter who left behind works representing his revolutionary messages in Chile, Peru, and Bolivia.

Alandia died in exile in Lima in 1975, and his remains were repatriated and buried in the General Cemetery in La Paz. Later, in 2020, they were transferred to the Museum of the National Revolution, where two of his most iconic murals remain.

According to Arandia, one of the aspects that marked the artist was having fought in the Chaco War, fought between Bolivia and Paraguay (1932-1935), because "after seeing the horrors" of that event, "he faced what we call, in the creative process, a conflict about what and why he was going to make art."

"His brushwork has been his way of fighting and denouncing all the abuses suffered during that time, which remain relevant to this day. It's a message that has not died with time, nor with his life," he maintained.
This earned him the nickname "painter of the revolution," as he was also a "fundamental player" in the creation of the country's "emblematic" union institutions, such as the Bolivian Workers' Central (COB).

In 1965, while on tour in Europe, the de facto Barrientos government ordered the destruction of all his work in public and private institutions.

In response, the Bolivian sent letters to Latin American artists and intellectuals "because he considered it a despicable act" for the State to destroy art, gaining the solidarity of Mexicans Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros, with whom he built "what we now know as the muralism boom" in the region, Arandia recalled.

Permanent Tribute

In 2024, the Cultural Foundation of the Central Bank of Bolivia (FC-BCB) completed the acquisition of a collection of 152 works by the artist, as well as sketches, newspaper clippings, posters, and correspondence, which were placed in the custody of the MNA (National Museum of Natural History).
To publicize this legacy, which was inscribed last year on UNESCO's Memory of the World Program for Latin America and the Caribbean (Mowlac), the museum decided to mount this permanent exhibition of Alandia's works, "which are of marked importance to Bolivian and Latin American art," MNA curator Danilo Villamor told EFE.

The exhibition features the artist's "most iconic works," including scenes from the Chaco War, figures of Aymara women, miners, working women, and the "apu mamas," a representation of indigenous women "who stand bravely in the face of the injustices that occurred during that time," Villamor said.

The jewel in the crown is the replica of "History of the Mine," the 80-square-meter mural that Alandia painted in 1953 in the Palacio Quemado and that Barrientos ordered destroyed in 1965.

Among the collection acquired by the MNA was the sketch of this mural, which artists Bertha Karita and Champi used to replicate it on a surface measuring ten meters long by three meters wide.

The museum plans to rotate the works on display.
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