Between Surrealism and Abstraction in Chile: The Decembristas in Print

Frequently hailed as the first exhibition of surrealist art in Latin America, the 1935 exhibition organized in Lima by the Peruvian poet and artist César Moro, with the help of the Chilean artist María Valencia, in fact featured work by a group of Chilean artists known as the “Decembristas.” The Chilean poet Vicente Huidobro wrote for the 1933 catalogue, which primarily promoted abstraction. Moro’s exhibition, the group’s third, was identified as surrealist through its provocative catalogue and by its presence in the “Surrealism around the World” spread in Minotaure. Both Huidobro and Moro spent time in Paris and are cited as introducing Surrealism to Latin America. Moro in part claimed these artists as surrealist as an affront to Huidobro, dedicating a page in the catalogue to denouncing him. In turn, Huidobro published a scathing rebuttal of Moro in his magazine Vital, pitting many of the Decembristas against Moro. This essay traces the Decembristas’ exhibition histories and their print corollaries—including two magazines started by the Decembristas themselves—to examine the tension between Surrealism and abstraction and how these discourses were mobilized by Moro and Huidobro toward their own ends.