Fernando de Szyszlo and the conceptual turn in cultural policy

Milestones In July 2015, the Peruvian artist Fernando de Szyszlo celebrated his 90th birthday. The London Economist honored the occasion in a biographical sketch titled “The Last Modernist,” which situated Szyszlo’s aesthetic sensibilities at the crossroads of European avant-garde movements and pre-Columbian cultures to produce a “unique pictorial language, a restrained abstract expressionism populated with symbols . . . and colours . . . loosely inspired by the artefacts of ancient Peru” ( The Last Modernist ). The article went on to note a “timid internationalisation” of Latin American art within global markets, visible in the current boomlet around mid-century modernist work, before concluding, with guarded optimism, that “creative industries are an important potential area of growth for the region” ( The Last Modernist ).