Expresiones pictóricas del arte urbano en Cuenca (Ecuador). Caracterización socioartística y periodización

Abstract

The present paper communicates the results of the exploratory-descriptive investigation of the pictorial expressions of urban art (murals, graffiti, tags) of the Cuenca city (Ecuador), being main objective the socio-artistic characterization and periodization. So, it was essential the gathering information (census) all the artworks considered relevant, under well-defined inclusion/exclusion categories, cataloging, ideo-thematic and expressive description and chronological ordering, allowing to identify a first initial period, consisting only of a mural, a second period, marked by the proliferation or the aerosol and total anonymity; a third period, vidences the academizations of urban art and the appearance of the first signatures of authorship; and a fourth period, as a process of contemporaneization of pictorial expressions. The complete period of the artworks includes from 2002 to 2019. The expressions analyzed reveal a transgressive artistic practice of public spaces, with diverse purposes ranging from the aesthetic to the social, sometimes through protest, that go through the same for the purely ornamental as for the absurd, resulting, in the sociocultural context of a deeply traditional city, with a significant note of modernity, and creative processes that are forced to operate in conditions of secrecy and anonymity.