Festival Andino 1954

Nemesio Antunez made this lithograph print, called Festival Andino, using crayon and lithographic ink to capture the image of a festival in the Andes. The whole thing is an exercise in dark grays and blacks except for this striking yellow section, as if the sun broke through the clouds or someone lit a fire! I can almost imagine Antunez at the lithography stone, drawing and wiping, drawing and wiping, constantly adjusting the image. So much of art-making is a process of addition and subtraction, a kind of call and response between the artist and the work. There's a tree grounding the image to the right and then a sea of people undulating as they celebrate, dark figures which become marks or strokes. The artist uses a stippling effect to build the composition, one mark at a time. The artist must have been thinking about tradition, community, and the power of gathering together. It feels raw and energetic, and very human. Art like this reminds me that artists are always inspiring each other across time. There are no fixed meanings here, just an invitation to experience something together.