Hugo Díaz: The Graphic Chronicler Honored at the Costa Rican Art Museum
Hugo Díaz, Graphic Chronicler.
The Costa Rican Art Museum invites you to the opening of “Hugo Díaz: Chronicles in Ink,” an exhibition celebrating the artist’s visual and critical legacy.
The opening will be on Thursday, July 10, at 7:00 p.m. at the MAC, located in La Sabana Metropolitan Park. Admission is free, offering an opportunity to rediscover one of the great visual chroniclers of 20th-century Costa Rica.
This exhibition is the result of a collaboration between the MAC and the University of Costa Rica Museum (Museo UCR). Through a representative selection of works, the exhibition traces the different stages of Díaz’s artistic production, from his beginnings marked by the influence of cinema and comic strips, to his consolidation as a graphic chronicler of the country’s political, social, and economic processes.
Hugo Díaz’s work is a visual testimony of enormous value for understanding history. His work aims to recognize his legacy as a graphic chronicler of the country and, at the same time, offer the public an exhibition that links art, memory, and critical thinking.
Costa Rican Art Museum opens exhibition in tribute to Hugo Díaz
For her part, who’s been curator of the exhibition, Laura M. Raabe Cercone, highlighted the historical context in which Díaz developed his career, which began in 1970 at the height of the Cold War:
His cartoons reveal his keen insight into American mass culture and Costa Rica’s desire for economic modernization. They also document the emergence of an anti-imperialist critical response to US interference in Latin America.
Raabe Cercone, who currently serves as head of the Collections Registration Section at the UCR Museum, emphasized that UNESCO included Hugo Díaz’s archive—comprising 5,978 items—in the National Register of Memory of the World Costa Rica in 2023.
Regarding the period after that, added:
During the 1980s, with the adoption of neoliberal policies amid economic crisis, the dismantling of the welfare state began. Much of his work deals with this situation. His ink drawings denounce injustices and express his commitment to the most vulnerable sectors of society. Twenty-four years after his death, Hugo continues to surprise us with his enormous relevance.
The exhibition will be open to the public until Sunday, November 9. It will be open during the museum’s regular hours, Tuesday through Sunday, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Sensorial Sunsets
Navigate articles
