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Nightmares and Blighted Dreams in Little Boxes: Retablos of Nicario Jimenez Quispe
The other day in a post about art about the Shining Path years, I included an unidentified photograph of a Peruvian retablo created by, it turns out, master artisan Nicario Jiménez Quispe. Jiménez was born in Ayacucho, the historic center of indigenous struggle in Peru and the locus of Shining Path conflict, and now lives in the decidedly peaceful town of Naples, Florida. His work is notable for its application of the traditional Andean retablo form — essentially, a portable prayer box with handmade figurines depicting a narrative — to contemporary socio-political themes in Peruvian, U.S. and Mexican societies. Among the stories that Jimenez illustrates are the April 1997 rescue of hostages from the Japanese embassy…


