Artist in Exile - César Olhagaray in Dresden

The artist César Olhagaray (born 1951), who now lives in Dresden and Santiago de Chile, had to leave his home country Chile due to the military coup on September 11, 1973 and a following imprisonment. After a short stay in France, Olhagaray came to the GDR, rather by chance as he says. Only a few days after the military coup, diplomatic relations between the GDR and Chile were severed and extensive solidarity measures were adopted - including the admission of thousands of Chileans to the GDR. In the video interview, Olhagaray also talks about his experiences in the GDR, which characterized a culture of welcome and solidarity.
In addition to his previous architectural studies, César Olhagaray began studying painting and graphic arts in Dresden at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste under Hernando León. He also studied art education at the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin starting in 1988. The graphic work from the 1970s clearly reflects the terrible experiences of imprisonment. In the 1980s, he combined painting, performance, theater, dance, and architecture in his artistic practice and developed his own formats such as the Bildtheater - a processual approach in which music and movement influence Olhagaray's painting and the audience participates in the artistic practice.

Already in Chile during the 1960s, César Olhagaray tried out various forms of action and collective mural painting. Also in the summer of 2022, Muriel Cornejo and he created a graffiti in Dresden's Neustadt on the occasion of the upcoming referendum on the draft constitution in Chile. It was rejected by a majority in September 2022.
In the two video interviews, César Olhagaray talks about arriving and studying in the GDR and the themes and thoughts that continue to influence his art to the present day.

More information on the artist can be found here: murielycesarolhagaray.com

The interview was conducted by art historian Lena Geuer. She works as a research associate at the Institute for Art and Music at the TU Dresden and teaches transcultural art history with a focus on modern and contemporary Latin American art.