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Iuris Dictio

Dossier

Núm. 18 (2016)

I believe, then I Exist and Insist: The Elizamean Art Before the Law

DOI
https://doi.org/10.18272/iu.v18i18.779
Submitted
December 15, 2016
Published
2016-12-01

Abstract

This article interprets the work of the former political prisoner and Puerto Rican independence advocate, Elizam Escobar (Ponce, 1948), written in prison as an act of resistance in the face of the United States imperial legal violence and the microphysics of disciplinary power exerted in prison. During his almost twenty years of incarceration (1980-1999), the painter"™s creations proposed a "liberation art" that continuously recurs to ambiguity and symbolism as a way to confront the legalized repression that endeavored to impair the political subjectivity of the artist. Thus, his work is an invitation to view incarceration, the island, and history as spaces and discourses dominated by an injustice that is continually supported by law, thanks to the critical dialogue that he establishes with legality in his painting, his writing, and his art theory.

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References

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