The work and thinking of Luis Camnitzer (Lübeck, Germany, 1937) is anchored in a comprehensive ethical awareness, which for this US-based Uruguayan artist gives meaning to artistic creation in his social context.

In his 1987 essay “Access to the Mainstream”, Camnitzer writes: “We’re primarily ethical beings who can tell right from wrong, fair from unfair, not only as individuals but in community contexts (…) Art becomes the instrument of choice for implementing these strategies.”  

This interview looks over Camnitzer’s main ideas of Conceptualism, going back to the radicalism of his early work with the New York Graphic Workshop (NYGW) collective – grounded in ephemeral, word-based works – and elicits general reflections on his artistic mediums and the concepts of ethics and education that are patently linked to his creative activity. A special section is devoted to the idea of violence and a key work, Puerto Montt Massacre (1969), which belongs to the Museo’s Collection. In the work, Camnitzer approaches political content through signs, words and geometry, placing the spectator inside the work so that, rather than passively consuming it, they are forced to experiment in the “field of knowledge”.