The Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA) is pleased to present a Spotlight examining the 1970 art action 30 muchachas con redes by Venezuelan conceptual artist Diego Barboza (1945–2003), as part of the Spotlight series.
ISLAA Spotlights is a series of focused in-person and online presentations that highlight works by individual artists. On view during select hours and by appointment, these displays create opportunities for close engagement with artists and ideas that remain underrepresented in dominant art historical narratives, offering a platform to explore their practices in greater depth.
This Spotlight presentation is organized by Micaela Vindman.
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Diego Barboza (1945–2003) was a Venezuelan artist and a pioneer of action art and conceptual practice. Born in Maracaibo, he became known in the 1970s for his expressive works in public spaces across cities including London, Paris, and Caracas. He began his formal training in Maracaibo at the Escuela de Artes Plásticas Julio Arraga and the Escuela de Artes Plásticas Neptalí Rincón, and later continued his studies at the London College of Printing.
In late 1968, Barboza relocated to London. Immersed in the city’s experimental climate, he deepened his interest in participation, communication, and the dissolution of traditional boundaries between artwork and audience. There, he encountered the work of Hélio Oiticica, whose proposals around participation and lived experience strongly resonated with his own concerns and helped consolidate his approach to action-based work. During this period, Barboza began to articulate what he called “events,” “poetic actions," or “expressions”: collective actions—not entirely performance and not fully happenings—carried out in public space and conceived not as objects but as situations to be lived.
In reflecting on these actions, Barboza wrote: “The language of action operates immediately and directly on reality. It does not merely express a message, as other languages do; rather, the act itself accomplishes what it expresses at the very moment the action takes place.” His actions sought to transform people themselves into matter, texture, and expression. This approach was summarized in his often-repeated phrase, “Art as people / people as art,” underscoring the social and collective character of his practice. Streets, markets, laundromats, and subway stations became sites where everyday life and artistic actions merged, blurring distinctions between art and the routines of the city.
30 muchachas con redes (30 Girls with Nets, 1970) took place in the streets of London. For this action, Barboza invited thirty young women—friends of the artist—to wear brightly colored nets handmade by him. The participants moved through central streets and a range of everyday urban settings, including markets and restaurants. They were instructed to move through these spaces without acknowledging or responding to the reactions of passersby, maintaining a neutral and ordinary demeanor throughout. The action unfolded through the women’s uninterrupted presence within the city’s daily rhythms, introducing a visual intervention that momentarily altered perceptions of public space through sustained exposure and subtle disruption. This work marked an early articulation of Barboza’s growing interest in the open integration of passersby into the experience of the work. In the early 1970s, he returned to Venezuela, where these strategies were further developed and adapted to local social and cultural contexts.
During his time in London, Barboza also appears to have experienced a sense of distance from the vividly colorful and festive qualities of Venezuelan culture, particularly that of his native Maracaibo. From this perspective, actions such as 30 muchachas con redes (30 Girls with Nets) can be read as expressions of longing and displacement. His work was shaped, in part, by memories of childhood that recur throughout his practice, including a sustained desire to address his relationship with his mother and the enduring closeness of his family ties.
Recurrent motifs such as domestic objects, flowers, women, gatherings, and references to art historical icons are linked to early experiences and images rooted in nostalgia. Yet rather than evoking loss or longing, Barboza’s practice is characterized by bright color and scenes of celebration and encounter. Nostalgia, for him, functions not as a backward-looking sentiment but as an active and generative space—one that affirms memory as a site of presence and continuity. Barboza sought to reveal the deep interconnection between his actions, his pictorial work, his personal history, and his understanding of art and life. For him, these dimensions were inseparable, forming a single continuum in which each held equal importance.
—Micaela Vindman