Art, power and consumption in Chile. Graphics as cultural artifact from 1970 to 1980

The object of this article is to identify certain hints for the explanation of the development of graphics in Chile during the 70s, assuming graphics as the cultural expression representing the profound changes experienced by the country. This capacity for representation expressed itself in two periods particularly crucial to graphics: the period between 1970 and 1973 where graphics' main focus was to be a symbol of social cultural and political manifestations -in which the State played a leading role concerning changes-, and the period between 1974 and 1980 when, as a result of the clash caused by the coup d'état in 1973, graphic design suffers a reorientation based on the logics of consumption as new social and aesthetic values orientation.