The exhibition, curated by art historian Jorge Villacorta, comprises a selection of 40 colour images of the Huaca Mateo Salado, where Felipe Cortazar went to make an extensive photographic documentary. The selection has been made with the purpose of communicating a contemporary vision of the huaca, revealing its many facets today.

Villacorta comments on the exhibition: ‘Cortázar’s mark of authorship is not only in the achievement of the images. Undoubtedly, they unravel a critical space, with rigour and justice, in which the sense of archaeological heritage and the sense of an exploratory contemporaneity converge, now without sacredness but, apparently, with pragmatism”.

Villacorta adds that Cortazar’s portrait of the huaca ‘is a record whose dignity does not prevent speculation about the future. The Huaca Mateo Salado stands between indifference due to its proximity – for years there was the sale of exhaust pipes and installation workshops in the vicinity of what is protected by law – and the enthusiasm for the spectacles that the competent authorities authorise, during which electrical energy paints with the colours of a fleeting rainbow, walls that were once stuccoed in the coastal style in a range obtained with coloured soil.

This range is already out of fashion, but who can be sure that the fake (chicha) colours of urban graphics will last? Felipe Cortazar’s intention is all-encompassing and ambitious. His gaze is that of the documentary-artist who stands as a witness at yet another crossroads. His visual intelligence enters the folds of time with a keen and prescient eye. But this story will continue”.

Felipe Cortazar Velarde (Lima, 1961), graphic designer and photographer, has a degree in Design from the School of Art of the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, and a Master’s degree in University Teaching and Educational Management from the Universidad Tecnológica del Perú (UTP). He has been working as a graphic designer for more than 25 years and, for some years now, has ventured into photography. In 2021 he presented the exhibition ‘Pasajes Urbanos’ (Urban Passages) at the Centro Cultural Inca Garcilaso, which was nominated for the Award Luces de El Comercio, in the category of Best Photography Exhibition.

He is currently Director of Strategic Alliances at VISIVA (Toulouse Lautrec, UCAL and Certus). He is developing several photographic projects on the huacas and pre-Hispanic architecture of Lima, among other subjects.