The figurative aesthetics of Guto Ajayu: a Megamachine inventor of war totems, zoomorphic icons and sphinxes with the Versace logo

Abstract

A philosophical hermeneutic of the work of the contemporary Bolivian-Spanish artist Guto Ajayu is proposed, whose hypothesis establishes that the artist paints images of warriors, zoomorphic icons and archaic myths, fruit of a poietic gearing explicable only from the performance of an aesthetic Megamachine. As a theoretical framework, we resort to the myth of the Megamachine by the philosopher of technology Lewis Mumford. Methodologically, the single case method and theoretical sampling are considered for the selection of the three works. Regarding the conclusions, the idea of a figurative-mythological aesthetics is another relevant metaphor of the paper. As a corollary, the idiosyncratic question is raised as to the reasons for the scarce aesthetic or poetic dissemination of a hypothetically mestizo, eclectic and ceremonial Latin American art. The possible reasons seem to remain in the realm of new hypotheses. Nevertheless, some clues whisper, after millennia of art, words such as Eurocentrism, cannibalization or colonialism.