Modern Art, Indigeneity, and Nationalism in Paraguay: An Introduction to Josefina Plá's “Ñandutí Crossroads of Two Worlds”

Abstract

This article introduces the first translation of the text “Ñandutí: Crossroads of Two Worlds” by Josefina Plá, pioneer of Paraguayan art and literature. The text offers an overview of this figure's life and politics, in the context of the development of Paraguayan modernism in the 1950s and in the early years of General Alfredo Stroessner's military dictatorship (1954–1989). Particularly, I address her involvement in the First Week of Paraguayan Modern Art as co-founder of the Arte Nuevo group and the close relationship with peers like Olga Blinder and Livio Abramo. Plá's historical study of Ñandutí - lace is typically made by Guaranì women and emblematic of Paraguayan craft - bear particular relevance to the ambitions of Paraguayan modernists. Ñandutí has contested origins between the European and the Indigenous – identities that Paraguayan modernists sought to remap.