In Calaveras, Indigo Arts brings back a seasonal selection of Peruvian retablos by master artist Claudio Jimenez Quispé. The traditional Peruvian retablo is a portable shrine or nicho that holds figures sculpted of pasta (a mixture of plaster and potato). As interpreted by contemporary Peruvian artists the retablo is a medium to depict all aspects of contemporary life, and even narratives of social strife and civil war. Claudio Jimenez Quispé is the acknowledged master of the Peruvian retablo, heir to a multi-generation artistic tradition in the highland region of Ayacucho. In this work he has expanded on the macabre Mexican tradition of Los Dias de los Muertos, the Days of the Dead. Like the engravings of the great early 20th century Mexican artist Guadalupe Posada, Claudio's scenes of the underworld populated by calaveras (skeletons) are a vehicle for satire, political critique and even sacrilege, as in the "Nacimiento de los Diablos" (Devils' Nativity).
