Las Cantatrices : ópera con fondo blanco.

This series of performances, directed by Nelly Richard, was first exhibited in the installation Sala de espera, which was televised in 1980, during Chile's military dictatorship. In each of the three iterations, Carlos is encased in full body plaster, save an opening that exposes a different part of his body--stomach, legs, breasts. Affixed to his face are hooks that force his mouth open, underscoring and smearing his exaggerated makeup and also the gesture of mouthing along to the operatic music. He sings along to and against the music, imitating the opera singer's emotional performance. The fourth iteration is a recording of Leppe's mother, Catalina Arroyo, who reads a very candid description of Leppe's difficult birth. In the original exhibition, all four videos played simultaneously, thereby creating a multi-frame portrait of a body in torture, held against its will in various vulnerable positions. With the video playing Arroyo's monologue placed in the forefront during the original exhibition, the sum of the videos reveals Leppe's exploration of past and present bodily tensions: the body under extreme duress, the immobilized, grotesque body as a site of desire, and the torturous climate in Chile during Pinochet's dictatorship.

Carlos Leppe (1952-2015) was a Chilean visual artist. He was born in Santiago de Chile, where he also studied Fine Arts in Universidad de Chile. Graduating as a painter, he was a student of Eugenio Dittborn, Carlos Altamirano, and Francisco Smythe, among others. His first corporal piece called Happening de las gallinas shows Leppe's early interest in Avant-garde art. He explored corporeal art, body art and spatial intervention through his career. Taking inspiration from artists like Joseph Beuys and Villalba, he developed pieces that questioned artistic instutions. Leppe's use of his own body explored sexual ambiguity, self-identity and parody. He cited himself constantly, sometimes using his own mother as a participant in his pieces. Some of his performances only were available in video format, proposing questions on the physicality of perception. His work ranges from the reference of popular culture as in Mambo número ocho de Pérez Prado (1980), where he references a Carlos Gardel tango, to Acción de Arte-Estrella (1979) with references to Marcel Duchamp. Leppe won various prizes such as First Prize in Salón de Alumnos of the Escuela de Arte de la Universidad de Chile (1972). Jacques d' Arthuys best exhibit of the year (1973); the Beca en Gráfica of the Corporación Amigos del Arte in Santiago (1984) and the Premio Altazor for Videoart and Installation (2002).