Exhibitions
Radical Intimacy by Janet Toro at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Santiago
An exhibition packed with moments, works, and gestures by Janet Toro at the MNBA in Santiago, Chile, entitled " Janet Toro. Radical Intimacy. Overflow and Gestures ," on view until September 7. This retrospective explores her career from 1985 to 2025, featuring important periods in the career of the Osorno-born artist.
From the mid-1980s, when Janet Toro began with paintings and prints (wounded and contorted figures), as well as actions and performances with a radical vision of the body, to her later live, political, and material performances with powerful images. All these elements are found in this temporary exhibition at the museum in Chile's capital, curated by Cecilia Fajardo-Hill.
Janet Toro. “Radical Intimacy. Overflows and Gestures,” Photo: Lorena Ormeño (MNBA 2025)
Janet Toro stands out for her historical and emotional impact, starting with her series The Body of Memory , in which she created daily performances featuring barefoot walks and signs with allusive phrases next to spaces of torture, until she reached the contribution of collective memory and current dialogue. Her works create a constant dialogue and leave no one indifferent, but the moment the visitor enters this exhibition at the MNBA in Santiago, they will find a space for public reflection, with a view from multiple perspectives, whether political or personal.
A powerful exhibition and exploration of Janet Toro's work that spans a decade of commitment to the body, but also to politics. From the intimate to a reflection on the politics of the body, from memory to pain as a personal and collective experience, from visual to corporeal and material reflection on human existence.
Janet Toro. “Radical Intimacy. Overflows and Gestures,” Photo: Lorena Ormeño (MNBA 2025)
Through performance, Janet presents us with a sensitive and strong body that denounces, but at the same time reveals its own fragility through intimate stories that invite deep reflection on individual and collective experiences,” explains MNBA director Varinia Brodsky Zimmermann.
Janet Toro explains that the exhibition at the MNBA is important and relevant to her because it seeks to reflect and question the current state of affairs in a radical, poetic, and philosophical way. Looking at a work by Janet Toro is a prolonged process and an extreme bodily engagement, adding a political and feminist dimension, giving rise to the trio of elements formed by body, place, and history. However, Janet Toro uses the body as a vehicle for memory and testimony.
Janet Toro. “Radical Intimacy. Overflows and Gestures,” Photo: Lorena Ormeño (MNBA 2025)
