La Negrita de Adrián Arguedas Ruano: tránsitos entre arte y vida cotidiana

Introduction: This paper addresses the work of Adrián Arguedas Ruano and the transitions he establishes between art and everyday life within the framework of Costa Rican art. Objective: The aim is to analyze the links between art, everyday life, and popular culture in Arguedas’ work, particularly in La Negrita (Arguedas, 2002), as a means for critical reflection on hegemonic discourses about identity in Costa Rican art. Methods: An analysis of the artwork La Negrita (Arguedas, 2002) is carried out, based on the reading of secondary sources, comparisons, and the interpretation of its context of exhibition and enunciation, from the framework of decolonial criticism and art theory. Results: The analysis shows how Arguedas Ruano’s work re-signifies and hybridizes religious icons, national symbols, cultural practices, and elements of mass culture, allowing for reflection on the hybrid construction of local and national identities. Conclusions: Based on this reading, his work is recognized as the record of a localized artistic practice, in which memory and “the apprentice’s work” as a critical practice questions hegemonic discourses around the artistic and the popular, and reveals the potential of art to rethink and reconstruct the common.