Museo LiMAC StoreSandra Gamarra Heshiki · 2002

The project for the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Lima (LiMAC) arose from a four-decade-long complaint by the local artistic community: the lack of a museum of contemporary art in the city of Lima. In this context, Gamarra proposed the creation of this desired venue, based on a museological project whose collection consisted of a virtual set of artworks that gradually incorporated pieces by colleagues, as well as a selection of her own work. Originally conceived for the Internet, it was later materialized in the LiMAC store stands, which offer cups and other souvenirs along with the possibility of navigating through the website, thus establishing, according to the artist, the existence of a fragment of the museum within the museum that holds it, invading it with a project that is materialized as something more than an idea, but less than an institution. As a blend of traditional media with conceptual strategies and means borrowed from advertising and marketing, LiMAC is more than an ironic commentary about the lack of cultural institutions in the Peruvian capital; it is an examination of the limits of museological spaces, of what constitutes a museum, and of the traps and simulations that make the public believe in an institution’s solidity. (TC)