Aníbal López

Who is Aníbal López?

Aníbal López, full name Juárez Aníbal Asdrúbal López, is an artist and a native of Guatemala. He began his career creating figurative art influenced by expressionism. He has worked in several media, including acrylic and oil on canvas, photography, and video. In the 1990s he and other Guatemalan artists such as Regina José Galindo began creating art "actions" or live art, a combination of street art, performance art, minimalism, and conceptual art. A-1 53167 is the code name that Aníbal López has used since 1997 to sign many of his art actions, a gesture intended to question codes of information used to establish identity, such as one's name. The effect is to erase an ethnic-specific sense of belonging and perhaps to resist the impulse of art consumers to categorize him in preconceived categories such as indigenous, Mayan, or Guatemalan.