Disco Rayado-Broken Record
Multimedia installation
by Joan Belmar
Disco Rayado—a scratched or broken record—refers to history trapped in repetition, replaying conflicts with altered surfaces but familiar structures. This installation draws a line between past and present, using war as a recurring image rather than a resolved event.
Conceived as an immersive environment, the work combines large-scale paintings (approximately 120 inches), subdued lighting, an obsolete record player illuminated by red light, and transparent layers derived from the artist’s printmaking process. These elements are informed by music, literature, and cinema—media that shape how violence is remembered, aestheticized, and transmitted.
A fragmented semicircle at eye level reinterprets Leonardo da Vinci’s The Battle of Anghiari (1504–1505), an unfinished Renaissance depiction of combat. Horses and figures collide in a dense choreography of force and resistance. This historic image becomes a framework through which contemporary conflict is viewed, suggesting continuity between early representations of war and today’s mediated violence.
Joan Belmar is a Chilean-born artist whose practice spans painting, collage, and three-dimensional surface construction. He began his professional career in Spain before relocating to Washington, D.C., where he later became a U.S. citizen. Belmar is best known for his distinctive three-dimensional painting technique, which integrates painted and untreated Mylar and paper elements arranged in circular and curvilinear forms. These layered compositions create shifting transparencies that respond to light, movement, and the viewer’s position.
His work has been widely exhibited and is included in public and private collections in the United States and abroad. Belmar has received numerous awards and grants recognizing his contribution to contemporary visual art.