“El marxismo dará salud a los enfermos”: key idea of Latin American social medicine

Abstract

 In this article, it´s been realize the analysis of the painting “El Marxismo dará salud a los enfermos” (1954), authored by Mexican Frida Kahlo. Methodologically, we proceed according to the immanent analysis proposal, considering the Lukacsian aesthetic perspective. We begin with a brief description of Frida's trajectory, with emphasis on the work under analysis. Next, we make analogies with premises of the Latin American Social Medicine, highlighting three decisive aspects of the social determination of health: the ontological character, the dialectic nature, and the political horizon. We emphasize that, both in Frida's work and in the main authors of Latin American Social Medicine (both influenced by Marxism), the key idea that health, in capitalism, consists in the manifestation of the antagonism between capital and labor is present. This key idea represents, then, the synthesis between singularities, particularities, and universality; as well as the organic articulation between the biological and social spheres, which presupposes a certain political character, in the sense of the answers that this articulation raises and the horizon of health transformation, in its multiple dimensions.