El siluetazo

July 29, 2011 El siluetazo

One of the most important aspects of political art in post-dictatorial Argentina was el siluetazo, or silhouettes. These silhouettes were black line-drawings or cutouts in the shape and space of human bodies. Inside the outline was a name, a date and the label of “desaparecido.”

In September 1983, in the waning months of the dictatorship, three artists started a political art movement in the Plaza de Mayo in front of the Executive building in Buenos Aires, in which thousands of protestors drew life-sized silhouettes to represent the tens of thousands of desaparecidos. These silhouettes were hung all over the city on walls and signposts, but mainly on the gates to the ESMA, as well as other government buildings (Images below) The absence of the disappeared became clear through the vast presence of these silhouettes, which “operated as public question marks.” This form of artistic is still considered a strong and powerful action against the silence of the new government, and these forms of human bodies would be re-appropriated years later by many artists as a way to represent the missing.