Nunca Más

I just realized that being on vacation in San Francisco during the time the final assignment is due was not the best planning on my part. Luckily I have access to the Internet now, even just for a few short minutes.

Oh, this class. I’m really glad I decided to take Writing 340 during the summer; I don’t know how I would have been able to survive with all the assignments from my 5 other classes that I would probably be taking. Although there was a lot of work, I definitely learned a lot, mainly having to do with research, and most importantly, my area of study. Officially, I am a Fine Arts major, but my concentration is in graphic design. I don’t consider myself the artist type, and I really don’t know much about art outside the graphic design field. That’s why I decided to focus my papers (except the first one) on the Fine Arts world. I definitely wanted to challenge myself with a subject that, although so close to me, is also very unknown to me. For example, for the second paper, I wrote on the conflict between Pope Julius II and Michelangelo during the painting of the Sistine Chapel. Three summers ago I had the chance to visit Rome and go see the amazing fresco in person. During my research, I developed a greater understanding of the work, and more importantly, a greater respect for the role of the artist during a time when painting was a craft, nothing more than manual labor.

Through this class and the required research, I’ve really come to understand the importance of art in the world. Of course, I always knew that art was important, but I never really realized how much it could affect society, politics and culture.

With this last post, I leave you with a quote to ponder:
“Art will remain the most astonishing activity of mankind born out of struggle between wisdom and madness, between dream and reality in our mind.”
— Magdalena Abakanowicz

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Here’s a short documentary about Argentina’s Dirty War. Being a British production, I can’t help but think that it’s a bit slanted against Argentina. The U.K. and Argentina have very poor relations, mainly because of the Guerra de las Malvinas (The Falklands War), which took place during the dictatorship.

What’s really interesting is that in all of my research of the dictatorship, many of my sources said that the military was ordered to capture leftist guerrillas/communists, but never did I see mentioned the ERP, which was the military branch of the communist Workers’ Revolutionary Party. This group is known to have tortured and murdered as many people, with some estimates as high as 1500, although the ERP does not admit to any of that.

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One current artist whose work is centered around the dictatorship is Gustavo Germano. In 1976, his brother Eduardo was abducted in the province of Rosario, Argentina. In 2006 in memory of the thirtieth anniversary of the dictatorship, Germano developed a new photography project that he called Ausencias (Absences). This exhibition is an homage to the 30,000 people that were taken and killed by the military government. The project consists of seven diptych photographs. Germano asked friends and family for photos taken before their loved ones went missing that included the missing person. In each pair, the first photograph is a picture taken before the dictatorship, while the second one had been taken just recently. The second photograph recreates the scene and composition of the first, except that the desaparecidos are not in them. In the images below, the left photograph shows two brothers running down a hill. In the photograph on the right, we see the same scene, minus the brother on the left. The empty space and the gray hair of the remaining brother show the passing of time and the losses in Argentina’s history. Only through the duality of this exhibition, through past/present, presence/absence and remembering/forgetting, do Germano’s photographs work to bring the ‘piercing’ memories of the “past into the present of absences.”

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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.

Siluetas (ESMA)

Siluetas

Drawing the Siluetas

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The military government ended in 1983.  Democratic elections were held and Raul Alfonsin was elected president of Argentina. Early into his presidency, Alfonsin established a national commission to investigate war crimes (CONADEP); the atrocities that were uncovered by this commission sent shock waves around the world. As a result of this investigation, many leaders in the military junta were charged and convicted of human rights crimes, including the military leader Jorge Rafael Videla. However, in reaction to these human rights trials, a series of uprisings were instigated by the Argentine army. These rebellions ultimately led to presidential pardons in1989 for those convicted of war crimes as well as the military personnel involved in the uprisings. It was not until 2005 that the pardons were declared void by Argentina’s Supreme Court, and then in 2006 the first trials since the repeal of the pardon laws began. The first trial involved Miguel Etchecolatz who was the police commissioner of Buenos Aires during the 1970s. He was charged and convicted on multiple counts of murder and torture despite the disappearance of an important witness who went missing just hours before his testimony. Amnesty issues as well as general government secrecy over the details of the Dirty War continue to plague Argentine society. The 2006 disappearance of a war crimes witness suggests that it is still not safe for victims to come forward. The Madres of the Plaza de Mayo also continue their weekly vigils in downtown Buenos Aires which they began in the 1980s to remind the public that their children and grandchildren are still missing, and that the government has failed to provide information about what happened to them. The Madres sometimes attach photographs or silhouettes of the missing to their own maternal bodies as a reminder that the abducted are human beings.

Following the demise of the military dictatorship, Argentina’s artists were able to express themselves more freely without fear of extreme government retaliation. Their work became more explicit statements of their anguish and anger over the events of the War and the widespread abductions and killings. For instance, the work of Juan Pablo Renzi both during and after the dictatorship, shows very different light bulbs (Images below). Although artwork is always subject to interpretation by the observer, this light bulb appears to be an open expression of anger and desperation. It is literally exploding with color and heavy, jagged lines, and stands in contrast to the subdued and realistic light bulb from before. During this transition period, artwork appears to have re-emerged as a means of emotional expression and also a vehicle for protest against the authoritarianism and secrecy of the new government.

"Mirando el cielorraso" Juan Pablo Renzi, 1978

"Mirando el cielorraso" Juan Pablo Renzi, 1985

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“Let there be no healing of wounds, let them remain open.”
— The Madres of the Plaza de Mayo

I’ve finally nailed down what the thesis for my fourth paper will be. Before, I had a general idea of what I wanted to write about, but the topics I would cover were a bit scattered. While my paper will have a general theme of art as protest in reaction to the Argentine dictatorship, there will be a focus on contemporary art and current protests.

Argentina’s dictatorship began in 1976 under Jorge Rafael Videla. The military targeted Argentine citizens that were activists, students, journalists, Peronist guerrillas and anyone who was known or even suspected of being a subversive. Many innocent people were kidnapped and held in clandestine prisons, tortured and killed. Many others were forced into exile, either by the government, or through self-exile. Artists that stayed in Argentina had to be secretive in their practices so they would not be discovered and abducted. These artists had to embed their anti-dictatorship sentiments into their artworks through the use of metaphors, like Diana Dowek did in her painting, Paisaje. The hole in the chain link fence symbolizes faith and hope for escape from prison, both physical and mental.

"Paisaje" Diana Dowek, 1977

The dictatorship ended over 30 years ago, but the quote above remains the attitude of many contemporary Argentine artists. A memorial sculpture park in Buenos Aires is currently under construction and has generated considerable discussion about how best to remember the dead and the disappeared. Many people who have lost family or friends during the Dirty War are afraid that this park is an assumption that those who had disappeared are all dead, and the public is not ready to accept that until the government gives answers as to what happened during that dark time.

Another example of public protest/art is the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo. The Madres of the Plaza de Mayo continue their weekly vigils in downtown Buenos Aires which they began in 1983 to remind the public that their children and grandchildren are still missing, and that the government has failed to provide information about what happened to them. The Madres commonly attach photographs or silhouettes of the missing to signs and pickets, or even their own maternal bodies as a reminder that the abducted are human beings.

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Through my research, I’ve come across many interesting images of different works from during and immediately after the dictatorship. The visible differences between them are quite obvious. Here are a few examples:

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Like for my last paper, I’ve been going back and forth between the two ideas that I had for this paper, but I have finally come to a decision. In a broad sense, I will be combining my field of fine arts art with something I never thought I’d revisit after a GE freshman year: Politics.  I will be writing about art and the Argentine dictatorship of 1976-1983, more specifically what strategies artists used to get around the severe censorship of the dictatorship.

Between 1976 and 1983, Argentina was under a cruel military dictatorship, and a war broke out between the government and the people of Argentina. This war was called la guerra sucia, or the Dirty War, which was a period of state-sponsored violence. Victims of the Dirty War were primarily left-wing activists, including journalists, artists, students and Marxists and Peronists. These people were taken secretly by soldiers dressed as civilians from their houses and held in clandestine prisons all around the country (primarily in the capital Buenos Aires) and brutally tortured most-likely killed. The estimate for the number of victims ranges everywhere from 9,000 to 30,000, with the government’s accepted estimate of about 15,000. The reason that the exact number is not known is that the government didn’t keep any records of prisoners. These people were taken by “civilians” and kept in secret prisons, the largest of which was the basement of one of the Navy buildings in Buenos Aires, which was still in normal use during this time. The prisoners were tortured severely and killed. Many were flown over the ocean and thrown out of the plane into the water so their bodies would never be found.

While this subject is not directly personal to me, I do have an emotional connection with it. When I was living in Buenos Aires, I stayed with a host family. One night at dinner we started talking about our families, and my host father became quiet and told us that his brother and sister-in-law were taken in early September of 1977 from their homes in a city north of Buenos Aires. The wife was released alive a full year later, but the brother was never heard from again.

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I’ve been having a bit of trouble deciding on the topic of my second paper, but I’ve narrowed it down to two ideas, both of which seem equally as interesting. This past semester I took an Art History class that explored the connection between Art and society and the effects they have on each other. For the paper, I thought it would be fun to write about how the role of the artist changed during the Renaissance. Before, artists were not seen as “artists,” but as craftsmen. Art was a patronage business back then. Artists were hired by clients (the rich) to paint for them whatever they outlined in a contract, which not only included subject matter, but also colors and materials used in the painting. The artist was not “allowed” to show his imagination and creativity. During the Renaissance, this all started to change; artists started painting just to paint, and people bought these paintings because they saw creativity in them. This is a pretty broad topic, especially for a 7-page paper, so in order to condense it, I would probably focus on Michelangelo, primarily on his relation with the Pope in painting the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo was commissioned to paint it even though he specifically told the Pope that he was a sculptor, not an artist. The Pope even hit Michelangelo when he refused!

My other idea also stems from a Public Art Studies class also from last semester called Art in the Public Realm. For our final paper, we had to write a 12-page curatorial proposal for an exhibition of an artist we had interviewed earlier in the semester. One topic that we had to consider was the struggle for control between the curator and artist in the creation of the exhibition. It is the curator that usually plans and proposes the exhibition, but he also has to decide how much say the artist is going to have in the matter. The curator may have one idea about which artworks to show, but the artist may disagree in that it goes against her vision or philosophy. The artist would love to have complete control over which works go into the show, but obviously that is not always an option. Both the artist and the curator have to struggle (usually) to come to a compromise over the amount of influence each will have in the matter. A subtopic for this is the idea of “artist as curator,” that the artist plans out their own exhibitions, a trend that is becoming ever more popular these days.

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