Political Bodies, Territories in Conflict

Curator: Fernando Davis

Carlos Ginzburg, Luis Pazos, Juan Carlos Romero, Edgardo Antonio Vigo, Horacio Zabala

The convulsed scenario that took shape in Argentina in the nineteen-sixties and early seventies was characterized by growing political radicalization and confrontation, sparking and mobilizing the realms of visual art. In this context, art and politics seemed to beat at the same (accelerated) pace: in their bid to intervene in the dizzying course of a traversed history. In March 1976, yet another military coup brutally cancelled that political project. During those years, art had to articulate new critical strategies with which to resist or survive the horror unleashed by state terrorism.

Body and territory were the two principal dimensions invoked by the avant-garde in response to this state of affairs. The body was interpreted as a dispositif of political action that was capable of fracturing and subverting the precepts of meaning imposed by the repressive apparatus. The practice of “signaling” urban space set out to tactically dismantle its measured order, introducing a poetic dérive where the urban economy was naturalizing complex power relations, establishing hierarchies, and drawing boundaries and itineraries.

In this sense, body and territory designed a double-faced mobile cartograph that inscribed its critical breadth and depth in the multiplied citing of the violence and in undermining governmental order, by means of semantic dissolution and the disordering of meaning activated by poetic alterity.
(Fernando Davis)

WORKS
All texts unless otherwise noted: Fernando Davis

CARLOS GINZBURG (*1946 in La Plata, lives in Paris)

Árbol (Tree), 1970
Photos from the exhibition Escultura, Follaje y Ruidos (Sculpture, Foliage and Noises), Plaza Rubén Darío, Buenos Aires, each 8 x 24 cm, Courtesy: Carlos Ginzburg
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Ginzburg’s intervention at Sculpture, Foliage and Noises consisted of affixing a sign on Plaza Rubén Darío’s trees printed with the word “Árbol” (tree).

Vivienda otoñal (Autumn Housing), 1971
Photo and Text, 18 x 24 cm, Courtesy: Carlos Ginzburg
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Ginzburg wrote about this work: “My very clean and bourgeois house, located at 462 9 Street, was occupied by the wind and autumn leaves. I threw hundreds of dried leaves into every space in my house, taking possession of tables, beds, all parquet and tiled flooring, bathroom (...), wardrobes, TV, radio, bookshelves, refrigerator, record player, paintings and sculptures, boiler, kitchen and other obvious sectors in a house. I also covered myself with autumn leaves. For about an hour I carried out my daily life normally, but invaded by leaves. The experience culminated with the arrival of my family and their insults and desperation caused by my work.”

Tierra (Earth), 1971
Photos from the exhibition Arte de Sistemas (Systems Art), Museo de Arte Moderno/CAYC, Buenos Aires, 24 x 18 cm, Courtesy: Carlos Ginzburg
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In July 1971, Ginzburg participated in the exhibition Systems Art in the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires. Ginzburg placed two large posters on the wall of a wasteland, located in front the museum displaying the following text: “An unexpected aesthetic experience is being developed inside here. But . . . what does it consist of? In order to get to know the hidden work, you are invited to go up to the ninth floor of the Museo de Arte Moderno, Corrientes 1530 (right in front), and discover, looking through the upper window, what is in fact on the ground.” It was the word “Tierra” (earth).

Ginzburg: 10 ideas de arte pobre (Ginzburg: 10 Ideas of poor Art), 1971
Portfolio with ten projects, Ed. La Flaca Grabada, La Plata, Courtesy: Centro de Arte Experimental Vigo, La Plata
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The portfolio Ginzburg: 10 Ideas of poor Art includes a sequence of “ecological art” projects introduced by a selection of texts by the Italian critic Germano Celant about Arte Povera. Some of these projects (none of them carried out) suppose violent destructions of nature disturbing its designation as “ecological”: like the proposal to melt several Antarctic icebergs with a flamethrower, or to evaporate Nahuel Huapi Lake, located in Argentinean Patagonia.

HEXÁGONO ’71
Artist publication, Ed. Edgardo Antonio Vigo, Courtesy: Centro de Arte Experimental Vigo, La Plata
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Edgardo Vigo edited the experimental journal Hexágono ’71 from 1971 to 1975. Toward 1973 it was launched as a platform of circulation of essays, “projects to be undertaken,” “poor” graphic material, mail art, señalamientos, and political slogans brought together in loose sheets and diverse formats, without any apparent order, inside an envelope.

LUIS PAZOS (*1940 in La Plata, lives in La Plata)

Monumento al prisionero político desaparecido (Monument to the Disappeared Political Prisoner), 1972
Photo of the exhibition Arte e Ideología en CAYC al aire libre (Art and Ideology. CAYC in the Open Air), Plaza Roberto Arlt, Buenos Aires,24 x 18 cm, Courtesy: the artist
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In September 1972, Pazos participated in the exhibition Art and Ideology: CAYC in the Open Air with three tombstones entitled Monument to the Disappeared Political Prisoner. During the exhibition, three anonymous persons lay down in front the tombstones, occupying the place of the absent bodies. Several works from the exhibition referred to the massacre of Trelew, the shooting of sixteen guerrillas imprisoned in a prison in Rawson in retaliation for an escape attempt. The exhibition was closed by police two days after its opening and the works were abducted.

Transformaciones de masas en vivo (Transformations of Living Masses), 1973
Series of 8 photos, 36 x 24 cm, Photos: Carlos Mendiburu Eliçabe, Courtesy: the artist
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Transformations of Living Masses is a sequence of photographs of “live sculptures,” in which a group of Edgardo Vigo’s students designed with their bodies, in accordance with instructions given by Pazos, an average repertoire of forms. An order to the bodies was not only reflected in the police or military repression, but also in the disciplinary order at the interior of revolutionary armed organizations. Luis Pazos presented the work in the context of the exhibition Art in Change, initiated within several days of Héctor Cámpora’s assumption of the presidency and the amnesty granted to the political prisoners.

JUAN CARLOS ROMERO (*1931 in Avellaneda, lives in Buenos Aires)

Segmento de línea recta (Segment of Straight Line), 1972 / 2009
6 photographs (with felt tip), each 36 x 24 cm, Courtesy: the artist
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The artist wrote about this work: "Taking as a point of departure the shortest distance (a segment of a straight line), the linking of places in the city of Buenos Aires that have a direct impact on me and on the spectator by way of objective facts or other events of a subjective nature. Relations: (A) A place where I carry out my everyday activities as an expert in electronic communications and obtain some of what I need to live; (B) A place where I show part of my artistic output; (C) A place where I show the other part of my artistic output; (D) The place where they reside, until the courts determine their final destination, arrested on what the police regard as serious charges..."

Destrucción y exaltación del cuerpo (Destruction and Exaltation of the Body) I–III, 1972
3 Photocopies on cardboard, each 70 x 80 cm, Courtesy: Private collection
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In Destructin and Exaltation of the Body, Romero contrasts the picture (taken from graphic media) of an agonized or dead man with an advertisement for a pornographic film, which shows the embracing and naked bodies of a man and a women next to the word “Prohibido!” (prohibited!).
A third panel displays a quote from Dialectic of Enlightenment by Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno: “The love-hate relationship with the body colors all more recent culture. The body is scorned and rejected as something inferior, and at the same time desired as something forbidden, objectified, and alienated . . . The love of nature and destiny expressed in totalitarian propaganda is simply a veiled reaction to failed civilization. Men cannot escape from their body and sing its praises when they cannot destroy it. The ‘tragic’ philosophy of the Fascist is the ideological party which precedes the real blood wedding.” (Adorno/Horkheimer)

El juego lúgubre (The Gloomy Play), 1972
Foto; Text in the catalogue of the exhibition Arte e Ideología en CAYC al aire libre (Art and Ideology. CAYC in the Open air), 16,4 x 22,5 cm, Courtesy: the artist
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The artist wrote about this work: „Using a rope in the form of a loop with a sliding knot at the upper end and at the lower part ending in a point. Two players (A) and (B) are needed. How to Play: The two players must be dialectical opposites. Player (A) will be at the upper end of the rope with (B), of whom there are many, at the lower end. In order for (A) to obtain a forfeit on and go in the slipknot he or she has to confront (B), that are many, and have attitudes opposed to his or her interests. After obtaining the forfeit, the person who was (A) may not play again”.

Violencia (Violence), 1973
Photo of the exhibition Violencia (Violence), CAYC, Courtesy: the artist
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In April 1973, Romero occupied the headquarters of the CAYC with an installation entitled Violencia (Violence). He covered the walls and floor of the main exhibition room with posters sporting the word “Violencia”; in a second space, he brought together fragments of texts by various authors, proposed as partial definitions of the terms; finally, in a third sector, the artist displayed front covers of a sensationalist magazine, with photographs of the police repression in Argentina, and the word “violence” reiterated in bold headlines.

Los juegos diabólicos (The Diabolical Games), 1976
6 Photos, Courtesy: Private collection
Los emergentes (The Emergents), 1976
6 Photos, Courtesy: Private collection
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In The Diabolical Games a group of children are dragging each other through the grass; in The Emergents they are coming out of the river at Hudson Beach. In contrast with other projects by the artist in which violence is referred to directly, in these works Romero alludes to it in a more subtle way.

Violencia (Violence), 1977
Artist book, Courtesy: the artist
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In 1977 Juan Carlos Romero secretly made an artist book in which he revived several elements presented in his production from the early years of the decade: For example a text taken from Leonardo Da Vinci’s Breviarios (Breviaries) (1492), which Romero distributed during 1972 in a series of flyers, where violence is characterized as consisting of four elements: weight, force, motion, and impact.

EDGARDO ANTONIO VIGO (1928-1997, La Plata)

Señalamiento I: Manojo de semáforos (A Handful of Traffic Lights), 1968
Photo, 24 x 36 cm, Courtesy: Centro de Arte Experimental Vigo, La Plata
Manifiesto: Primera No-Presentación Blanca (Manifesto: First White Non-Presentation), 1968
3 paper objects, each 22,7 x 34,8 cm, Courtesy: Centro de Arte Experimental Vigo, La Plata
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In October 1968, through local media, Vigo made the surprising announcement of his first señalamiento entitled A Handful of Traffic Lights. The proposal consisted of a precise action: to sign an ordinary urban object (traffic lights) from the point of view of its aesthetic potential. In Manifesto: First White Non-Presentation, he wrote: “The practical-utilitarian functionality of some constructions must be signed and thus produce questions that (...)  approach (...) from an aestetic digression (...).

Obras (in) completas ([In] Complete Works), 1969
Mail Art, Courtesy: Centro de Arte Experimental Vigo, La Plata
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In 1969 Edgardo Vigo started his “projects to realize.” One of the first consisted of the distribution by post—to a group of artists and friends—of an envelope with four labels printed with the legend (In) Complete Works, including instructions for their free use: “You are receiving these four headings of the (In) Complete Works respecting the theory of an art of participation and a transfer of some percentages of the creation. Place them where you desire.”

Señalamiento V: Un paseo visual a la Plaza Rubén Darío (A Visual Walk around Plaza Rubén Darío), 1970
Postcard; 2 photos of the exhibition Escultura, Follaje y Ruidos (Sculpture, Foliage and Noises), each 24 x 18 cm, Courtesy: Centro de Arte Experimental Vigo, La Plata
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In 1970 Vigo participated in the exhibition Sculpture, Foliage and Noises, organized in the Plaza Rubén Darío in Buenos Aires. Vigo distributed among the audience a piece of chalk and a printed card with the “minimum keys” of a “project to be undertaken: “take a piece of chalk, and use it to mark a cross or the limit of one or several paving stones, or chalk up the surface determined by you. Place yourself in the demarked area and turn around 360°, note what you have seen, draw your conclusions. Ultimately you have made A Visual Walk around Plaza Rubén Darío.”

Señalamiento IX: Enterramiento y desenterramiento de un taco de madera (Burial and Exhumation of a Wooden Piece), 1971-1972
Photos: Juan José Esteves, each 24 x 18 cm, Courtesy: Centro de Arte Experimental Vigo, La Plata
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Señalamiento IX articulates two sequences of actions having taken place, in each case, before two “eyewitnesses.” The first stage of the action was held on December 28, 1971. Vigo marked an area of his studio’s patio with a banderole showing an arrow that was pointing toward a specific place. There he dug a hole and buried a wooden piece of cedar. Than he edited a documentation with his signature and that of the two witness who attested that it had happened. Also, Vigo assumed the commitment of exhuming the object the following year, on the same date, at the same hour. Thus, on December 28, 1972 the second stage of Señalamiento IX took place: Vigo proceeded to exhume the wooden piece. In the act was written: “I certify presently that Edgardo Antonio Vigo has proceeded in the property located at 1187 15 Street in La Plata City, on December 28, 1972 at 7 p.m., to exhume a wooden piece of cedar whose dimensions are 7 x 14 x 28 centimeters, executing the acquired commitment when it took place on December 28, 1971 at 7 PM its burial, concluding this way the called Ninth Señalamiento '71–72.” Both acts were later signed by a notary.
Señalamiento IX appropriates the bureaucratic conventions of the judicature exposing its codes and protocols. At the same time, in years of growing political conflict, the two actions seem to have advanced the even more violent years yet to come, where countless people disappeared and people to defense themlseves buryied books that could endanger their lives or those of their dear and fellow beings.

HORACIO ZABALA  (*1943 in Buenos Aires, lives in Buenos Aires)

Este papel es una cárcel / This Paper Is a Jail, 1972
Photo, 24 x 18 cm, Courtesy: the artist
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In 1972 Zabala had a photograph taken of his hand while writing the sentences “Este papel es una cárcel. This paper is a jail” on a piece of paper.

Art Is a Jail, 1972
Paper work, 110 x 35 cm, Courtesy: the artist
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Art Is a Jail shows the repeated impressions of a rubber stamp superimposed on tracing paper, replicating the title of the work.

Revisar / Censurar (Checking/Censuring), 1974
Paper work, 5 pieces, each 15,5 x 23 cm, Courtesy: the artist
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The works presents a sequence of school maps of South America, being intervened upon by the repeated imprint of two rubber stamps with the words “Revisar” (checking) and “Censurar” (censuring). The last map of the series is covered almost entirely by the stamps.

300 metros de cinta negra para enlutar una plaza pública (300 Meters of Black Ribbon to Put a Public Square into Mourning), 1972
Photo of the exhibition Arte e Ideología en CAYC al aire libre (Art and Ideology. CAYC in the Open Air), 23,6 x 16 cm, Courtesy: the artist
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Zabala’s intervention in Art and Ideology: CAYC in the Open Air consisted of three hundred meters of black plastic ribbon with which he surrounded the perimeter wall of the square at which the exhibition was being held.

Anteproyecto..., 1974
Series, pencil on tracing paper, each 35 x 50 cm, Courtesy: the artist
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Anteproyecto de cárcel sobre columna para artistas
Draft of a prison on column for artists

Anteproyecto de cárcel subterránea para artistas
Draft of an underground prison for artists

Anteproyecto de cárcel flotante para artistas
Draft of a floating prison for artists