The Reina Sofía Museum defends the responses of popular and engaged art against dictatorships, violence and repression in the Americas | Posters, banners, t-shirts or handkerchiefs denounce crimes and claim rights
Graphic art was and is an effective counterforce and contesting tool. Especially in Latin America. During the second half of the 20th century, and so far into the 21st, left-wing and right-wing dictatorships, their abuses and blatant violations of human rights, have taken place in many countries of the Americas. Graphic art has been a popular, cheap and effective counter to crime, torture, arbitrariness, repression and discrimination in countries such as Argentina, Chile, Nicaragua, Cuba, Honduras or Uruguay. Also in the United States, an exemplary democracy that has suffered from Trump’s totalitarian populism and a brutal attack on Congress.
And that popular, militant, rabid and rebellious art is what makes the ‘Graphic Turn. Like the ivy on the wall’, which brings together several hundred pieces in the Reina Sofía Museum from today until October 13, with the common denominator of dispute, criticism, condemnation and justification.
They are posters, banners, t-shirts, handkerchiefs, photos, leaflets and a varied range of objects used by movements that, for example, preserve the memory of the victims of the bloody dictatorships in Chile, Argentina, Peru or Uruguay. Also by defenders of the rights of indigenous peoples, ‘queer’ or feminist activists. Some indictment activities that also generate performances or street actions by groups “constituting a complex series of experiences crisscrossed by ties of solidarity, affinity and influence between the different countries covered in the exhibition”.
‘Como en el pared la hiedra’ refers to a verse from the song ‘Volver a los seventeen’ by Chilean singer-songwriter Violeta Parra, which inspired the lengthy research underlying the exhibition. “Graphics grow on the walls and, like ivy, sprout again and again because in this cyclical time things didn’t happen, they keep happening, crisscrossing and moving,” say those responsible for the exhibition.
The exhibition is the result of a long process of collective research carried out by the so-called ‘Network of Conceptualisms of the South’ in collaboration with the museum under the direction of Manuel Borja-Villel. It proposes a journey through the graphic initiatives that have confronted the context of politically oppressive urgencies in America from 1960 to today, articulating strategies of transformation and resistance that have radically changed the ways of doing things, their way of forging intersubjective bonds. community, even the dissemination of graphic media,” explains Argentine Ana Longoni. Together with Cuban Tamara Díaz, Brazilian André Mesquita, Argentine Guillermina Mongan and Colombian Sylvia Suárez, she is one of the trustees.
To show how these collective procedures “made visible the different societal demands”, materials and slogans “of rapid and efficient circulation beyond art” are used, the curators explain. They have brought together pieces of widely divergent origins “that share in common both the precariousness of the components and the media, as well as their graphical and distribution potential that activates them as revolutionary triggers,” explains Mesqita.
The exhibition understands the concept of graphic work “in the extended sense” and the idea of turning “as an insurrection, a challenge to power and a reversal of what is given”. For example, “from spaces of conversation, consultation and consultation” the links between art and politics are promoted, which are propagated by, among others, AIDA, Alvorada, Cromoactivismo, Fugitives of the Desert, Iconoclasists or La Voz de la Mujer. And especially to artists, often anonymously – “inexorable proof of the popular manifestation”, say the curators – and sometimes to recognized creators, such as Julio Le Parc or Luis Felipe Noé.
The show continues the exhibition ‘Losing the human form. A seismic image of the eighties in Latin America’, which the Reina Sofía organized ten years ago together with the workshops that were part of the program ‘Graphic eruptions of 2020’.
Source: La Verdad
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
