Art Event #2

Artist Dr. Andrea Guinta came to speak about her work last week.  She is a cultural activist from Argentina and attended the Univeristy of Buenos Aires.  She has curated and contributed to many art exhibitions.  In her work she focuses on the visual culture and human rights, and she shows how art is a highly effective way of communicating political messages. 

Dr. Guinta started off by showing newspaper clips of people who have disappeared or have been abducted.  She pointed out that the kidnappings were typically young adults in college or in their early 20’s.  Dr. Guinta believes that neither forgetting nor forgiving will do anything to help the abduction issue and what’s done is done.  She went on to explain that all of the people who were abducted were a part of a certain political party.  These young people were called The Peronist Youth, and were the ones who supported the leadership and the views of their president Juan Peron.  The president reached out to factory workers and tried to help them.  Thus, he was supported by the factory workers, but not by the higher classes.  During Juan Peron’s presidency, the country survived an inflation period, but he was eventually taken out of office by a military coup that destroyed all evidence and anything associated with his social or political movements.

Dr. Giunta showed pictures of an exhibit displaying the photos of kidnapped faces.  It was pretty moving because there were so many faces, and they were exhibited beautifully; in one horizontal like across the middle of all the walls.  People always hear about the numbers and they may think the number is high, but to see each number as a photo of a kidnapped person, and each photo taking up space on the wall, it is a bit overwhelming but it is more effective than simply stating the number. 

Dr. Guinta showed drawings of the abducted people, some with the caption “Con Vida” meaning “with life.”  She also showed two photos of families in their houses in 1977.   The photographer went back in 2008 and had the families pose in the same spot that the earlier picture was taken.  In each picture there was one person missing who was a victim of the “disappearances.” She showed the photos together, which evoked sadness in the audience.  Dr. Guinta also had people sit on steps in the shape of two mapped out faces and took Arial photos.  These faces were faces of kidnapped victims.

Dr. Guinta's art and the work she showed from other artists are similar to my work in that it is focused on portraits.  However, much of the work she spoke of was photography related, whereas mine is not.  Her work is similar to a previous visiting artist Mirta Kupferminc, in that both artists focus on tragic events and their effects.