Full transcript
0:07Okay, welcome everyone.
0:10As people are signing on and settling
0:13in, I just uh want to thank everyone for
0:16your patience. I know we're a few
0:18minutes after the hour. We are just
0:21trying to connect to the audio for Lucy
0:24Lupard and it's just taking a few
0:26minutes. We're still working on it, but
0:28we will get it all set up uh
0:30momentarily. And in the meantime, we're
0:33going to go ahead and get started.
0:36All right. Um
0:38well, welcome.
0:43And on behalf of the Association for
0:45Latin American Art, known as ALA, I want
0:49to extend a very warm welcome to our
0:52members, to everyone who's joining us
0:54today. Um, thank you all so much for
0:57being here. We have a wonderful program
0:59in store for you. Um, my name is Lesie
1:03Wolf. I'm the president of ALA and it's
1:06my great pleasure to welcome you to this
1:08third and final program in this year's
1:10book launch summer series. These virtual
1:13events are an opportunity for us to
1:15celebrate the breadth of new scholarship
1:17being published by our members and to
1:20engage in dialogue about how their
1:22research expands Latin American art
1:24history in exciting new directions. If
1:27you weren't able to join us for the
1:29first two book launches that we had uh
1:31previously this summer, I warmly invite
1:34you to watch the recordings on our new
1:36YouTube page. And I really hope that
1:38you'll take a moment to subscribe and
1:40stay a breast of all the resources that
1:42we'll continue to add to the page. And
1:45if you're not already a member of Allah,
1:47I encourage you to join the association.
1:50Um we offer various programs virtual and
1:52in person throughout the year in
1:54addition to networking opportunities and
1:56many awards. And coming up this October
1:598th through 11th, our 7th trienal
2:02conference will be taking place at the
2:04University of Washington in Seattle. I'm
2:07also going to share a link to that in
2:09our chat in case you're interested in
2:12joining us. The conference is free to
2:14attend. Um, and everyone is very warmly
2:19invited. Um, we have a wonderful program
2:22lined up that includes keynote lectures
2:24from art historian Ananda Kona Ponte and
2:26artist Shory Manaya and a host of uh,
2:29wonderful presentations from our
2:31members. But we're here today to
2:34celebrate the final book launch event in
2:36our summer series. And we are honored to
2:38feature the new monograph Alfredo Jar
2:41decolonial time and the aesthetics
2:43[clears throat] of the unfinished which
2:44was published very recently by Duke
2:47University Press just last month in July
2:50by art historian Florencia San Martin
2:52who joins us today. And we invite you to
2:54purchase the book directly from Duke
2:56using the coupon code that I will also
2:59share in the chat in just a moment. and
3:01that will save you 30% off of the book's
3:04uh price. So, I'll introduce Florencia
3:07and other panelists in just a moment,
3:10but first I briefly want to just
3:13overview the program. We'll begin with a
3:15presentation by the author, Florencia
3:18Martin, followed by a conversation with
3:21our esteemed panelists. We have Lucy
3:23Leard and Maris Vila Badama joining us
3:27today. And then at the end, we'll open
3:29it up to discussion. um with the
3:31audience, a Q&A session. And so we
3:34encourage everyone to share questions,
3:37comments, thoughts in our chat
3:40throughout the program. Um and we'll
3:42return to those questions at the end of
3:45our program for the Q&A. Um and now let
3:49me introduce our speakers.
3:52Florencia San Martin is assistant
3:54professor of art history at Lehigh
3:56University. She's the author of Alfredo
3:59Jar, Decolonial Time and the Aesthetics
4:01of the Unfinished, the book we'll
4:03discuss today, and co-editor of the
4:05volumes The Rutled Companion to
4:07Decolonizing Art History, published in
4:102024, and Dismantling the Nation:
4:13Contemporary Art in Chile, published by
4:15Amherst College Press in 2023.
4:19She's also the editor of Somosia
4:25Gulp, the catalog accompanying the
4:27exhibition she co-curated in 2023 at the
4:31invitation of the Chilean government to
4:33commemorate the 50th anniversary of the
4:35military coup. Lucy R. Leard is a
4:39freelance writer, activist, and sometime
4:41curator, author of 30 books, including
4:44an experimental novel and a fiction
4:47collection. Among them are Ava Hessa,
4:50Six Years, Overlay, Contemporary Art and
4:53the Art of Prehistory, Mixed Blessings,
4:56New Art in a Multicultural America,
4:58Partial Recall, Photographs of Native
5:01North Americans, The Lore of the Local,
5:04Senses of Place in a Multi-ensor
5:06Centered Society, Down Country, The Tano
5:09of the Galiso Basin, 1250 to 1782, and
5:13most recently, Undermining, a wild ride
5:16through land use, politics, and art in
5:18the changing west and stuff instead of a
5:21memoir. She's also co-founder of several
5:24activist artist organizations including
5:27heresies, printed matter, political art
5:30documentation distribution, artists call
5:32against US intervention in Central
5:34America and impact art lab. And for 29
5:38years she has edited the monthly
5:39newsletter Elent de Galisto for the
5:42rural New Mexico village where she has
5:45lived for 33 years. We are so deeply
5:48honored to have you with us today,
5:50Maestra. And finally, Mariso Viea
5:53Bramama is an assistant professor of art
5:56history at Trinity University in San
5:58Antonio, Texas. She is a scholar of
6:01trans-Pacific art, and her research
6:03explores the artistic exchanges between
6:06Latin America and East Asia after World
6:08War II via international leftist
6:10networks. Her current book project
6:12examines Chilean artist Jose
6:14Venturelli's murals and prints in Chile,
6:18China, Cuba, East Germany, and
6:20Switzerland from the 1940s until the
6:221980s. Thank you all so much for being
6:25with us today. And with that, I will
6:27turn it over to Florencia to share a bit
6:30about her recent publication.
6:33Thank you so much to the [clears throat]
6:35Association of Latin American Art for
6:38inviting me today to present the book.
6:40Thank you Leslie, Marisol, Gabriella,
6:42and Joanna. And I want to also offer my
6:46deep, deep, deep gratitude to the
6:49amazing Lucy Leard for being here today.
6:52Um, I became aware of Lucy's writing
6:55when I was an art student in Chile and
6:58her theories on dematerialization and
7:00her very famous trip to Argentina were
7:02sort of a topic of conversation in the
7:05hallway in a sort of conceptually driven
7:07school such as the one that I attended.
7:09But it was really in the 2017 2018
7:13academic year when I had the immense
7:16privilege to spend
7:18>> not only um days um by multiple weeks
7:23with Lucy's archive and that archive in
7:26that archive I was able to find this
7:28very rich immense material on
7:31transnational solidarity which was which
7:33was super important for the debates on
7:36the book. So um very um very very uh
7:41briefly the book um in the book I
7:43examine the work of Alfredo Jar through
7:46the um the paradigm of the colonial time
7:50and what I call the aesthetic of the
7:51unfinished. What I try to do in the book
7:54is to um talk about the ways in which
7:56the military coup in Chile affect Jar's
7:59art but also the imposition of
8:01neoliberalism which was first
8:04implemented in Chile as the laboratory
8:06of the world and then all over the
8:07world. So how that neoliberal model
8:11therefore how that war um has been
8:14informing Jar to create his work not
8:17only in relationship to Chile and the
8:18Americas but also the world. So I'm
8:21going to start by reading um a fragment
8:24from the conclusion. The book has three
8:27chapters uh morning accountability and
8:30failure and a conclusion that is titled
8:32the end of the world. But I wanted to
8:34start with the conclusion because
8:35there's nothing really conclusive in the
8:37conclusion which is titled the end of
8:39the world but it's sort of an invitation
8:41for a new beginning.
8:44Um so I'm going to read for about uh 8
8:47minutes and then we're going to start
8:48the conversation.
8:50Um, in the fall of 2024, while working
8:53on revisions for this book, I met with
8:56German human rights attorney Wolf Gang
8:58Khal at a small cafe in Berlin. Best
9:02known for representing the former
9:03national security agency intelligence
9:06contractor and whistblower Edward
9:08Snowden. Khal has been prosecuting war
9:11criminal through universal jurisdiction
9:13for more than 30 years.
9:16Considering his collaboration with
9:18Alfredo Jar in 2012 when they printed
9:21the phrase arrest Kissinger in three
9:23major newspapers,
9:25I wanted to learn more about the
9:27intersection of culture and justice from
9:29the perspective of the law and about
9:31Chile's historical and symbolic role in
9:34this context. There is a before and an
9:37after Pinot's arrest in London for
9:40crimes against humanity in 1998. He told
9:43me at the beginning of our meeting that
9:46marked an important present for what
9:48many human rights lawyers are doing
9:50today. He said that present mean hope. I
9:55thought hope for instance. Um but that
10:00hope had a um it wasn't complete.
10:04Pinoted, for instance, the famous
10:06fascist general that led the Chilean
10:08dictatorship, managed to avoid a trial
10:10in Europe and he died in Santiago in 20
10:13in 2006 without being condemned. He was
10:1792 years old and while the government in
10:19office um denied him a state a state
10:23funeral, he was still mourned with the
10:25symbolic honors of an army general by
10:28nearly 60,000 tearful Chileans.
10:31>> [snorts]
10:31>> Meanwhile, at Pinotet's wake, the
10:33Cardinal Archie Bishop of Santiago,
10:35Francisco Havier Rasuri, state, and I
10:38quote, "We thank God for all the
10:40qualities he gave to the general and all
10:42the good that Pino did for our country."
10:45End quote. In the unchanged narrative of
10:48modernity or in a world of lineal times,
10:52so the story goes, only those who France
10:54Fannon called the ratchet of the earth
10:57are subject to the punishments of the
10:59law. And in Latin America specifically,
11:02as the uh um Argentinian writer Horgeis
11:05Bourhees says, apherisms such as Hegel's
11:08the state is the reality of the moral
11:10ideals strike us as sinister jokes,
11:14[snorts] centering our conversation in
11:16such irony. Khal, who is also the
11:19founder and general secretary of the
11:20European Center of Constitutional and
11:22Human Rights, continued, "This is why we
11:26call the work that we do at the center
11:28as interventions. We know that we are
11:30not achieving victory, but we also know
11:33that small achievements such as binoted
11:35arrest in London can do much to inform
11:38our work as lawyers and keep up soci
11:40society's hope for accountability.
11:43Accountability in the minds and hearts
11:45of anti-imperialist lawyers and
11:47resistant fighters extends beyond the
11:50court and into the public space where
11:53performativity and artistic
11:54interventions can also criminalize
11:57perpetrators in society. This is what
12:00Jar aimed in his newspaper intervention
12:03calling for the arrest of Henry
12:05Kissinger. And this is also why Khal, as
12:08he told me in our meeting, I'm
12:09interested in collaborating with artists
12:11such as Alfredo.
12:13In this book, I have argued that while
12:15justice is bound to fail, failure does
12:18not mean giving up, but continue in the
12:20struggle for accountability through
12:22interventions shaped by collective
12:24efforts and sustained by hope. I have
12:28also argued that such hope arise from
12:30those who mourn in emancipatory
12:32temporalities and those who stand in
12:34solidarity with them as well as from
12:37those with shared histories of
12:39liberation. As the Syrianborn author
12:42Shifra Safatti state in 2024,
12:45all our liberations are tied together.
12:48We are filled with hope. Or as Khal also
12:52told me in our meeting, only through the
12:55spirit of global solidarity can the
12:58fight for human rights generate the
13:00possibility of their enforcement.
13:03This conceptualization of the
13:05relationship between human rights,
13:07transnational solidarities, and
13:09transdisciplinarity
13:10recalls the three main concepts of my
13:13book. Mourning or the enacting of
13:16decolonial past, presents, and futures.
13:20accountability or the search for
13:22reciprocal enforcement and failure or
13:25what Khal called interventions in
13:28plural. They all overlap. It also
13:31recalled the work of so many poets,
13:33artists, intellectuals, activists and
13:35scholars whose theories accompanied me
13:37in the writing of this book. It recalls
13:40for instance the Chilean poet Gabriela
13:43Mistral whose poem anniversary
13:46dismantled the clock time of Gregorian
13:48calendar or the time of Kronos in Greek
13:50mythology and thus the foundation of
13:53universal history with the verse and we
13:56go on and we go on isimos isimos
14:00and it also recalls the work of Alfredo
14:02jar which I have conceptualized in this
14:05book through what I call the aesthetic
14:06of the unfinished and this is one
14:08example.
14:09a work that is titled the end of the
14:12world.
14:13At the center of the Kellis house, the
14:15main space at the Kindle, which is a
14:17contemporary art space in Berlin, is a
14:20small cube made by Jar in 2024. The cube
14:24is only 4 cm in each direction,
14:27contrasting with the colossal dimension
14:29of the space of 20 square m
14:33illuminated by multiple red uh uh uh
14:37bulbs line up along the ceiling. uh the
14:40diffused lighting of the space contrast
14:42with the single direct hard and bright
14:45source illuminating the small space or
14:47let's say the cube which is made of 10
14:51thin slides of metals including among
14:53others copper, lithium and rare earth.
14:57These metals are essential for the
14:59manufacturing and maintainance of our
15:01digital life. the production of computer
15:03chips, cables, screens, and so forth,
15:05and renewable technologies such as solar
15:08solar panels and electric vehicles, all
15:11which are connected to computers. The
15:14drive to extract precious minerals is
15:16contributing to displacement and murder.
15:19[snorts] Mining companies are profiting
15:21from ecological destruction and the
15:23devastation of black, brown, and
15:25indigenous communities. The energy
15:27transition is a contemporary form of
15:29colonialism, writes the um political
15:33geologist Adam Babed [snorts] with the
15:36cube of 10 critical minerals in Jar's
15:38work standing for the planet and the
15:40vast emptiness of the red space
15:42emphasizing the seriousness of our
15:44planet's collapse. Bavet continues, the
15:47extraction of each is the end of the
15:50world. Considering however that such
15:53extractivism has been ongoing happening
15:56in this low violence of the capital
15:59scene, the end of the world remind us of
16:02Anal Khano's statement about coloniality
16:05and the colonial resistance that I quote
16:07literally all over the bookimos
16:11advent
16:14and against he said acknowledging the
16:17ongoing catastrophe that is the world
16:19and the task of challenging this by for
16:21a means as Jar does in his project of
16:24the colonial time. From this
16:26perspective, the end of the world um
16:30affirms not so much the end of the
16:32planet and thus the end of resistance,
16:34but is a denunciation of our present
16:36global crisis.
16:39And yet, as Jar writes in an
16:42installation from 2019, we must prepare
16:45to leave again. that is to continue
16:48mourning, failing and creating in the
16:51search for accountability inhabiting the
16:54ongoing practice of hope that drives
16:56collective efforts for liberation.
16:59This is what Khal meaned at the end of
17:01our meeting in that small cafe in Berlin
17:04when he told me about the concept of
17:06concrete utopia which he developed in a
17:092024 book of the same name.
17:12Advocating for the potential of human
17:15rights to intervene in our current
17:17global crisis if they are reinvented
17:19through the re-examination of their
17:21utopian roots through feminist
17:24decolonial and echocritical
17:25interventions. Khal said and I quote,
17:28"Utopia is the right to hope." Utopia
17:33from this perspective means a way of
17:35thinking, being, and relating that
17:37acknowledges the relationalities between
17:40past, presents, and futures. Harken back
17:43to Jar's work and to the work of so many
17:46artists, writers, poets, scholars,
17:48architects, activists, stu students, and
17:51lawyers.
17:52>> [snorts]
17:52>> It recalls and honors all of those in
17:54cultures of resistance that create,
17:57remember, and imagine a world in
17:59becoming or a world in the colonial
18:02time. So that's the end of the book, but
18:05it's also an invitation to think about
18:07the book not as a book with a beginning,
18:09a middle, and an end.
18:11>> Yeah. Thank you everyone for being here.
18:14And I this reminds me to the one of the
18:16works that um Florencia discusses in
18:19this um in this book that I en enjoy
18:21reading so much um in which Jar talks I
18:25don't know if you can bring one of the
18:26slides when you show I can't go on I
18:30will go on which is one of the works
18:34that I get the most inspired with when I
18:36see know that um Jar brings us to us um
18:41from the Italian Marxist philosopher
18:42Antonio Garci
18:44via Samuel Beckett from his 1953
18:46unnameable novel and it's how um
18:51intellectuals and people are reacting
18:54towards a fascism in Italy at that time
18:56right so it's like how can we stand the
18:59situation it's impossible but we
19:01actually have to continue so for me
19:03reading this book really helped me to
19:06apply it to my situation as a personal
19:09um
19:10a personal level but also in a society
19:12so I think That's one of the main takes
19:15away that I can I can see from from
19:17reading this book and engaging with um
19:19what um Florencia uh has um investigated
19:23so well. So
19:26some of our questions uh from with Lucy
19:29were about the
19:31international solidarity networks and I
19:34think we maybe we can start from there
19:36and Florencia you mentioned at the
19:37beginning that looking at Lucy's archive
19:40was uh such a change in how you created
19:42this project and how I wonder if you can
19:45talk about how you saw that uh network
19:49in the archive if that's something that
19:50you can um share with us while we get
19:54Lucy back.
19:55>> Sure. Um, thank you so much for your
19:58words, uh, Marisol. Um, but these are
20:01some of the, uh, images that I found in
20:03the archive that really helped me to
20:05understand the fact that the coup in
20:08Chile, which happened in 1973, was not
20:12seen in the United States and the world
20:14as a sort of um, nation state event, but
20:18it was a hemispheric event. It was a
20:20global event and it was um protested
20:23from the United States as something that
20:26people thought that they also belong to.
20:29So um early on I found for instance this
20:33um archive at Luces again very vast
20:36documentation documenting different
20:38chapters of solidarity all over uh the
20:41east coast. And here we see, and this
20:44might be Lucy at the center, um how uh
20:48cultural workers in New York gather in
20:50Soho to repaint a mural that had been
20:54erased in Chile right after the coup. So
20:57right after the coup, um the you know
21:01murals made by the brigades were painted
21:05were erased with many paints, right? uh
21:08a lot of like all the literature that
21:10the left-wing literature was burned, all
21:13the poems by radical poets, all those
21:16books were burned. Uh the universities
21:19are being controlled by the military,
21:21everything was destroyed in order to
21:23start something new. The plan was to
21:25start from zero. And that's the
21:27narrative of modernity. Uh when you know
21:30the new world was discovered, uh the
21:33plan was to destroy it all so this new
21:36institution could be built. So in order
21:38to start something new, you have to
21:39destroy the past. And the book is sort
21:41of a response to that that the fact that
21:44the past can never really be deleted,
21:47can never really be erased. And that's
21:49that's why cultures of resistance are
21:52leaving that mourning in that sort of um
21:55uh ongoing remembering of the past
21:58because the past always exists even
22:00beyond the debris, right, of progressive
22:02time. So this is a great example that
22:04shows how cultures of resistance in New
22:07York even when the mural was deleted in
22:10Chile they are painting it again in New
22:13York and not um directly in the wall but
22:16in different panels. Um, so this mural
22:19was originally made by Deigriar
22:21Ramonapara and then they painted again
22:24in uh New York but in panels so that
22:26then they could all walk together as a
22:29collective and they all stand in front
22:32in the in front of the headquarters of
22:34ITT which was this telephone
22:37multinational company that had a lot to
22:39do with the um coup in the first place
22:42because their business was being
22:44threatened right with agenda revolution.
22:47So um in New York the reenactment the uh
22:52of the mural as a collective sense of
22:55solidarity for a event that was
22:58happening in our hemisphere and I'm
23:00quoting directly from Leart's archive.
23:03She mentioned this is our hemisphere. We
23:05have to do something because this is
23:07also happening here right it's a
23:09hemispheric problem. So um finding all
23:13those archives really was really
23:15illuminating to think about the global
23:18aspect of the coup and the fact that you
23:21know Chile was not this isolated case in
23:23global politics but was something that
23:26uh obviously was this would serve as as
23:28this laboratory for neoliberalism in the
23:30world but also artists knew artists knew
23:33it and they were making that visible and
23:35this is another work that I find at the
23:37archive here you have a yende this was a
23:40mural made by a collective called
23:42people's painter, a collective form in
23:44New Jersey that actually learned about
23:47the brigades by going to Till in 1972.
23:50Uh and then they came back to the United
23:52States and in Ruckers they made this
23:55mural in which you see a yende here
23:58accompanied by students and the worker
24:01and then you read you can kill a man but
24:03not an ideal like you can kill the like
24:07you can destroy the world but memory
24:09still resist. So that understanding of a
24:12decolonial time is really present in all
24:15these archives. And then I also found uh
24:18a really rich you know again and vast
24:21documentation of different exhibitions
24:23that Lucy organized uh to help victims
24:26of the regime. And here in the left this
24:28is the um poster of an exhibition
24:31organized by Lucy at the Ivankarp
24:33Gallery in Soho New York. It was titled
24:35the Chile Emergency Exhibition and it
24:39gathered uh multiple artworks and then
24:42you know from very famous artists at the
24:43time and then with that money that it
24:46was the equivalent of almost $220,000
24:50today they actually help victims of the
24:52regime to escape Chile. So these are
24:55concrete action that actually help
24:57artists that were in detention camps to
24:59leave the country. There was this is
25:02another very interesting event that
25:04happened organized by Lucy as well at uh
25:07Leon Galoop studio in LaGuardia in which
25:10people gathered to talk about what was
25:13happening in Chile. So the notion of
25:14this kind of dialogic right
25:17understanding of what was happening is
25:19super relevant also. And then not only
25:23in the 70s, so the dictatorship started
25:25in 1973, but also in the 80s when Lucy
25:29organized alongside um uh uh a cultural
25:34worker from El Salvador this massive
25:35exhibition that was called artist
25:37against us US intervention in Central
25:39America in the 80s. One of the main
25:41exhibition in the context of Ronald
25:43Reagan's war in Central America. So, one
25:46of the main exhibitions was titled La
25:48Vera America, the true avenue of the
25:51Americas. And then there were a lot of
25:53banners in the street. And one of those
25:56banners shows um sorry, I'm trying to
25:59move my my uh So, one of these banners
26:01shows uh the portrait of
26:05um Orlando
26:07um Salvador Yende at the center and
26:11Paulo Nera to the right. And Orlando
26:14Leeier was a very famous politician who
26:17during Agenda was um the cult the the
26:20ambassador of Chile in the United
26:23States. And then he went back to serve
26:25in Agenda's um government and then he
26:29was tortured and then he had he he was
26:31able to exile. He came back to the
26:33United States. Um he had a lot of tie to
26:37Congress and in 1976
26:40he was assassinated in Washington DC in
26:43the biggest international crime in the
26:44United States before 911
26:47and um he was assassinated through
26:50direct orders of Austino and actually
26:53Kissinger as recent declassification
26:56documents have shown us Kissinger knew
26:58it and he didn't prevent it. So the fact
27:01that in the 80s Lucy's organizing a show
27:05in which not only the subject matter of
27:07Central America but Central America in
27:09relationship to Chile are shown speaks
27:12about that sort of hemispheric and
27:14global history, right? That shared
27:17histories of solidarity that I try to
27:19trace.
27:20>> I mean all these things that you were
27:21telling me about like how this archive
27:24is telling a story that is so difficult
27:26to actually find now in Chile, it's
27:28incredible. So some of the um scholars
27:32working and researching in Chile often
27:34tell me that trying to do any type of
27:36research before 1973 look is similar to
27:39do archaeology work because so much has
27:42been destroyed by I mean was by by the
27:46military regime and also by people that
27:49were scared of having documents that
27:51could be um um problematic if they found
27:55them at their homes. Right. So it is
27:57really hard to to find ways of
28:00documenting these movements in Chile. So
28:05I think that this archive is a very
28:07clear example of like how can we
28:08reconstruct a story a history of another
28:10place from other places right in this
28:12case one of these will be the archive um
28:15in the US but I'm sure that similar
28:17archives can be found in other places of
28:19the world. And I also uh I mean I have a
28:23question about Chile specifically
28:24because like the the work that you do
28:26here in this is in this book. It's um so
28:30novel in the sense that is centering
28:31Chile in in the global context. It's a
28:35country that often is considered like
28:37the end of the world. Uh so different
28:39from other parts of Latin America and um
28:42very isolated too by its landscape. So
28:44we have Chile has um some people
28:46describe it as an island, right? With
28:48with the desert in the north uh with the
28:50border of the Andes on the east and um
28:54the Pacific on ocean on the west and
28:57then the glaciers even on the on the on
29:00the very south. So
29:03I want I mean for me it's a such a
29:04specific case on how
29:07an isolated place can be so connected to
29:09the world and I wonder if this this is
29:12just a a case study that could be
29:14applied to other places of to show the
29:16networks of solid solidarity around the
29:18world during the 20th century or if
29:21there's something specific in Chile that
29:23you think it's unique within these
29:25networks
29:27>> and also in the work of DAR of course.
29:31So um I have a friend and colleague uh
29:34Carl Fischer who teaches at for them
29:36that wrote a book in which he um uh
29:41conceptualize that sort of isolation in
29:43Chile or that uniqueness in Chile as a
29:45sort of a form of exceptionalism. Uh
29:48Chile is you know has the desert in the
29:50north, the Pacific Ocean and then the
29:52mountain and then the Antarctica making
29:55itself so unique. Um but that's also uh
30:00a form of exceptionalism in the sense
30:02that it tries to kind of be different
30:04than its others and there's sort of also
30:06this sort of uh racial pro problem in
30:09Chile. Um but I think that um and then
30:14there's a super interesting uh verse by
30:17the poet Nigor who said very famously
30:24we think that we are country but we are
30:25all the landscape and I think that there
30:27is an irony in that anti poem as well by
30:29the great anti poet Nikon
30:32uh that sort of uh im incons like that
30:36immense landscape that seems to sort of
30:39erase the political contingency. It's
30:42sort of a sort it's also sort of a
30:45authoritarian you know poetic that
30:48invisibleize really the polit the
30:51political contingency of the masses of
30:53the people uh in the immensity of the
30:56landscape and I think that the fact that
31:00so historically of course Chile is
31:03important in terms of neoliberalism. It
31:06was Chile where Milton Friedman, the um
31:10economist from the University of Chicago
31:12who ended up getting the Nobel Prize of
31:14economy exercised, experimented, rehears
31:19this model of neoliberalism in Chile.
31:21Like Chile was the laboratory of the
31:23world. Latin America is the United
31:25States backward backyard and um Chile in
31:29this case served as the laboratory to
31:33exercise this model and the only way in
31:35which that model could be exercised was
31:38through a harsh military regime and
31:40that's what and that's why Leelier was
31:45killed in the first place because he
31:46wrote this very famous piece at the
31:48nation and he said um repression for the
31:52majority and economic freedom, economic
31:54freedom, right? Neoliberalism for only a
31:56few are two sides of the same coin. Uh,
32:00in order to implement this new economic
32:02system, you have to kill them all. You
32:04have to make them disappear. You have to
32:06stop political descent. You have to
32:09implement a dictatorial regime.
32:10Therefore, you can start from scratch.
32:12You can start from zero. So Chile is of
32:15course important historically in that
32:18narrative but it's not more important
32:20than let's say other places in the world
32:23uh because everything at the end is
32:25connected and that's why the poetry or
32:29the theory of Gizan the poetics of
32:32relation is so important in the book as
32:33well sort of located the Caribbean in
32:35this global context in which we live in
32:38this uh interwe relationality
32:42there's nothing really that has more
32:44important than other thing but
32:45historically the case of Chile was
32:47significant in that in that specific
32:51case which is the implementation of
32:52neoliberalism. So it started in Chile,
32:55then it um in the 80s it was spread in
32:58the United States and in the UK during
33:01Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher and
33:03then in the '9s sort of all over the
33:05world and those countries that have
33:06resisted neoliberalism
33:09are accused by you know we know um so
33:14yeah Chile is important historically and
33:18then Jar happened to lead that when he
33:20was an a student of architecture.
33:23uh in 1972. So he grew up not in Chile
33:28but in the Caribbean island of MCI and
33:31he only went back to Chile in 1972 and
33:34then he applied to college and he
33:37performed well enough to enter into one
33:39of the most prestigious universities in
33:41architecture in Chile Lonia Chile and it
33:44was there that as a you know student of
33:47architecture where where he experienced
33:48the cool. So that experience of the
33:51ghoul really marked his career and then
33:53how that experience sort of was linked
33:57to other experience of neoliberalism all
33:59over the world and then that's
34:03an important um point also in the book
34:07is that the year 1992 which is of course
34:10the celebration of the 500 anniversary
34:13of the infamous you know discovery of
34:15the Americas uh but it's only there when
34:18neoliberalism became really global when
34:20discourses on globalization started
34:22emerging and it is only then is it is
34:25also then or in the years leading up to
34:28the early 90s when Jar started sort of
34:30expanding his work to this global
34:32context so with kind of like handinhand
34:35with the expansion of neoliberalism
34:40well I want to share this is a perfect
34:42moment because um I yesterday I started
34:45teaching a class on South American art
34:47and I use some of the quotes from your
34:49book from the students and uh to think
34:52about like the invention of the Americas
34:54instead of uh discovery and um the idea
34:58of like col coloniality and being and
35:01modernity being the same side of the uh
35:03two sides of the same coin right was
35:05something that for my students was very
35:07clear that they could see them and they
35:09never even thought about it some of them
35:11told me right so um thank you again for
35:14bringing that in like I think it's a
35:15very from my point of view a very useful
35:18tool to for for teaching what I'm doing
35:20right now and to bring it um in a
35:23historical context that bring us all the
35:25way until today you know and how um art
35:28from this part of the world and other
35:30parts is like responding to uh events uh
35:33500 years ago and um and how sometimes
35:36that is one of the characteristics of um
35:38art that comes from a region that called
35:41South America.
35:43>> Wonderful. Yeah, thank you so much and
35:45thank you also Marisol for teaching some
35:47parts of the books to to your students.
35:49Um that uh very famous quote on um
35:53coloniality and modernity being two
35:55sides of the same coin is actually I
35:57take that quote from the uh Argentinian
35:59symmetrician u um Walter Molo uh but
36:03it's really present in the work of
36:05Alfredo Jar as well. So hi Lucy can you
36:09hear us? Hi. Yes. Not too well, but I
36:13can hear you.
36:14>> Wonderful. I mean, I'm so happy that you
36:15were able to connect through the phone
36:17and thank you, Leslie. So, I don't know,
36:19maybe if you want to just um uh offer
36:23some I you know, responses to the book.
36:26You read the book. Uh I was talking
36:28about how important was your archive for
36:31the writing of this book. all the things
36:34that I found in your archive, the
36:36exhibition
36:38America and how that also include that
36:40beautiful banner I think made by May
36:42Steven with Aendier Nera. Um if you
36:47could just maybe talk about the um your
36:50role in the international solidarity
36:53movement with artist.
36:55>> Yes. Do you want me to just talk about
36:56artist call?
36:58>> Yes.
36:59>> Okay. Um I one thing that did I I Dory
37:02Ashton was not one of the founders of
37:04artists Doug Ashford they have the same
37:07initials
37:09that's up but anyway um we Daniel put
37:16and I and Doug as who is an artist
37:19activist
37:21uh really started the whole thing and it
37:24was an amazing process. It went all over
37:27the country. It went I think to Canada
37:29as well and we just put out a call that
37:32got a huge amount amount of response. It
37:35was called artist call against US
37:37intervention.
37:39The whole name could really be used
37:41because that's what it was.
37:43>> It was very interesting to see how your
37:46archive how these works were exhibited
37:50not only in one place but in multiple
37:52places that sort of mobility of the work
37:55as well.
37:57Um,
37:59do you remember that exhibition, the
38:02emergency Chile emergency exhibition? If
38:04you can see the
38:07Colby.
38:09>> Yeah.
38:10>> Yeah. No, I think I co-curated that with
38:12with Jerry Karns and they asked us to do
38:15an artist call show and they were they
38:17were sort of horrified by the politics,
38:19I think, told me, but they didn't take
38:22it down anyway.
38:23>> Yeah.
38:26I guess um if you could say anything
38:29about uh the art of Alfredo Jar today
38:33and if you have any insight of his art
38:36overall that would be great.
38:38>> So I mean I he's an extremely important
38:41artist like I don't know anybody who
38:43combined so well the the uh public and
38:47and community input and and uh
38:49collaboration with very important art of
38:53his own. I think he's done an amazing
38:55job. I don't know anybody else who can
38:56do that.
38:58>> Thank you so much.
39:01>> Thanks very much for trying to include
39:03me.
39:04>> Thank you very much.
39:07>> Let's continue the conversation and um
39:10Florencia Marisol and I want to just
39:13encourage people also to share comments,
39:16questions in the chat as well.
39:20>> Yes, thank you. Thank you, Leslie, for
39:21helping with that logistic. And um I
39:24mean, it feels a little bit like I was
39:25in a performance right now, you know.
39:27So, I I I'm so glad we we got to see uh
39:30hear a little bit of um Lucy's thoughts
39:33and memories and um such a a gift. Thank
39:37you, Florencia also for inviting her.
39:39And so one of the questions that I had
39:42also for both of you and now Florencia
39:45if you want to share more about um the
39:48role of poetry and especially radical
39:50poetry in Alfredo Jar's work and um also
39:54in uh some of his um interlocators like
39:58Edward Lissand that really mark um it
40:02had an impact on his work and u and how
40:05how is that linked to
40:07to an action in the world and and and
40:11then his own uh use of words and images.
40:14>> Mhm. Um thank you so much for bringing
40:17the issue of poetry to the conversation.
40:20So the work of Jar has typically been
40:23analyzed in terms of um his use of
40:26photography and photojournalism more
40:29specifically. But there was also in my
40:31research I um learned that there was not
40:34really anything about poetry. And this
40:37is an artist that describes himself as a
40:40frustrated poet. And that this is an
40:42artist that reads a lot of poetry. And
40:45this is an artist that also use poems to
40:48create works as well. The um the um for
40:53instance the uh the the the the work
40:55that I showed you before. No yet. uh we
40:59have to prepare to leave again that's
41:01taken from a Russian poet and uh one
41:05important poet in Jar's uh art and
41:08thinking is Pablo Nerula and this is an
41:11early work that he did here in the
41:12scream I'm showing you the very first
41:15work that he did in his career the one
41:18in the left in he in which he simply
41:20writes the number 11 over and over again
41:23until exhaustation and he writes and
41:26writes and writes because after that day
41:29September 11 everything changed forever
41:32time never really continue being the
41:34same there is a drastic shift so it's a
41:36sort of conceptual piece right that
41:38marked that sort of interruption of time
41:41in lineal modernity and then he has
41:44another piece and very early piece and
41:46this is 1974
41:48he's still a student of architecture at
41:51University Chile and he writes four
41:54times the Spanish name Pablo
41:57So four Pablo that died for different
42:00circumstances in 1973. One is Picasso.
42:05The other one is Pablo Casal the chist
42:08Spanish um the musician and um and Pablo
42:13Neruda who was killed by the
42:16dictatorship only two weeks after the
42:18coup. So Neruda was 69 years old. He was
42:21sort of um you know in public. He has he
42:25he has been praised by uh you know
42:29rightwing circles for being the poet of
42:32Chile, the poet of landscape, the poet
42:34you know of uh poor
42:38the same with the poet of you know
42:41beautiful children but in reality they
42:43were like radical poets and that's
42:46something that of course fascism that
42:49doesn't want to doesn't really want to
42:50see. So um the last poet that Nera wrote
42:55um just before his death was a very long
42:59poem that was titled um Nixonio
43:04um like a an Alansa revolena.
43:08So he wrote that poem informed by the
43:11declassification of uh the ITT documents
43:14in 19 in 1972 which literally exposed
43:18the real aim of the cool which was the
43:21implementation of neoliberalism again
43:24which is when multinational companies
43:25will control the state which is what we
43:27are now seeing all over the world. So
43:30Nerda informed by the declassification
43:33of that company that was saying we need
43:36the cool we need to prevent Agenda to
43:38became president because if Agenda
43:40becomes president then our own interests
43:42right our multinational will lose you
43:46know its uh power in Chile and this can
43:49replicate in other nations in the
43:50Americas. So that was the main purpose
43:53of the cool. was not ideological
43:55necessarily, but it was economic. And uh
43:58the declassification of the of that very
44:01important archive was then published by
44:03the uh state sponsored uh publishing
44:07press Kimu which means son um of
44:10knowledge in Mapun which is the language
44:12of the Maput. And then Nerdula is
44:16reading that and then informed by that
44:18Nerdula wrote his last poem which is
44:20really this uh weapon against fascism,
44:24this weapon against uh multinational
44:28you know injection in world politics and
44:30in the in world in world culture and
44:33after that he died. The same with
44:36Leelier. After Leelier said um
44:39repression for the majority and economic
44:41freedom for a minority are two sides of
44:43the same coin after that he's been
44:45killed. So everyone that was like openly
44:48saying that the actual meaning of the
44:52catastrophe was an economic you know
44:54this new this advanced form of
44:56capitalism is killed. Then the same
44:58happened with Aende where because Aende
45:01came to the United Nations in 1972 and
45:04he provide a pretty good idea of what is
45:06neoliberalism and then he's killed. So
45:10um Nera was battling cancer. Yes. He's
45:13in his house in Lac Crues in the coast
45:16of Chile and then by very very very
45:20strange circumstances he's dead. Uh and
45:24then but he's he and then you know
45:26recent archives have you know tell us
45:28that he was poisoned and it is
45:31interesting because two three years ago
45:33with the annivers with the 50th
45:35anniversary of the coup um the case of
45:38Nulla was closed as if you could even
45:42close a case as if by closing a case
45:46people won't stop fighting for justice.
45:50So um the that sort of um that that the
45:56the presence of universal jurisdiction,
45:59the presence of the law, I realized by
46:01the end of the writing of the book that
46:03was it was really present all over
46:05[snorts] the book. And that's why I
46:06ended up writing the conclusion
46:08interviewing this lawyer. Um I'm like
46:12all over the world [laughter] with what
46:14I'm saying, but that's sort of the
46:16spirit of the book as well.
46:19Well, thank you, Florence. Yeah, I have
46:21so many other questions that I would
46:22like to ask you, but I also think we
46:25have like 30 minutes for questions from
46:26the audience. So, I invite people to
46:29write them on the chat or also to um
46:33raise your hand, I think. and and we can
46:35uh collect them too all to first maybe
46:38if you if um you
46:42want to use your voice or write down or
46:46we are open to different modalities.
46:50Well, I I I'll give people time to uh
46:53ponder and then I will continue with
46:55some of my um questions. Fencia, if
46:58that's all right. I don't I don't see
47:00any or like you see them.
47:01>> I think Yeah, I think that there's
47:02question the time. Okay.
47:06>> Um I found the concept of the colonial
47:09time to be powerful. If you can say more
47:12about that and perhaps with another
47:13example. Yeah. So um thank you for that
47:17question Gina. Um and here I have
47:21another example. So um the question of
47:24the colonial time started uh with the
47:27very invention of the Americas. uh
47:30Edmund Mundo Gorman the Mexican scholar
47:33would coin the discovery of the Americas
47:36the invention of the Americas. the
47:37Americas were not discovered but were
47:39invented and when that happened there is
47:42an imposition of a new space the
47:44so-called new world and I and and also
47:46an idea of a time that is lineal that is
47:49progressive that it it again erase the
47:52past right um so
47:56what is at stake in memory studies and I
47:58also come from a tradition of studying
48:00you know memory um like memory objects
48:03as well is the issue of the past right
48:07how the past can be remembered uh
48:10through memorials, through literature,
48:12through poetry, through memory studies.
48:15So the question of the colonial time
48:16really brings memory study and our
48:19history together and and kind of uh
48:22helped me to understand the work of jar
48:25uh as something that is um as something
48:28that is always pointing to the present,
48:30the past and the future together. So
48:32this is an example. This is a very
48:34famous work by Jar uh made uh between
48:371971 1979 and 1981 in Chile in which he
48:43intervene different um um um uh you know
48:49um uh billboards in Santiago with the
48:53very kind of um innocent question but
48:55also very charged question about
48:57happiness. Eselis he wrote are you
49:00happy? And then obviously in a country
49:04under a dictatorial regime people was
49:07not allowed to vote. So people were not
49:10allowed to say yes or no. But the very
49:12question of happiness was something that
49:14people this this question sort of invite
49:16people to actually um uh intervene right
49:20in that censorship uh of a dictatorial
49:23regime. So uh there has been multiple
49:26studies about this work. there's uh uh
49:29and then you know it's one of the most
49:31famous works by jar but what I what what
49:34I found interesting about this work and
49:36I what what I sort of offer in the book
49:38which is different than previous
49:39scholarship is that it's not so much
49:42saying no I'm not happy because I feel
49:45all this censorship or yes I'm happy
49:48because I agree with the dictatorship
49:50um is saying yes I'm happy because uh my
49:56struggle is my Right. So, uh there is a
49:59very important um uh thinker in Chile in
50:04this um in the in 1977
50:08and 74. Miguel Enriquez, he was the
50:11founder of the Moto Revolutionario and
50:14he was killed in 1974 and he was um he
50:18he thought about his happiness as his
50:20struggle as his fight. his happiness was
50:23what kept what kept his struggle on
50:26going and he and he sort of took that
50:28from Markx which wrote in his confession
50:31my happiness is my fight. So what is art
50:35that deals with sort of these
50:37complicated questions can also means
50:39happiness. What is happiness? H
50:41happiness is not necessarily something
50:44that relate directly to this kind of
50:46political binomial spectrum but it
50:48relates to how do we position ourselves
50:51in relationship to our different
50:53different fights. What is interesting
50:55about this piece is that it was made in
50:58Chile in the 70s and then it has been
51:01reproduced over and over by Jar not only
51:03in Chile but in multiple places in the
51:05world in Mexico in the United States in
51:08many many places in the world like
51:10asking the question about happiness not
51:12only in Chile as the birth of
51:14neoliberalism but all over the world uh
51:17neoliberalism continues neoliberal
51:20neoliberalism is today even more um
51:24blatant right with um you know um uh new
51:29technologies.
51:30So are we happy? Maybe we are happy
51:34because we are against it. And then all
51:37of this again relates to that major
51:39statement by the Peruvian sociologist
51:42Analo.
51:44He said
51:46we live in this world in which we are
51:48not happy but we are against and by
51:50being against we perhaps are happy. Um
51:53Khano very famously said we don't live
51:56in Mars. We don't live in Jupiter. We
51:58live in the earth like this is the
52:00earth. We live in colonialism. The earth
52:02is colonialism. We live in a world the
52:05world is war. But we can be against. So
52:08what does it means to be against? How do
52:10we position ourel in relationship to our
52:12happiness by being against? So this is a
52:16work that was made again in the context
52:18of the dictatorship in Chile in the late
52:20'7s. But then the artists have
52:22reproduced the work over and over again
52:25over and over again in multiple places
52:26in the world with that repetition
52:29meaning the fight must continue. the
52:32question of happiness is not resolved
52:35and I'm going to fail and fail again and
52:37fail again and continue failing because
52:40perhaps that happiness will never come
52:42but I can um fight back. So that's
52:46another example.
52:50Well, Roencia, there are more questions,
52:51but I also wanted to say about uh if I
52:53wanted to add from the from reading the
52:55book and and seeing how like you all I
52:59mean Jar and other people are fighting
53:02against you say imperialism,
53:03neoliberalism,
53:05uh also Kant and universal aesthetics
53:08and also a vision of um
53:11South America or Latin America as a pass
53:14through like the lens of magical realism
53:16and thinking about like how many other
53:19authors
53:20are fighting against that uh and you
53:22bring them so well in connection in
53:24conversation in your book. So I I really
53:26appreciate that and it's a a great
53:28source of um of references for for
53:31understanding the colonial and
53:33aesthetics too. Um so there are several
53:36questions. Um so I'm going to read them
53:38all maybe and then can um well I'll read
53:42some of them and then see if we can um
53:44connect and you can answer them
53:46together. So from um Nicole Nadesh um
53:51Dr. San Martin I enjoyed your notes
53:53about the movement of the banners to a
53:56different exhibit. Would you say that
53:57mobility is one of the most important
53:59factors in expanding the international
54:01solidarity uh movement
54:04then from Himeme Gonzalez and for um
54:09there I mean he says uh there are a lot
54:11of texts around Alfredo's work what I
54:13have been hearing in the talk actually
54:15brings lots of other links of the
54:18specific uh trajectories of Alfredo in
54:20the United States and in the link with
54:22the colonial questions in the 70s. So
54:24the question is what guided you first uh
54:27your first interest in Alfredo's work
54:29and how did you face the enterprise to
54:32write about this referential artist and
54:34his work?
54:36>> I think that I'm going to respond that
54:37one first and then we can continue. So,
54:39but the first one, yes, it's super
54:41interesting the fact that the same
54:43banner was then exhibited somewhere
54:45else. And I think that that's connected
54:46to the fact that for instance, this work
54:49has been reproduced over and over like
54:51the work of art is not finished in the
54:54walls of a specific museum or in a
54:57specific time because time, you know, is
54:59not linear because perhaps a work of art
55:03is not only limited to a specific epoch
55:06because modernity is quite larger. So
55:08that's a great um thing u you know a
55:11great to think about the mobility of
55:13works. Um and then thank you Hime for
55:16that for that question. Yeah there is a
55:19lot written on Alfred uh there's there
55:22more than uh 80 monograph on the artist
55:26multiple interviews. Um
55:30I uh you know I learned about Jar when I
55:34was a student in Chile when I was like
55:3718 years old. he's always been there as
55:40uh as a example that teachers will bring
55:43you know to our classes and yes so the
55:47uh the the challenge was uh huge and uh
55:52I remember um so I wrote the first piece
55:56on jar in 2014. Uh he uh reenacted this
56:01work uh one of his most famous pieces.
56:05This is um the first time that he did
56:07this piece in 1987. The p the piece is
56:10titled a logo for America. This is Times
56:12Square in New York. And he was invited
56:16by um you know um to um project an
56:20animation and he wrote this is not
56:22America uh in connection to the map of
56:26the United States and then he said this
56:28is not the American flag and then he put
56:30the United States flag. So what really
56:32is America for someone that was coming
56:34from Chile and was super shocked to
56:36learn that everybody called him
56:38themsself America but he also called
56:40himself America someone from the
56:41American hemisphere. So that work was
56:44reenacted in 2014
56:47in conjunction with an exhibition titled
56:49Under the Same Sun cured by Pablo Leon
56:52Deavar at the Guenai Museum in New York
56:54and it was reenacted in more than 30
56:56billboards and more than 40 signs in
56:59Time Square and I remember I had the
57:02opportunity to go to the opening we were
57:04all there I remember even France Hans
57:07Hake was there who is an old friend of
57:08Alfredo and everybody's like seeing this
57:11the the very first time that this work
57:13was reenacted and it was so so so um
57:16special to for the very for the very
57:18first time to see a work by Jar in
57:20Chile. This was also the first work that
57:22I saw in Chile by Jar in the context of
57:24the art and politics conference that
57:26took place in 2004 at Uncia Arcis uh
57:30back you know in Chile. Um and then I
57:34wrote a piece about this uh work and I
57:37remember that my advisor um at the time
57:40Tatiana Flores from Rucker she told me
57:43you have to write your dissertation on
57:45jar because you understand Chile you
57:47understand photography so do it and I'm
57:49like well but so difficult there's so
57:51much written about him and we were
57:54reading a lot about you know the
57:55colonial theory we were reading um about
57:58the idea of of Latin America minos and
58:01Khano and Then I just wrote a
58:04dissertation on but that it was titled
58:06the decolonial project of Alfredo Jar
58:09and that's how how it started and
58:11Alfredo was super super generous uh has
58:14been super generous throughout the
58:15process. I went to his studio on 26 uh
58:19and 10th Avenue in New York and I
58:21remember going there and I said hey I
58:23want to write a dissertation about your
58:24art and and then he's like why like what
58:27are you going to why what are you going
58:29to say? And then I explained him the the
58:31method which was this sort of decolonial
58:33approach and he gave me a tower of books
58:35that I remember. I then walked to my
58:38apartment at the time that was really
58:40close by the studio and that's how
58:43everything started. But it changed a lot
58:45from the dissertation to the book. Uh,
58:48but it's been I I I have felt it it's
58:52been a joy to work with someone that him
58:54and to actually have access to his
58:56memories, his archive, his his
58:58solidarity with with the project. It's
59:01been a marvelous uh a marvelous uh
59:05experience. Thank you for that question.
59:09>> Okay, I'll continue with other questions
59:11here. uh from Ali Herin. I am interested
59:14in your point uh about Paris poem and
59:17how Jarus deals or pushes against the
59:20landscape in his work. The use of texts
59:23but also the of contrast and framing
59:25that makes the landscape simultaneously
59:27backdrop and out of place is very
59:30interesting. Can you speak more about
59:32Dar's interaction with landscape
59:34imaginary and the idea of landscape in
59:37Chile and Latin America more broadly
59:39imaginary?
59:41That's a really great question, Alise,
59:43and I'm sure that we can talk more about
59:45that when you come and visit my class uh
59:47later this this uh this fall. Um so,
59:52Nikon Par, he um is this very famous
59:56poet. He died a few years ago and he had
59:59a daughter. Her name is uh he's alive.
1:00:02He lived in the United States, Catalina
1:00:04Parra. And actually Catalina Par also
1:00:08exhibited also shown an animation in
1:00:11Times Square based on a poem by her
1:00:15father and the poem the anti poem again.
1:00:18So Nikonor Par is this um it's the
1:00:20brother of Vleta par you know it's a
1:00:22kind of very important family in Chile
1:00:25um he's he developed this idea of
1:00:28antipoetry and um he wrote a poem saying
1:00:31that the United States where the statue
1:00:33with the liberty is actually a statue so
1:00:35it's a kind of an irony right like in
1:00:37the United States the notion of liberty
1:00:39is a statue it doesn't really move so
1:00:42Catalina para simply wrote that in the
1:00:45same screen this is the um spectacle
1:00:47color screen in time square. So um Jar
1:00:52um is in conversation with Catalina Par
1:00:55in that sort of this is not in in the
1:00:57negation right uh of um what the United
1:01:01States you know the exceptionalism in
1:01:04other words so uh there are some works
1:01:07involving landscape and perhaps the most
1:01:10famous one at least in Chile is that one
1:01:12in which he puts all the Chilean banners
1:01:14and it's called antart before I leave
1:01:18the country and he sort of um lead that
1:01:21nation right leave the the the the
1:01:24isolation of the nation. Um and that's
1:01:27interesting. So in that in that um in in
1:01:31that series of photograph we see the
1:01:33Pacific Ocean and the sand and the
1:01:36immensity of that you know sort of
1:01:39liberty that is not really what it
1:01:41really sense within the country within
1:01:44the restrictions of neoliberalism and
1:01:46the dictatorship. Right? So we have the
1:01:48ocean, we have this immensity but there
1:01:50is nothing really immense in what we can
1:01:53do as humans in the conditions of a
1:01:55dictatorial regime. But in the case of
1:01:58Jar uh the nation the idea of the nation
1:02:01which is of course a colonial idea right
1:02:04uh the the Chilean nation became a
1:02:06nation when they got their independence
1:02:08from from Spain but then internal form
1:02:11of colonialism obviously continued and
1:02:14the perhaps the most famous example is
1:02:16the ongoing you know conflict with the
1:02:18Mapuche and all the other indigenous
1:02:20communities in Chile. Um but Jar decided
1:02:25to leave to it because he was isolated
1:02:28not only in the claustrophobic
1:02:30you know land non- landscape of the
1:02:33dictatorship but also from the art scene
1:02:35at the time. So I think that um
1:02:39landscape in jar is more like um uh a
1:02:44metaphor to accompany other you know um
1:02:49uh concepts in in Jar's art specifically
1:02:52but landscape as something related to
1:02:55the nation because the sea for instance
1:02:58the ocean is something that he uses in
1:03:00multiple works to talk about the issue
1:03:02of colonization expansionism this
1:03:04transatlantic you
1:03:06project that was colonization and then
1:03:08the ocean as that sort of connectivity
1:03:11in relationship to um globalization but
1:03:14in reality it is the opposite right so I
1:03:17don't think that in Jar's work landscape
1:03:19is sort of restricted to the nation
1:03:21state because he's very critical to the
1:03:23notion of the nation state in the first
1:03:25place but it's more something
1:03:27allegorical to sort of um uh raise other
1:03:31questions like larger questions about
1:03:33colonization and incarceration and so
1:03:35forth
1:03:40So we have uh one other question um from
1:03:43Nate Nikolov. Um Jar studied
1:03:45architecture at the University of Chile
1:03:47during the early years of the Pino
1:03:49dictatorship. Um memorial at the museum
1:03:53of member and human rights in Santiago
1:03:54uses architectural containment, darkness
1:03:57and illuminated silhouettes to force a
1:03:59physical and collective recogning uh
1:04:02with the dictatorship's victim. Chile
1:04:05consistently produces top architectural
1:04:07talent and example of soft of
1:04:10contemporary work. Uh are there any
1:04:13widely acknowledged influences of jar on
1:04:16architecture at large? And I think this
1:04:18is something that you really discuss in
1:04:19the book and I really wanted to hear
1:04:20from you also.
1:04:22>> Yeah, thank you so much Nick for that
1:04:24question and Nick is an architect so
1:04:26it's great coming from from you. Um I'm
1:04:28showing here and this image is not
1:04:30included in the book unfortunately. This
1:04:32was uh this came to me from the archive
1:04:34of um Isabel Deves who was a classmate
1:04:37of Alfredo Jar at Univers Chile. So Jar
1:04:40um was an architecture student on
1:04:43Univers Chile. And at the time at that
1:04:46university there were two different kind
1:04:48of studios, the creative studio and the
1:04:51more technical studio. and he enrolled
1:04:53in the creative studio with um and then
1:04:56in that creative studio at stake in the
1:04:59teaching was uh that idea that things
1:05:03are never finished
1:05:05uh that things can be made collectively
1:05:08um that um a building can perhaps be
1:05:13something else. And here we see how the
1:05:16students are working together in the
1:05:18building of this chapel
1:05:20uh in the top of this um uh hill in
1:05:24Chile. And it's a chapel that is not
1:05:26aimed to be permanent. It's a chapel
1:05:28that is not aimed to be there forever,
1:05:31but it's something that is meant to be
1:05:34built collectively and then exist, you
1:05:36know, in the transition of time. So uh a
1:05:40lot of his teachers and classmates
1:05:43define their training as an open book.
1:05:46So in the book I I interview a lot of
1:05:49these architects and his classmates and
1:05:52they were all sort of agreeing in the
1:05:53fact that architecture can also be an
1:05:55open book that there is the possibility
1:05:57of urgency, the possibility of this sort
1:06:00of uh ongoing temporal continuity with
1:06:03architecture that in a way contrast with
1:06:07the monumental architecture of the
1:06:09regime. And it was interesting because
1:06:12they were being very critical to the
1:06:15dictatorship but not with an open
1:06:16language. Therefore, they were not
1:06:19punished. Um, creativity in the eyes of
1:06:22the uh military was not seen as a threat
1:06:26because creativity was seen as something
1:06:28you know unrelated to the political. But
1:06:31here if we see this um shape there's
1:06:35nothing really that everything here is
1:06:38sort of a rejection to that fixed
1:06:41mentality of the authoritarian regime
1:06:44and then he finished his studies in
1:06:48architecture. He moved to New York in 19
1:06:51uh 82 thanks for he got a scholarship
1:06:54for the studies of happiness project. He
1:06:57moved to New York. His idea was actually
1:06:59to go to France but he stayed in New
1:07:01York and he started working in an
1:07:02architectural office in New York called
1:07:04site and then after 1985 he got a
1:07:08Guingham fellowship that allowed him to
1:07:10be like a full-time artist and um many
1:07:15of his works as Nick is mentioning are
1:07:19very architectural indeed his own um way
1:07:22of thinking
1:07:24uh comes after that notion that Context
1:07:28is everything for an architect. He says
1:07:30context is everything. So I respond to
1:07:32context to the political context to
1:07:34social context to the urban context to
1:07:37the architectural context. So he built
1:07:39this um environment this buildings in
1:07:42relationship to context. And this is the
1:07:45memorial that Nick is mentioning. Um
1:07:48this is the museum of memory and human
1:07:50rights which was built in Chile um in
1:07:532010 under the um the the presidency of
1:07:57the socialist um uh m Michelle Vachellet
1:08:01and she invited Jar to create a memorial
1:08:03to the victims of the regime and this is
1:08:06what he did. So here you see again this
1:08:10architectural space that is composed of
1:08:13two um mirrors in the continuous walls
1:08:16and then you see all these silhouettes
1:08:19of people that um he you know
1:08:23photographs that he takes from either
1:08:25archives of people who disappeared or
1:08:27died but also from people that are still
1:08:30alive. talking about the fact that
1:08:32victims are not all like talking about
1:08:34that kind of broad understanding of vict
1:08:37of the victim in which um it's an entire
1:08:41nation that is mourning right it's not
1:08:44um kind of all in located in the in the
1:08:47fate of those who die but also in the
1:08:50mothers of the disappeared in the in in
1:08:53in in in human rights organizations in
1:08:55the daughters in the granddaughters in
1:08:58people that are born now. So um here
1:09:00that idea of collective memory is at
1:09:03stake and is um um kind of uh
1:09:07exacerbated with the fact that he placed
1:09:09these two mirrors in the contiguous
1:09:12wall. So those faces, those silhouettes,
1:09:15those
1:09:17those persons are multiplied to
1:09:19infinity. Thinking not only about the
1:09:21collective notion of victimhood, but
1:09:24also the fact of that the dictatorship
1:09:27continued, right? The dictatorship ended
1:09:30formally in the year 1990 when uh
1:09:34Patricio Elwin was elected president
1:09:36formally and everybody always say that
1:09:39the transition in Chile was so
1:09:40democratic because Pinoet gave you know
1:09:44uh the presidency to uh to to to Elwin.
1:09:48But in in indeed and this is something
1:09:50that I learned a few years ago from
1:09:52Peter Conru the journalist who have
1:09:54written extensively about the condor
1:09:56operation and the Pinoet's file. Pinocch
1:09:59was actually planning a coup in 1988
1:10:01when he lost the referendum and he
1:10:04wanted a coup but he didn't have the
1:10:05support of the other military. So that's
1:10:08why he ended up, you know, saying,
1:10:11"Okay, I'm not going to continue, you
1:10:13know, this is dictator, this
1:10:14dictatorship, but I'm going to still be
1:10:17senator per life." Like Pino appointed
1:10:19himself senator per life. So therefore,
1:10:22he will never really be punished because
1:10:25he was protected, right, by by that um
1:10:28by that title. But this is an
1:10:30architectural space, a very minimal
1:10:32architectural space that is um
1:10:34multiplied to infinity through those um
1:10:38mirrors. And the viewer actually um
1:10:41access to that space by um going down 30
1:10:4633 steps. So there's also this sort of
1:10:48construction of different hallways that
1:10:50he always create. There's always this
1:10:52con construction of a theaterlike
1:10:55installation in which the viewer is led
1:10:58to all these spaces and then uh is
1:11:00confronted to different images that
1:11:02sometimes make yourself feel blind
1:11:04because of the the um the the the the
1:11:08the light right that come from those
1:11:10images. So, uh, it's spatial,
1:11:13uh, it's it's a it's a spatial word, but
1:11:16it's also temporal, right, in the in the
1:11:18sort of in the in the in the symbolic
1:11:20meaning of the work.
1:11:24>> Well, thank you, Florencia, for
1:11:25answering these questions. And um we
1:11:28have only a few minutes left. So I
1:11:30wonder if you can if you want to do a
1:11:33final remarks on the book or something
1:11:35that you want to share before we uh
1:11:38depart.
1:11:40Uh no I mean thank you so much Marisol
1:11:43for um uh being in this conversation
1:11:46with me. Thank thank you so much Leslie
1:11:48and thank you Lucy for agreeing to uh
1:11:51come. I'm so sorry that the technology
1:11:54is not always that easy. uh but um she
1:11:57was very helpful in the process of
1:11:59writing the book uh and I am very
1:12:02grateful for the opportunity to talk
1:12:04about the book here uh in the space of
1:12:07Latin American art. Uh it's a book that
1:12:10uh starts from the Americas to think
1:12:12about the world. So I'm very grateful
1:12:15that this is the space in which I can
1:12:17talk about the book.
1:12:21Thank you so much Florencia. If I can
1:12:24just briefly hop on to say this was a
1:12:27wonderful conversation. Thank you for
1:12:30sharing your book with us and with our
1:12:32members. It's I think a an incredibly
1:12:35important and impactful work and I
1:12:37congratulate you on the publication and
1:12:40look forward to hearing about more uh
1:12:42book presentations and um seeing the
1:12:45impact of this work as it unfolds over
1:12:48the years. Um, and thank you so much to
1:12:51Lucy who obviously had we had some
1:12:54difficulties bringing her voice into
1:12:56this mix, but I'm glad that we were at
1:12:58least able to hear a few words from her.
1:13:00Um, and I know how impactful her work
1:13:03has been um to your work, Florencia, and
1:13:06to so many of us. So, it was wonderful
1:13:08to have her be part of this, however
1:13:10briefly. And Marisol, huge gratitude.
1:13:13Thank you so much for joining us and
1:13:15being in conversation with Florenzia.
1:13:17We're so fortunate to have you on our
1:13:19Alla executive committee. Um, and I want
1:13:22to thank everyone who's been here today
1:13:24joining us. We will have the recording
1:13:26of this event up on our YouTube page. If
1:13:28you would like to use it as a reference
1:13:30in the future, we warmly invite you to
1:13:32do so. Please join us for further
1:13:35events. Uh, join Allah. Um, and thank
1:13:38you everyone. Have a wonderful day.
1:13:40>> Thank you.
1:13:42>> Thank you.