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Toulouse (France) – An exhibition in France uses footage from more than 80 artists between 1910 and 2023 as an excuse to present South American identities somewhere between heroine and documentary.
Entitled “Latin Paradise: South American Stars”, the exhibition traces the development of photography as a technique and medium, with a particular emphasis on “one’s own vision, one’s perception by others, one’s own stage”, Ana Debenedetti, director of the Bemberg Foundation, explains to EFE.
For this reflection he uses more than 200 works from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela, which can be visited at the Hôtel Azeza Museum in Toulouse (south-east France) until November 3rd.
The common denominator between them is “the idea of glamour, of the heroine, of photographs that are more in the spirit of joy and not necessarily in the sometimes very documentary aspect,” De Benedetti clarifies.
But this idea, expressed fundamentally through the representation of the human body, not only echoes the celebrities of the time, but also takes into account historical figures, religious figures, and obscure individuals, all mixed under the umbrella of a common culture.
From the world of entertainment captured by Mexican photographer Armando Herrera to dances such as the tango, which Chilean Leonora Vicuña interprets with her camera, the exhibition also highlights the patriarchal gaze through costumes, make-up or poses; the realities of some ethnic minorities and artistic trends on the African continent.
This more social aspect can be demonstrated through the nude snapshots “Nahui Olin” by Antonio Garduño (pseudonym of Carmen Mondragón), the thirty portraits of semi-naked women taken by an anonymous Cuban to decorate cigarette packages, or the visual work “Cuaderno 2’, by the Colombian Ever Astudillo, who shows the cult of the body and fashion in an urban environment.
It also feeds into the work of the Peruvian Flavia Gandolfo, where transformism was a protagonist in the late 60s, and the Mexican Graciela Turbide’s Magnolia in a Hat, where she depicts a “mux”, which in Mexico is considered a third gender, attractive to men who lack masculinity.
“It’s all about the work on gender, women, men and the balance of power that exists in these largely patriarchal societies,” De Benedetti said.
Photography is a means of conveying information and, above all, as the agency’s director stressed, a “channel for reporting situations that would otherwise not be possible.”
He is nourished by other artistic currents, such as surrealism in Greta Stern’s Self-Portrait, and uses techniques such as collage in Pedro Juan Gutiérrez’s Visual Poetry, or the use of light and shadow in the development of Zona 3′, designed by the Ecuadorian Pepe Avilés, which can only be seen when lit from behind.
De Benedetti explains that this split is due to the fact that it encompasses a broad culture that is permeated with influences from Western art history, “especially Surrealism,” but also with “traces of Botticelli from the Italian Renaissance, with a very deep-rooted culture typical of the South American continent.”
In this sense, he analyzes, “this hybrid occurs in countries that often face dictatorships” that repress them and force them to make their voices heard “with few resources”.
This temporary exhibition is curated by Alexis Fabry and funded by the private collection of Letizia and Stanislas Poniatowski.
(dynamic)
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