Robert Frank’s The Americans changed the history of photography. Starting from this idea, Photographs 1930-1943 brings together a collection of images from public archives in Argentina to explore how much of Frank’s impact was shaped by the context in which his work was created and his place of origin. Could his groundbreaking aesthetic have emerged earlier in peripheral countries like Argentina? Would he have received the same recognition if he had come from the Global South?
As researcher Verónica Tell points out, Photographs 1930-1943 challenges the way we think about history. The selected images, taken from Argentina’s National Archive, share a raw, critical, and unconventional perspective—similar to Frank’s—that questions the traditional ideas of modern Western photography. Here, The Americans is recalled through visual and material connections, showing how other photographs, created for different purposes in a different place, can carry the same energy when reframed through selection and sequencing.
At the same time, Photographs 1930-1943 is a visual record of daily life in Buenos Aires during the 1930s. It contrasts with the modernist visions of the time, such as the photographs of Horacio Coppola and Grete Stern, by focusing on the realities of everyday people. The work also highlights a key historical moment: the "infamous decade," a period marked by Argentina’s first civic-military coup of the 20th century, alongside corruption and electoral fraud.

Asunción Casa Editora
300 copies. 2021
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