Starting from the premise that Robert Frank's book The Americans changed the history of world photography, Photographs 1930-1943 presents a corpus of images sourced from public archives in Argentina that opens up new questions: Did the aesthetic founded by Frank already exist in other peripheral countries like Argentina? Would Frank have achieved the same impact if he were born in a Global South country?
As researcher Veronica Tell argues, Photographs 1930-1943 is a historiographical provocation. Formal associations with Frank —such as the deconstructed and critical gaze attributed to his images, which dismantled the canon of Western modern photography— are elements present in the vernacular photographs selected from the National General Archive. The Americans is evoked here through formal and material relationships to consider how, from the periphery, other images produced for different purposes possess similar characteristics. These features are emphasized, pointed out, and sequenced through the gaze and editing work.
Simultaneously, Photographs 1930-1943 presents itself as a chronicle of daily life in Buenos Aires in the 1930s that opposes the modern proposals of the time, such as the photographs of Horacio Coppola and Grete Stern. Highlighting the ways of life in the city, the work delves into the infamous decade, a historical period that begins with the first civic-military coup of the 20th century in Argentina, characterized by corruption and electoral fraud.
Installation of 83 photographs, 20x30 cm each one.
Complete portfolio in silver print: Edition of 10
Inkjet prints: edition of 5 + 2 AP
Curator: Veronica Tell
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