January 26–March 24, 2019
Constanza Alarcón Tennen, Amalia Alvarez, Cecilia Barriga, Sebastián Calfuqueo, Cristóbal Cea, Claudia Del Fierro, Giorgio Giusti, Patricio Guzmán, Voluspa Jarpa, Miguel Littín, Marilu Mallet, Leonardo Portus, Enrique Ramírez, Raúl Ruiz, Claudio Sapiaín, Ivo Vidal
The exhibition Remembering What Is features contemporary art that thematizes the early 1970s in Chile, along with a number of films by directors working within the so-called Nuevo Cine Chileno movement. These filmmakers were active in Chile in the 1960s and the early 1970s. They recorded how the socialist president Salvador Allende entered the political arena of the exploited, conflicted and unequal country that Chile was at the time. Later, from the exile that became reality for many of them, they bore witness to the military coup of 1973 and its aftermath.
Many artists active in Chile today work with methods and subject matter that can be recognized from Nuevo Cine Chileno. They critically scrutinize contemporary life, with its conflicts that may be traced back to a violent past, but the current context is different. The overall picture is complicated by a critical discussion about the process of reconciliation launched when Pinochet was forced to relinquish power two years after the historical referendum of 1988. The question many ask is: Did the coup, and the ideology behind it, really end that year? In which way are the official attempts at reconciliation, and to some extent repression, problematic?
As a whole, the exhibited material forms a layered picture of the past, reminding audiences today of the conflicts of yesterday. Past traumas—but also political progressivity and the struggle for justice—become connected with current issues such as student movements across the world in the 2010s, the continued presence of fascism in Chilean society and in Latin America at large, urban change in Santiago and the rights of the Mapuche population.
Remembering What Is, curated by Hans Carlsson, looks at the time before and after the military coup in Chile in 1973, but the intention is not to isolate possibilities for reflection in one national context. The works in the exhibition address political, social and economical issues in relation to a moment in twentieth-century history that is still relevant both within and outside Chile. This becomes evident in the exhibited works that highlight the cultural, social and political exchange between Chile and other parts of the world in the 20th and 21st centuries.
