Lectures: 460
This August 18 is inaugurated at the Museum of Memory and Human Rights “Rewind, reimagine, report”, the first exhibition in Chile that brings together the work of the renowned Dutch photographer Chas Gerretsen in the months before and after the coup.
Gerretsen arrived in Chile in 1973, after having photographed the wars in Vietnam and Cambodia. During his time in Chile he captured what was happening in the streets, the massive demonstrations in favor of Popular Unity, as well as the anti-government protests, the bombing of La Moneda and the weeks immediately following.
An important part of these images have never been exhibited in Chile, and are protected en el archivo del Nederlands Fotomuseum Rotterdam (Dutch Museum of Photography). 50 years later, more than 800 of these photographs return to our country to be exhibited for the first time at the Museum of Memory and Human Rights, as part of a new commemoration of the coup.
For the photographer, “it is an honor that the Museum of Memory and Human Rights has decided to show the Chilean part of the retrospective that was at the Nederlands Fotomuseum. My wish is that these images become part of the historical and political memory of Chile, and that my book “Chile. The photographic archive 1973-1974 “serves as a reminder of the past and helps future generations not to make the same mistakes.”
“Rewind, Reimagine, Report” takes as its starting point the exhibition “Starring Chas Gerretsen” (“Starring Chas Gerretsen”), curated by Iris Sikking, which took place at the Rotterdam Fotomuseum between October 2021 and May 2021. 2022, which included the various facets of his work. The exhibition in Chile focuses on photographs taken in our country, and expands that selection to include contact strips, as well as archival material from the collection of the Museum of Memory and Human Rights.
Milestones such as the El Teniente miners’ strike, the Popular Unity celebrations, various citizen demonstrations, the Tanquetazo and the bombing of La Moneda are part of the historical journey proposed by the exhibition. The photographer also portrayed a series of official events of the new authorities after the coup, in addition to portraits of Eduardo Frei Montalva and Salvador Allende, as well as members of the Junta, including General Augusto Pinochet.
“For the museum it is very important to have a direct witness of the days of the coup, considering that after five decades many are gone. It is very significant that Chas Gerresten covered not only the horror of what was happening in the public space, in the streets, but also accessed more intimate spaces, photographing members of the Military Junta that allowed him to portray domestic spaces, and there he managed to capture images that contrast with the human rights violations that were taking place under his instructions”, comments the executive director of the Museum of Memory and Human Rights, María Fernanda García.
The photojournalist captured nearly eight thousand images of our country at decisive moments: the last months of the Popular Unity, the day of the coup d’état and the beginnings of the dictatorship that would last for 17 years.
The photographer sent the photographic rolls to his agency in Paris before developing them, so he often came across the images he had captured only when they were published by magazines and put in sequence.
These records were an important means of denunciation; His work, as well as that of other correspondents, managed to make visible the horrors of the dictatorship when the material of Chilean photographers had impediments to circulate due to repression and censorship. His authorship is the well-known photo of Pinochet seated with dark glasses and arms folded, an image that crossed borders and became an icon of terror and repression in the country. This portrait, and the coverage of the coup in Chile, won him the gold medal of the Robert Capa Award in 1973.
The exhibition will be complemented by a wide program of parallel activities, which seek to establish links between photography and visual memory, considering the gender perspective. These activities, which will include workshops and the launch of a photobook, will begin with a “Memory Dialogue” prior to the opening of the exhibition.
“Rewind, Reimagine, Report” is organized in collaboration with the Embassy of the Netherlands and the Nederlands Fotomuseum in Rotterdam. It opens this August 18 at 12 hrs. on the third floor of the Museum of Memory and Human Rights and will be open to the public completely free of charge until October 29. That same day and prior to the inauguration, at 10:30 a.m., Gerresten will participate in a new Dialogue of Memory, a space in which she will deepen her experience in Chile.
