Ana Gallardo explores with art the violence that women suffer during old age

Exploring violence against women during old age is the proposal of the artist Ana Gallardo (Rosario, Argentina, 1958), who, through retrospectives of the failures and frustrations of elderly teachers, exposes A delirium trembled here, at the University Museum of Contemporary Art (MUAC).

In an interview with The Day, Gallardo says that at one point she reflected on what it means to be “menopausal without having any role models, without having anyone to talk to about it; there were no older female artists.

Art is a life tool for me, so I started to put together strategies on how to navigate my old age, and I started working with the School of Aging, a project that reflects on the knowledge that is learned by us and we do what we could not do at a given time. It is an amazing rescue of everything that was hidden, that was there, but nobody wanted it.he explained.

Gallardo explained: “If you wanted to be a dancer and you couldn’t, you’re doing it now, come and give a class on how to do it now, because learning to dance when you’re 15 or 20 isn’t the same as learning to dance when you’re 60, 70, especially when everyone told you: ‘No, you can’t, you don’t know how, you’re no good.’ All of these forms of violence come together in this exhibition.

“The exhibition starts with the piece My work CV, “an audio in which I tell what I have done throughout my life: working to sustain my artistic practice in a system where most women did not sell work, were not successful, like men. This recording shows other formats of work, of life, of how to be an artist, to be a woman and sustain yourself until you reach middle age, in 2009, when I did it.”

The artist described the exhibition as having a “large, dark room composed of a landscape that I worked on with María Us, a female combatant of Guatemalan origin, who has fought all her life until the peace process in 1990. I met her through a collaboration in the late 1980s; now, as old women, we set out to find those women who would be my age and who shared that pain of the failure of the utopias of that time. We traveled and dedicated ourselves to writing; we wanted to build that memory.

“The exhibition is made up of charcoal drawings and videos that tell of that journey. The School of Aging is a stage piece with stands and many videos where there is part of the documentation of all these years and there will be a series of activations with women with whom I am working: danzón classes, a demonstration by the Mexican wrestler Lola Dynamite González and a sound system. The old ladies will be on stage. How fabulous!

How are they going to waste our knowledge?

For the Argentine, this violence has changed: “Being able to share the process of aging with these women made me understand problems that no one talked about. Today you see Hollywood actresses saying that since they started getting older there are no roles for them; that is a change. The reality is that when you reach a certain age there is no more work; being old is not being useless, we continue living.”

“One day, no one calls you to work. Women in the visual arts don’t have the market value that men have. Male artists of my generation have money, houses, while many of my generation rent, and had children alone, so we tend to disappear. That is violence. My work speaks of that: of a woman who wanted to dance when she was a child and couldn’t because her mother asked her to take care of her while her brothers worked. Now she dances in the city, her body knows how to dance.

How are they going to waste our knowledge?Gallardo asked indignantly.

Capitalism makes us believe that when we stop menstruating and are no longer fertile, we cease to exist. Society does not understand that our knowledge is paramount, it is very powerful. It is something that comes from women. Going through these years with all those with whom I have been talking, working, creating and collaborating has allowed me to live a less violent old age.

The artist considers her work to be a form of revenge, “because we are adult women with the power to do what we want; it is about transforming a society that did not accept seeing us as we do now. That was my mother’s dream: to exhibit her works in Madrid. Together we fight that battle.”

Seven oil paintings that my mother painted are on display in the exhibition; I also invited my daughter. I used charcoal and materials to rewrite history. My mother died young, tragically. Compost and humus are a restored body and I give it life. Like what mothers do when they search for their missing loved ones, what María Us does when she plants a forest; I threw my mother’s ashes into the Zempoala lagoon so that they can regenerate in that nature. Charcoal and clay have memory; it is giving power to that history.she mentioned with emotion.

-Because Did a delirium tremble here?

–Because while we were working, it shook. Then I came back and said: trembled here, a delirium. Every time we shake, it is a delirium because that movement of the ground, the fragility that we feel, makes us equal. One becomes aware of the vulnerability of the body, the fragility of life, of old age. No one wants to grow old, after having had a life of struggle to do what they want.

“At night I wonder how long I have left to live. I am a fighter, maybe 15 more years; thinking about that is very hard. Thinking about death… you go to sleep wondering if your body will be able to do it and then society tells you: ‘I don’t want to see you, I don’t like your body’, it’s like trembling,” she concluded.

A delirium trembled here, Curated by Violeta Janeiro and Alfredo Aracil, it will be on display in room 9 of the MUAC until December 15. The activities parallel to the exhibition can be consulted at: https://muac.unam.mx/exposicion/ana-gallardo.