Some of the most iconic images of Eva Perón (1919-1952), portrayed by photographers such as Annemarie Heinrich, Alberto Haylli, Pinélides Fusco make up the “Vocation and Destiny” exhibition, a tribute to the political leader 70 years after her death, which opened at the Kirchner Cultural Center along with a brief exhibition of four paintings by Daniel Santoro, entitled “Nobody but the people call me Evita.”
Both exhibitions are part of “Evita immortal”, the name of the tribute organized by the Eva Perón National Historical Research Institute – Evita Museum and the Kirchner Cultural Center, 70 years after the departure of Eva Perón, to which are added a series of activities such as live music, performances, thematic radio programs, projections and transmission of his speeches in the Sarmiento 151 building.
The exhibition room houses 26 photos in total, distributed on the four walls, each dedicated to an author: the two walls in pink, facing each other, for the images of Evita the actress, the other two, in white, for the political leader, a a compendium that -although it does not respond to a chronological itinerary- gives an account of her transformation from a young actress to the political figure that would mark the course of Argentine history in the 20th century.
“The exhibition allows you to go through these different perspectives of Evita’s images, all the meanings that her image still has and the meanings in dispute as well. Hence the title of the exhibition, vocation and destiny, a subtitle of her book The reason for my The vocation of being an actress and the destiny that transformed her into a political activist, “explains Francisco Medail, photography and archive coordinator of the CCK, to Télam.
Photos: Camila Godoy
As soon as they entered the exhibition, a handful of images loaned by the Evita Museum show a very young Eva, 20 years old, brunette, posing in a printed dress, her hair tied back, whose author’s only surname (Martínez) remains, and which were published in the Estampa magazine in January 1940, so it is intuited that the images were taken in 1939.
Just at the other end of the exhibition hall, you can see some of Evita’s best-known photographs, taken by Annemarie Heinrich, the German photographer who portrayed the stars of the golden age of Argentine cinema. Most of the photos of her from her time as an actress are from 1940, like the one where she is reclining on a lightning-patterned divan, her hair down, dressed to the ankles, a kitten perched almost on the lap of her
In the center of the wall, one of the most recognized, which is from 1946 and which the political leader specially commissioned from Heinrich to give to her husband, then elected president. “The best possible portrait” is what Evita wanted, says Medail. Anchored in the collective imagination, the image of her shows her with a large bun, she rests her chin on her hand where she wears a large ring, her gaze to her side, her smile barely sketchy. Evita then wore a dress by renowned fashion designer Paco Jamandreu. “This photo is like the transition. There is something even in the hair that anticipates the later Evita”, adds the photographic curator.
“How many Evas inhabit Eva Perón? These portraits account for that enormous multiplicity. Since her death and with each invocation, her resignifications multiplied exponentially, stretching the signifier Eva according to the disputes of each hour,” reads the room text of the sample.
In this visual itinerary, the tour continues with the images recently found from the Alberto Haylli archive, from Junín, where Evita is intimately seen, portrayed with her family -her sister Erminda, her mother Juana Ibarguren, her nephew Justo Álvarez Rodríguez- you can see the full frame of the photo session; while in another image -a gigantography on the wall- it tells of her visit to the city where she lived for several years, already as first lady of the presidency, as a political activist. The postcards show Evita at the Junín railway station and at different times between 1944 and 1950.
Among the most emblematic associated with Eva Duarte is, for example, that photo in which she, already ill, renounces her candidacy as vice president, embracing Perón on the balcony of the Government House, taken by Pinélides Fusco, one of the photographers who worked, between 1948 and 1955, in the team of the Undersecretary of Information of the National Government during the government of Perón and recorded from public acts, which became historical events, to the intimacy of the then president and his wife in the residence of San Vicente.
He is the same author of that image of “montonera” Evita, with flowing hair, cheerful, an image that was not recognized in her time, but was symbolically recovered and appropriated, much later, in the 70s by the Montoneros group, today fully reproduced.
“Is there a true Eva? All the multiple Evas enabled her survival, her enormous power to continue saying new things every hour, even seventy years after her death,” adds the room text.
You can also see some images of Evita’s funeral, few unknown photographs, but all equally powerful of María Eva Duarte de Perón, the standard-bearer of the humble.
In the adjoining room, the exhibition of paintings “No one but the people calls me Evita” opened its doors, by the artist Daniel Santoro, a brief sample, of only four paintings, by the person responsible for illustrating numerous books, including The Peronist Child’s Manual , Mundo Peronista, Evita for beginners and The neoliberal child’s manual.
Recognized for his plastic production of Peronist aesthetics, Santoro has said in interviews that the Peronist epic and its ability to become our great historical story result from an unparalleled visual, poetic and narrative richness, through its characters, from the most rogue , like López Rega, to the most sublime, like Evita.
For Santoro, “Eve, with her short and heroic life, feeds a mythology unrivaled in iconography on a world scale.” The exhibition in Room S122 will remain open until September 25, as will the photographs, in Room S101 of the Kirchner Cultural Center (Sarmiento 151).
In the former Palacio de Correos, you can also visit the fourth floor, where Evita’s first offices operated in mid-1946. Performative actions will be held there throughout the day, in addition to the special program in homage to Evita, which includes the projection of a series of videos by Evita on the facade of Calle Sarmiento. Inside the building you will be able to listen to audios that are part of the collective memory of the country: her words on October 17, her call for women to be part of the struggle, her speeches before the women of the CGT and her definition of people according to the Justicialist doctrine.
“I did not have then, nor do I have at this moment, more than a single ambition. A single and great personal ambition: that it be said of me when this marvelous chapter is written that history will surely dedicate to Perón, that there was at Perón’s side a woman who dedicated herself to bringing the people’s hopes to the president, who Perón turned into beautiful realities and who the people affectionately called this woman Evita,” wrote Eva Perón herself, today honored 70 years after her death.
Meanwhile, the Evita Museum presents the exhibition “A museum for Evita. The dream was possible” at its headquarters in Lafinur 2988, which takes a journey through the history of space and its contribution to the preservation of the life and work of Eva Perón .
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