Marcelo Brodsky in New York: travels to inaugurate an exhibition and finds his work hanging in the MET

The artist Marcelo Brodsky arrived a few days ago New York to inaugurate his second exhibition at the Henrique Faría Gallery (HF) in New York. And he received a comment from an acquaintance: his emblematic work Class is exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the largest museum in the city. There he went with his camera and had a close encounter with the piece that the MET acquired in its previous exhibition in the city, in 2016. He slept in the warehouses ever since.

Class It was hung in room 851, the Tisch Gallery, last October 19 and will remain there until May 9, 2021, in the area dedicated to contemporary photography, where exhibitions are changed every six to eight months. A few meters there is work by another Argentine artist, David Lamelas, and from American artists like Cindy Sherman O Barbara Kruger.“It is a historic day for the disappeared in our country, a symbol of state violence for the world,” he told LA NACION with emotion.

Seminal work of Brodskywas made in 1996, when when he returned from exile at the age of 40, he found the image of his group of colleagues from the National School of Buenos Aires (CNBA) and began to trace what had become of them. On the photo is written in their own hand the destiny of each one. Around the photo that year, he organized the first tribute to the disappeared, in which he began to draw up a list of names of the murdered former students of the school: they reached 98 at that time.

Class it is “1st year, 6th division, class photo, 1967”, as the caption reads, and was part of 250 exhibitions around the world. There are six originals in this series and they are kept in museums such as the Tate in London, the Pinacoteca of the State of San Pablo, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and the National Museum of Fine Arts, in addition to the MET and the College cloister. “It took 24 years to get here. It is a very important message that we Argentines give: the violence of the state can be judged. Those crossed faces in the photo will not be forgotten and they are here to remember it. CNBA students, all students from other schools and in some way all Argentines telling our story of violence, Never again and judgments, “says the artist.

A call to vote

The exhibition that he inaugurated yesterday at HF ​​- without a cocktail, but with visitors – also has a strong political content, and is presented on the eve of the presidential elections in that country. Its titled A call to vote (A call to vote) and compares the mobilizations around the world in 1968, which is a long essay of intervened historical images called Poetics of the Resistance, with current photographs of anti-racism demonstrations, which were the product of the murder of George Floyd, and feminist marches. “We cannot vote, but any contribution is valid, because what happens here affects us a lot. Removing this clown from the world’s leading power is a positive change for Latin America,” he says.

The exhibition was designed for the International Center of Photography (ICP), but due to the reduction in space and personnel due to the Covid it should have been canceled. As it was already produced, framed and ready to mount, the gallery owner decided to do it in his own space, because it is a key exhibition for these times. In the conversation that is included in the catalog with David Campany, director of ICP, Brodsky explains: “The public space is symbolic and is a disputed territory, just like the online space. Each revolution and moment of change has its instruments, its music, its battlefields, its leaders and its images, from the French Revolution to Black Lives Matters. ” In Brodsky’s recent work there are three predominant elements: the use of archive images, interventions with colors and texts that create a visual language and political and human rights activism. His work operates, with urgency, in the changes of the world today.

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