Grupo de Arte Callejero: Thought, Practices, and Actions

by Grupo de Arte Callejero, Mareada Rosa Translation Collective (Translator)

Overview

Grupo de Arte Callejero: Thought, Practices, and Actions tells the profound story of social militancy and art in Argentina over the last two decades and propels it forward. For Grupo de Arte Callejero (Group of Street Artists), militancy and art blur together in the anonymous, collective, everyday spaces and rhythms of life. Thought, Practices and Actions offers an indispensable reflection on what was done and what remains to be done in the social fields of art and revolution.

Every new utopian struggle that emerges must to some extent be organized on the knowledge of its precedents. From this perspective, Grupo de Arte Callerjo situates their experience in a network of previous and subsequent practices that based more on popular knowledge than on great theories. Their work does not elaborate a dogma or a model to follow, but humbly expresses their interventions within Latin American autonomous politics as a form of concrete, tangible support so that knowledge can be generalized and politicized by a society in movement.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781942173106
Publisher:	Common Notions
Publication date:	11/26/2019
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Grupo de Arte Callejero formed in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1997 out of a need to create a space where the artistic and political could be part of a single means of production. Because of this, their work blurs the boundaries between militancy and art, and develops confrontational forms and strategies that operate within determined contexts: the street, the occupation, the demonstration. From the beginning, their work has searched for a space for visual communication that would escape the traditional circuit of exhibition, taking as its central axis of production the appropriation of public spaces. A large part of their work is anonymous in character, which allows for the continued elaboration of these practices and methodologies by like-minded individuals or groups. Many of their projects have emerged as collective constructions with political movements, groups, and individuals, creating a unique dynamic of production that is in permanent transformation due to this constant exchange and putting into political practice.

Mareada Rosa is a translation collective based in Michigan interested in bringing critical work in the areas of politics and culture from North and South America into English. Its members are Catalina Esguerra, Laura Herbert, Hilary Levinson, María Robles, Brian Whitener and Silvina Yi.

Read an Excerpt

Image and Memory

Since their formation in 1977, the Madres of the Plaza de Mayo (Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo) have made the disappeared visible through their bodies. The act of being in the plaza, occupying that space and circulating within it, gave form to the struggle against the impunity that existed during the worst of times in the dictatorship. Every Thursday, transcending the known cultural repertoire and iconography, they were present with their persistence in the Plaza de Mayo. Through their bodies in motion, they offset the proclamation of martial law and the prohibition against public meetings.

Since Argentina’s transition to democracy, the Madres have prolonged and vindicated this embodied practice. The white handkerchiefs emphasize that the Mother’s action is highly symbolic and the use of public space is consciously strategic. The Mothers acted against the repressive system of representation that so effectively limited the possibilities of visibility and expression.

For many years, “Living Ghosts” was the slogan used by the human rights organizations against those culpable for the atrocities. Since its appearance, the slogan was always linked to a forceful use of public space and of the accompanying image. The acts and interventions in the public space produced it as a site in which the traces of the recent past are transmitted and where these traces are placed in relation to the construction of public images.

With the return to democracy came the continued push towards condemnation. At first, the testimonies of survivors, relatives, and witnesses occupied a central space. For many Argentines, the terrible stories of what happened opened many eyes and many ceased to deny the atrocities of years past. The CONADEP report and the trial of the ex-commanders constitute two paradoxical moments in the explosion of testimony. In this moment, the theory of the two demons was elaborated. A little later, still under the presidency of Raul Alfonsín, the laws of impunity are passed (Obediencia Debida and Punto Final). Finally, Menem signed a presidential pardon for those who had led the dictatorship’s state terrorism.

The Escrache

The escrache that emerged from the works of H.I.J.O.S. also works in the realm of the symbolic. Both the Madres and H.I.J.O.S. use public space denouncing and marking the houses of the dictatorial repressors and their accomplices. Their action consists in signaling and narrating the links that connect thirty years of impunity with the present reality in Argentina. The Madres and H.I.J.O.S., even with their differences in strategy, do not accept the prohibition on public space. On the contrary, they use this as a stage on which they unfold a strategic cartography of action. This is a mode of action that emphasizes the role of memory as a function of the present, and not just the past. A live, active, and actual memory. We always think of the construction of memory in this sense: from the present, from the action, recuperating spaces, denouncing events and people, creating links between the past, present, and future. In this act of making every day the present, memory begins to be constructed from what was recuperated and from where one is intervening. In this way we move, from the escraches to the project of the Parque de la Memoria (Memory Park) in which the official objective was to pay homage to those disappeared between 1976-1983. In the face of the state-sanctioned outline of history emerged our first group initiative of working in a broader historical framework, inquiring into the causes and consequences of the dictatorship as a way of complicating the sense of historical time we were trying to put into question. We arrived at this approach from the action-image that we practice in the escrache, as the escrache was the opening that pushed us into more complete and complicated projects. In the act of denouncing, we felt the necessity to deepen our work, both discursively and textually, making complex the image of the condemnation. Not only for a mere theoretical undoing but also to take responsibility for limitations when it comes time to communicate. We need to, then, feed from other discourses to create new images. It is in this way that we construct a rich collective reading of diverse materials on the dictatorship and the period that preceded it–from a different analysis. We propose research as part of this communication process using images that from starts from feeling and not purely from a rational place. At the same time, we have formed strong bonds with H.I.J.O.S and with other human rights organizations.

Neighborhood Actions

These neighborhood actions have precedents such as what happened in San Telmo beginning in the mid-90s with the group “Encuentro por la Memoria” (“Meeting for Memory”) and its work there. For a long time, together with the San Telmo assemblies, they organized marches that passed in front of the homes of the neighborhood’s desaparecidos, or the places where they were kidnapped. The important thing here was to create a mark, but in an inverse way from what was achieved with the escraches, where the mark was for the repressor. The mark of the homages works to create a sense of everyday memory and to construct micro-histories. It wasn’t about looking for a symbol for the desaparecidos, but rather we did think about what could characterize each one of them. In that way, the pictures of the disappeared of San Telmo were resignfied using only their gaze. During the march-homage we placed little squares with the cropped photos, together with the name and former address of each person. At the same time we told the neighbors about who lived or worked in those places, who had been kidnapped in such in such corner or building. These type of actions were realized in several different neighborhoods in the city of Buenos Aires.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Exit to Exit

Cartographic Thoughts

Concepts and Practices

The Escrache

Image and Memory

Invasion

19th and 20th of December

Ministry of Control

Communication

Methodologies

Photographic Record

Spaces

Institutional relations

Moving target

Thinking on the defensive

The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far…

Anti-monument

Actions

Epilogue

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Group de Arte Callejero's is a cartoguerrilla collective searching for justice ‘from below,’ in a city (Buenos Aires) and nation (Argentina) mired in amnesia. Their two decades of art activism constructs a street-level counter-history that methodically disturbs the complacency of the present. This timely and crucial book maps projects and theories concerning art and society, aesthetics and activism, but it is also a detailed dossier documenting Grupo de Arte Callejero's exemplary practice of publicly haunting those who fail to remember.”
—Gregory Sholette, author of Delirium and Resistance: Activist Art and the Crisis of Capitalism and Dark Matter: Art and Politics in the age of Enterprise Culture

“This book is a living archive made up of images, concepts, and collective practices—all of which are connected to real struggles in Argentina, from the denunciation and exposure of genocidal crimes to neoliberal austerity plans; from teachers’ strikes to Indigenous protests. Grupo de Arte Callejero: Thoughts, Practices, and Actions is also a set of guidelines to echo and resonate with other processes and provides the tools for other territories and cartography for other spaces. These pages trace the collective trajectory of a unique group that brought art to the streets, opened the streets to intervention, and most importantly, suffused intervention with subversion.”
—Verónica Gago, author of Neoliberalism from Below: Popular Pragmatics and Baroque Economies

“Grupo de Arte Callejero takes up every aspect of art-making as a political question: not only what they make, but how they make it, with whom, and to what end. Most importantly, their work demonstrates the very real possibilities for art to contribute to social movement praxis, and even to amplify the most radical dimensions of movements. This book should be read by anyone interested in intersections of art and politics, radical human rights activism, and contemporary grassroots politics in Latin America.”
—Jennifer Ponce de León, author of Another Aesthetics is Possible: Arts of Rebellion in the Fourth World War

“This book is a much-needed overview of one of the most radical art collectives in the hemisphere of recent decades. With critical contributions by Brian Holmes, Colectivo Situaciones, and many of the GAC’s own members, Grupo de Arte Callejero’s Thought, Practices, and Actions’ shared methods, thorough documentation, and multiplicity of voices, stand out as an invaluable tool in the art of social transformation and the struggle for collective justice.”
—Pedro Lasch, artist, professor of Art, Art History, and Visual Studies at Duke University, and author of ART of the MOOC: Activism and Social Movements with Creative Time

“What you hold in your hands is a significant contribution to the history and practice of socially-engaged art and movement culture across the Americas. Grupo de Arte Callejero’s Thought, Practices, and Actions allow us to consider their diverse range of concerns such as monuments, social memory, financial crisis, and policing with tactics and forms such as mapping, murals, graffiti, street installations—all with a high-level of self-theorization, a healthy dose of self-critique, and a commitment towards impact and transformation.

"Grupo de Arte Callejero is a true inspiration for anyone thinking about how to use images and poetics in collectively transforming a deformed political culture. At a time when digital text and image memes are shaping political imagination and discourse, there is not a better occasion to reflect on the work of those image-makers who put their bodies on the line.”
—Daniel Tucker, author and curator of Organize Your Own: The Politics and Poetics of Self-Determination Movements and director of the Socially-Engaged Art MFA/MA Programs at Moore College of Art & Design

“Grupo de Arte Callejero brings us into a moment of heightened resistance, where artists are on the frontlines of calling out injustice through urban intervention and creative direct action. Rarely do we get to read such intimate insight as this collective has carefully chronicled and documented in their journey. Their work serves as a powerful example of how during moments of crisis and uncertainty artists can help bring focus, strategy and creative energy to propel us forward.”
—Raquel de Anda, independent curator and cultural organizer

Editorial Reviews

What you hold in your hands is a significant contribution to the history and practice of socially-engaged art and movement culture across the Americas. For the first time in English these resources on the important work of Grupo de Arte Callejero allow us to consider their diverse range of concerns such as monuments, social memory, financial crisis, and policing with tactics and forms such as mapping, murals, graffiti, street installations all with a high-level of self-theorization, healthy dose of self-critique, and a commitment towards impact and transformation.

At a time when digital text and image memes are shaping political imagination and discourse, there is not a better occasion to reflect on the work of those image-makers who put their bodies on the line. GAC is a true inspiration for anyone thinking about how to use images and poetics in collectively transforming a deformed political culture.

This book should be read in dialogue with groups from the recent past such as Bread & Puppet Theater, Medu Arts Ensemble, Ne Pas Plier, SF Print Collective, Arkzin, Yo Mango; and groups from the present such as Chicago Torture Justice Memorials, People's Paper Co-Op, and Justseeds just to name a few.

Daniel Tucker, author and curator of Organize Your Own: The Politics and Poetics of Self-Determination Movements and director of the Socially-Engaged Art MFA/MA Programs at Moore College of Art & Design




While tossing trash in a public bin you spot a strategically placed graphic sticker, it warns about an ex-military torturer living nearby. On a routine trip for groceries you pass street signs listing the home addresses of local genocidists. Your commute to work is interrupted by someone handing you a counterfeit 'escrache' subway pass. Boldly stamped across the ticket is the name of an unpunished war criminal. These are just three of many intrepid interventions staged by Group de Arte Callejero (GAC), a two-decades old collective of cartoguerrillas based in Buenos Aires who are hell-bent on bringing about justice from below in a city and a nation mired in amnesia. This timely and crucial book maps the group s projects and theories about art, society, aesthetics and activism while making manifest GAC s exemplary practice of haunting those who fail to remember in a truly a radical act of constructing histories that methodically disturb the complacency of the present.

Gregory Sholette, author of Delirium and Resistance: Activist Art and the Crisis of Capitalism and Dark Matter: Art and Politics in the age of Enterprise Culture.




Grupo de Arte Callejero takes up every aspect of art-making as a political question: not only what they make, but how they make it, with whom, and to what end. Most importantly, their work demonstrates the very real possibilities for art to contribute to social movement praxis, and even to amplify the most radical dimensions of movements. This book should be read by anyone interested in intersections of art and politics, radical human rights activism, and contemporary grassroots politics in Latin America.

Jennifer Ponce de Le n, author of Another Aesthetics is Possible: Arts of Rebellion in the Fourth World War

From the Publisher