Exhibitions
Porter-Camnitzer: The New York Graphic Workshop Years
The viewer will be transported back to the 1960s, specifically to the end of 1964, on a journey to the United States, when the Argentine artist Liliana Porter and the Uruguayan Luis Camnitzer, together with the Venezuelan José Guilermo Castillo, created the New York Graphic Workshop with the clear objective of redefining the practice of printmaking, ending its activities in 1970.
Porter-Camnitzer. The New York Graphic Workshop Years
The exhibition revisits a key episode of Latin American conceptual art in the United States, in New York City. This experimental proposal extended the boundaries of graphic art to the conceptual universe, shattering the notion that it was an inadequate medium for "a sophisticated investigation of the limits of art." It also redefined the printmaking profession to explore a type of artistic production focused "on the mechanical and repetitive nature of the medium," rather than on its traditional techniques, as well as on the design of new circulation strategies.
Porter-Camnitzer: The Years of the New York Graphic Workshop will be on view at the Buenos Aires Museum of Fine Arts until August 31st, curated by Silvia Dolinko, in an exhibition and tour created in collaboration with the National Museum of Fine Arts of Chile (MNBA). The Argentine edition includes two sections in addition to those on view in the Chilean capital, one exploring the artists' participation in Experiencias 69 at the Torcuato Di Tella Institute in Buenos Aires.
Porter-Camnitzer. The New York Graphic Workshop Years
The other area is the collection of prints produced by artists such as Marta Minujín and Luis Felipe Noé. “Positioned between institutional and disciplinary critique, they brought into play innovative strategies for the realization and circulation of the individual works they produced within the framework of the group project. As young people based in New York, the inclusion of their work in the Latin American circuit was a tactical objective and a platform for visibility,” explains Dolinko.
Liliana Porter, "Profile of a Tree", 1971. Engraving. National Museum of Fine Arts Collection.
Forty-five pieces, including prints, installations, and documents from 1964 to 1970, are part of the exhibition, creating an active experience where the viewer engages through reflective gestures before works such as Liliana Porter's Shadows, as well as her emblematic series Wrinkles; Camnitzer's Living Dining Room stands out; and the 1969 Puerto Montt Massacre, currently considered a key element of Latin American conceptual art. The reconstruction at the MNBA is an attempt to restore visibility to a piece that has been hidden for decades.
“The tour highlights Porter and Camnitzer's concerns regarding the poetics, politics, resources, and meanings of the image present in that early work, and which, with remarkable coherence, continue in their creative pursuits to this day,” explains Silvia Dolinko.
Porter-Camnitzer. The New York Graphic Workshop Years
