“Between Paris and the “Third World”: Lea Lublin’s Long 1960s’”, .Artl@s Bulletin, vol....

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Highways of the South

ARTL@S BULLETIN,Vol.3,Issue2(Fall2014)

Between Paris and the “Third World”:Lea Lublin’s Long 1960s

Abstract LeaLublin resided for themostpart inParis from1964on,andby1965shestartedorienting herwork toward establishing amethodology for reading images, based ondifferentparametersofperceptionandparticipationrelatedtothedevicesinvolvedintheir exhibition. Until 1972 she articulated a considerable portion of her projectsbetweenParis,BuenosAiresandSantiagodeChile.Thesenetworksofproductionandcirculation were decisive in constructing the meaning of her works in terms ofexploring the status of representation and culture. We propose a study that wouldrestore the geopolitical density and translocal nature of her production of the longsixties.

Resumen ResidenteenParísdesde1964conalgúnintervalo,apartirde1965LeaLublinorientósu trabajo a establecer una metodología de lectura de las imágenes, basada endiferentesparámetrosperceptivosyparticipativosrelacionadosconsusartefactosdeexhibición.Hasta1972,buenapartedesusproyectossearticularonentreParís,BuenosAiresySantiagodeChile.Esasredesdeproducciónycirculaciónfuerondecisivasenlaconformación del sentido de sus trabajos ligados a la exploración del estatus de larepresentación y la cultura. Nos proponemos entonces un estudio que reponga elespesorgeopolíticoyelcaráctertranslocalqueresultaclaveenunapartesustancialdesuproduccióndeloslargosañossesenta.

IsabelPlante*CONICET Universidad Nacional de San Martín

* Isabel Plante holds a Ph.D. in Art History from the Universidad de Buenos Aires. She is a researcher of the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) at the University of San Martín (IDAES-UNSAM), Argentina. Her investigations focus on art exchanges and migration during the 1960s between Paris and South American metropolises.

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49 ARTL@S BULLETIN,Vol.3,Issue2(Fall2014)HighwaysoftheSouth

OfalltheArgentineanartistswhosettledinFranceduringthe1960s,LeaLublinmaintainedarguablythegreatestamountofactivityinSouthAmerica.1She was born in Poland in 1929 and moved toArgentina at the age of nine, receiving a degreefrom the Escuela de Bellas Artes in 1949. DuringherfirststayinParisbetween1951and1956,sheattended theAcadémieRansonandbecameclosetothecircleof figurative leftistartistswhobeganthe Salon de la Jeune Peinture. From 1964, sheresidedprimarily inParis.By1965,however, shehad stopped painting, and began to orient herwork toward a methodology for reading anddeciphering images,basedonshiftingparametersofperceptionandparticipationand incorporatingexhibition conditions and implements. Otherscholars have discussed this embrace ofinstitutionalcritiquepreviously,butwhattendstobe overlooked is that at least until 1972, Lublinstaged a considerable portion of her projectsbetweenthecityofParisandtheartandpoliticalscenes of Latin America. She maintained asignificant presence in the agendas of local artscenes, one that intensified during a stint ofresidence in Buenos Aires between 1969 and1972. This was not, however, simply amatter ofproducing or exhibiting works in one city or theother.Her travel decisionswere deeply informedby her aesthetic and political interests, and hermovementbackandforthbetweenEuropeandtheAmericas yielded an artistically productive fluxthatcanberegisteredinherartworksthemselves.

ThisarticlewillanalyzeseveraloftheprojectsthatLublin carried out between France, Chile andArgentina, which reflected upon the networks ofproduction and circulation that were decisive inconstructing their cultural representations andmeanings. In each instance, Lublin wouldarticulate a specific institutional critique oremploy iconography that directly addressed thevenue’spublic.Althoughnotallofherworkswereconceivedofassite‐specific,theyturnedouttobeimpossible to repeat in other institutional, urban

1 Antonio Seguí, a fellowArgentinean and “Sud‐américain de Paris,” in the Frenchparlance, also returnedhome, buthis visits tohis natal provinceof Córdobaweremotivatedaboveallbyfamilyconcerns.SeeIsabelPlante,Argentinos de París. Arte y viajes culturales durante los años sesenta(BuenosAires:Edhasa,2013).

and cultural contexts. These works exploredrepresentation as an issue at the same time thatthey joined in a larger revision of how LatinAmerica was being represented amidst theemergenceoftheso‐calledThirdWorldonaglobalscale.WhilenotpurportingtosurveyLeaLublin’scomplex body of work in its entirety, in whatfollows I will aim to restore the geopoliticaldensity and essentially “translocal,” rather thantransnational,natureofherproduction.2

Seeing Latin America Clearly

TheseriesofworksthatLublinbeganin1965andtitled Ver claro (To See Clearly) appropriatedemblematic images from art history, or historymore generally, arranged in montage (Fig. 1). Inthe first of these, she included a reproduction ofLeonardoDaVinci’sLa Joconde (MonaLisa),whichthe Musée du Louvre had already protectedbehind a pane of glass (and a wall of viewers).Lublin framed a poster reproduction of the DaVinci behind glass featuring brightly coloredperspectival designs that interfered with thehighlyrecognizableimage.Theviewercouldsquirtwaterontotheglassusingarubberbulbplacedonitsupperedge.Thewaterwouldthenbedispersedthrough the action of a windshield wiper thatwould repeatedly clear the surface of the glassprotectingtheposter.

This piece was included in a group exhibitionorganized in homage ofMarcelDuchamp, held atthe Mathias Fels gallery in Paris. The show wastitled La fête de la Joconde (Celebration of theMona Lisa),anditbroughttogetherworksbyotherartistswho, likeLublin,wereactive inrenovatingfigurative painting. These included BernardRancillac, Hervé Télemaque and Pol Bury, thelatterofwhomwascloselyassociatedwithkineticart. Duchamp had used the Mona Lisa in severalversions of his L.H.O.O.Q., 1919, whose phoneticpronunciation sounded like the phrase “elle a

2 See Clemens Greiner and Patrick Sakdapolrak, “Translocality: Concepts,ApplicationsandEmergingResearchPerspectives,”Geography Compass,Vol.7,No.5(May2013):373‐384.

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chaud au cul,” French expression that translatesliterally as “shehasahotass” andcolloquially as“sheishorny.”

Figure 1. Lea Lublin, Ver claro series, 1965, detail. Reproduction of the Mona Lisa,painting on glass, rubber bulb with water and motorized windshield wiper. ImagecourtesyofNicolásLublinonbehalfoftheestateofLeaLublin.

Theoriginalandmostfamousversionconsistsofacheap reproduction of the Mona Lisa, on whichDuchampdrew amoustache and goatee beard inaddition to theacronym. Inanotherversion from1965, conserved today at MoMA in New York,Duchamp used an unaltered reproduction of DaVinci’s painting on the reverse side of a playingcard, with the inscription “L.H.O.O.Q. rasée”(shaved). Lublin echoes and reinterprets thedemystifyinggestureofmodifyinga“masterpiece,”or, tobemoreprecise, itsmassreproduction.Shealso played on words, albeit different ones, byemploying language in a quite redundant way inrelation to the work. It was less a corrosive,

Dadaist intervention than it was an analyticoperation that could be applied to otheremblematic or widely disseminated images. Thiswas not because something had been learnedabout Da Vinci’s innovative techniques likesfumatto, forexample,orbecausetherewassomeiconographicdetail tobediscovered in the cheapreproduction.Moresimply,oncethesurfaceoftheglasswasclean,whatwasbehinditcouldbeseenmore clearly—an allegory for clarifying whatLublin understood to be the illustrious painting’smythic dimension. Examining the masterpiecefromafreshpointofviewmeant,astheartistsawit, undermining its myth by disarticulatinghabitual or uncritical ways of seeing.Denaturalizing the perception of an image thatmightpotentiallybe familiartoeveryone, like theMona Lisa, paved the way for questioning thedurability of its mythic dimension in the case ofindustrial reproduction, and for investigatingwhich of its aspects might be brought to fullerpotentialbywidespreadcirculationasenabledbypostersorpostcards.With the samedevice, then,two issues could be brought into perspective: areferential and retrospective aspect and another,absolutelycurrentmaterialortechnicalaspect.Onthe one hand, to examine and “see clearly” amodernWestern culture bornof theRenaissanceprovided an opportunity to leave its already‐archaicvaluesbehind.Ontheotherhand,itinvitedobservation of how technological means ofreproductionwere lendingworks of high art thepresenceofeverydayimages.

Indiversetextsandinterviews,Lublinwouldrefertotheneedto“demystify”artandculture,aligningher with Argentinean kinetic artist Julio Le Parc,who was also based in Paris in the 1960s. Inadditiontoitssignatureobjectsfeaturingdynamiccomponents, kinetic art explored collaborativeworkandtheproductionofmultipleswiththeaimof abolishing the aura surrounding traditionalworksofartandartists.3Kineticartwasconfident

3SeeIsabelPlante, “Lamultiplicación(yrebelión)de losobjetos. JulioLeParcy laconsagracióneuropeadelartecinético,”inIsabelPlanteandCristinaRossi,eds.,XIII Premio Fundación Telefónica a la investigación en historia de las artes plásticas en la Argentina. La abstracción en la Argentina: siglos XX y XXI (Buenos Aires: FIAAR ‐FundaciónEspigas,2010),15‐74.

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thatalteringperceptionwasawayofdemystifyingart and transforming the participatory viewer’sperspective.Lublinwouldalsoabandontraditionalart and exhibition formats, but unlike the kineticartists, she employed highly visible culturaliconography. Her work approached visualrepresentations as artifacts, focusing on the waythatcertainimagesembodied“mythologies”:giventraditionsof seeingand representingaswell as astable set of aesthetic and historical meanings.4TeresaRiccardiprovidesaneloquentviewonthispoint:

Itwas not enough that the eye could see. Ithadtolearntolookathowthingswerebeingexhibited inorder tocomprehendthemythselaborated throughthereificationof images.Aiming for an experience that would clarifythis difference and invert passivecontemplation by engaging these subjects’bodiesandmemoriesinparticipationwasnosimple task. In any case, the act of lookingcould nevertheless critically inform viewersregarding cultural colonization anddomination’s visual manifestations, inadditiontorevealingotherhiddenhistories.5

Lublinseemstohaveconceivedofvisualcultureasa dense, complex process involving materials,perception,rhetoricandsymbolism.Theessentialposition that the visual seems to have acquiredduring thesixtiesonlyconfirmshow important itwas to examine it closely in all of its diversesupports,circuitsandfunctions.6

In 1965, Lublin exhibitedRecuerdo histórico bajo limpiaparabrisas (Historical Memento underWindshield Wiper), another work from the Ver claro series, at the La Ruche gallery in Buenos

4Lublin’sreferencetoa“mythology”associatedwithcommonsenseis inflectedbyRoland Barthes’ writings. For the Barthes of the late 1950s, myth was a form ofmeaningproduction linked to consumptionandbourgeois ideology, framedby thenotion of culture. The semiological would thus need to be oriented toward thedenaturalization ofmyth. SeeRolandBarthes, “Prólogo,”Mitologías (BuenosAires,SigloXXI,2003),7‐9.5 Teresa Riccardi, “Archivar mitologías: documentos secretos de una miradafemenina. ¿Cómo leer las vitrinas y las imágenes de Lea Lublin?” unpublishedpresentation delivered at Art and Archives: Latin American Art Forum 1920 to Present. II International Forum for Graduate Students and Emerging Scholars,UniversityofTexas,Austin,October15‐17,2010.6 Guy Debord advanced one essential, if apocalyptic, theorization of the visual in1967, in which he argued for a new status of the image linked to increases incommunication technologies and the culture industry. He argued that he waswitnessing an enlargement of the aesthetic sphere, where images were acquiringunprecedented dominance over life itself. Using the term “spectacle,” Debord andmany of his contemporaries considered images to be purely exterior, absolutelyinactiveinnature.GuyDebord,La société du spectacle (Paris:Gallimard1992).

Aires.7 She positioned reproductions of twoportraits of José de San Martín from the MuseoHistóricoNacional’scollectionsidebysidebehinda pane of glass (Fig. 2). One of the portraits hadbeen completed in 1818 in Chile, painted by thePeruvianartistJoséGildeCastroonthebasisofasessionwiththeliberatorfollowinghiscrossingoftheAndes.Thesecondportraitwasfromthemid‐nineteenth century, attributed to the drawingteacher of San Martín’s daughter, painted inBrussels. The latter entered the museum’scollectionin1899alongwithallthefurniturefromthe liberator’s French quarters, and rapidlybecame the canonical image of the father ofArgentina.Unsuspectingviewersin1965maynothavedetectedthatbothportraitswereofthesamehistorical figure.The firstpainting,carriedoutontheAmericancontinentduring theearlystagesofindependence,presentedalatecolonialstyleeffigythatwas far from the image that schoolmanualshave left imprinted on our memories since thebeginning of the 20th Century: it showed a manwithathinfaceandaquilinenoseinaposethatismore timid thanheroic. The secondwas inspiredbyaportraitofNapoleonandbasedonanearlierprint portraying the Liberator. It coincides to agreater extentwith the idealized appearance andmoral stature of a republican hero: it shows arobust SanMartín, gazing off into the future andenvelopedbyavoluptuousArgentineanflag.8

InRecuerdo histórico bajo limpiaparabrisas,Lublinuses art‐historical juxtaposition. Drawing aparallel between one portrait and the otherhighlights their opacity more than their mimeticfunctionality.Thereproductionsoftheseportraitswere exhibited as representations, with theirrespective conventions and materialcharacteristics. They were treated like visualartifacts that provoke by way of rhetorical orstylistic operations, eliciting responses that aremore emotional than intellectual (such as, forexample,identifyingwithaparticularnationality).

7 The same work appears with different titles in later texts and catalogues: San Martín aux essuie-glace in Bernard Teyssèdre, “Le parcours de Lea Lublin,” typedmimeograph,MuseoNacionaldeBellasArtesarchive.8 LauraMalosetti Costa, “¿Verdadobelleza?Pintura, fotografía,memoria, historia,”Revista de Critica Cultural,Vol.4,No.2(2009):111‐123.

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Theartistdidnotofferabundantexplanations.Thetask of comparing and reflecting was left to theviewers,whomsheconsideredtobeactiveagentsin attributing meaning to the works. Of course,Lublin was operating with a specific context inmind: Argentinean viewers familiar with theperson portrayed and his canonicalrepresentations.

When the occasion arose to mount one of theseworks in Paris’ Salon de Mai in 1966, Lublinpresented Mitos (Myths), another example fromthe Ver claro series, in which she made a newchoice of iconographic images that would bepertinent to the venue (Fig. 3).9 With a morecomplexversionofthesamedevicethatservedasher starting point—the altar or showcase withwindshield wiper—she selected a series of LatinAmerican national heroes and liberators.

9 This work has also been reproduced with different titles: Libertadores in theaforementioned text by Teyssèdre, andMythes historiques aux essuie-glaces in the1991cataloguementionedearlier.

Figure 2. LeaLublin,Ver claroseries,1965,detail.ReproductionsoftwoportraitsofGeneralJosédeSanMartín,paintingonglass,rubberbulbwithwaterandmotorizedwindshieldwiper.ImagecourtesyofNicolásLublinonbehalfoftheestateofLeaLublin.

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This time she created a freestanding metalstructure, two meters tall, which could be seenfrom two sides, with respective showcasescontaining images. Viewers could pass betweenthe twoshowcasesandobserve, from theheroes’point of view, the other viewers who paused tolook at the work. Songs and marches werebroadcastoveraspeakersystemasthetwelvesetsofwipersdidtheirwork.Thetwoglasspanelsoneithersideshowedreproductionsofpaintingsandphotographs of leading figures from LatinAmerica’s political past and present: Tiradentes,O’Higgins, Saavedra, Belgrano and San Martínwere on one side,Martí, Sarmiento, Che GuevaraandFidelCastroontheother.

Figure 3. LeaLublin,Mitos,1966,fromtheVer claroseries.Steelstructure,reproductionsofpaintings, posters, painting on glass,water pump andmotorizedwindshieldwiper. ImagecourtesyofNicolásLublinonbehalfoftheestateofLeaLublin.

In an interview held much later, the artistsummarizedVer claro’s invitation to thepublic intheseterms:“comeandseewhatyouhavealready

seen in a different way.”10 It was, in effect, aselection of icons that were highly visible to thepublic during the 1960s: the heroes of LatinAmerican independence. However, Lublinapproached their representations not only interms of what they represented, but in terms oftheir conventional use and materiality as massreproductions. Though her work managed toescape the enchantment that icons can produce,she also protected them, both literally andmetaphorically. Ver claro is positioned against aculture industry, both within Latin America andelsewhere,whichthreatenedtodrainthepoliticalheroofallmeaningthroughinfinitereproduction.

InOctoberofthatsameyear,Lublinparticipatedina festival held in parallel with the BienalLatinoamericanadeArte, organizedby IndustriasKaiserArgentinainthecityofCórdoba.ThePrimer festival argentino de formas contemporáneas wasknown as the Bienal Paralela or the Anti‐Bienal,sinceitproposedtobeanalternativetotheofficialbiennial and its more traditional art forms.11 IttookplaceonthefirstfloorofafurniturestoreinCórdoba. Jorge Romero Brest, Director of theInstituto Torcuato Di Tella’s Centro de ArtesVisuales in Buenos Aires, delivered the openingpresentation.Lublin’sinterventionwasannouncedas Happening patrio: invitado de honor Manuel Belgrano (Patriotic Happening: Guest of HonorManuelBelgrano). Inthiscase,windshieldwiperscleaned an image of Belgrano, the creator ofArgentina’sflag.SpeakersplayednationalanthemscommonlysunginArgentineanschools.Theartisthanded out little flags and ribbon rosettes andthen organized a parade around the hall, led byRomeroBrest.AnaMaríaGiménezwasamongthespectators and she recalls it as “a very patriotichappening,likeamilitaryparade,”andconsidersittobeoneofthefirstthatwaspoliticalinnature.12

The coup d’état carried out by General OnganíatookplaceonJune28,1966,afewmonthsbefore 10 “’L’écran du réel.’ Entretien avec Léa Lublin par Jérôme Sans,” in Lea Lublin: Mémoire des lieux, mémoire du corps, exh. cat. (Quimper, France: Centre d’ArtContemporaineQuimper,1995),37.11MaríaCristinaRoca,Arte, modernización y guerra fría. Las bienales de Córdoba en los sesenta(Córdoba:UniversidadNacionaldeCórdoba,2009).12 Guillermo Fantoni, “Tensiones hacia la política: del Homenaje al Vietnam a laAntibienal,”Sisi,Vol.1,No.2(1990):37.

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theFestivalandafewdaysafterFlagDay,whichiscelebrated on June 20 in Argentina, the date ofBelgrano’s death in 1820. In late July 1966, thepolice had violently intervened five differentdepartments of theUniversidad de BuenosAires,an episode known as “La noche de los bastoneslargos” (Night of the Long Batons). In thisatmosphere of repression, the fact that Lublin’sactionreferred to thehistoryofnational insignia,datingbacktotheoutsetofnationalindependenceintensified its politicalmeaning. Anthems, ribbonrosettes and flags all heightened the character ofthe parodic action as a lived experience,demonstrating its relevance as a device toreactivate national sentiment (and jingoism). Inparallel, Romero Brest’s role as leader of theparadeorchestratedbyLublinalsoevidenced thestruggle between different Argentinean culturalinstitutions. Through the use of irony, thehappening participated in critiques of theconservative nature of the biennial held inCórdoba, and simultaneously set up a friendlycaricature of Romero Brest: ringleader of theriskiestmodeofartproductionatthattime.

The “Image Process” Between Europe and South America

In1967,Lublinbeganexploring thepossibilityof“dissolving systems of representation” bydeploying figurative traces of painting in three‐dimensional space.13 In pieces like Ottocritique,1967, andBlanco sobre blanco (White onWhite),1969,thepaintingsurfaceunfoldedintotwopanesof acrylic superimposed over one another, withspace left in between. The artist used the sameprocedure that Jesús Rafael Soto had exploredduring the 1950s in his optical works. As theviewermovedpasttheworkwiththeirgazefixedupon it, the superimposition of the drawingsvaried,producingthe illusionofmovement in theimage. As opposed to kinetic artists, however,Lublindidnotabandonrepresentation:shechose

13LeaLublin,“Parcoursconceptuel1965‐1975,”typedmimeograph,MuseoNacionaldeBellasArtesarchive,BuenosAires.

precisely well‐known figures as the base uponwhichsheappliedthiskineticdevice.InthecaseofOttocritique,shepaintedaportraitofOttoHahn,afriendandartcriticwhowasactiveinParisatthistime, in Alkyd. The phonetic pronunciation ofOttocritique sounds the sameas theFrenchword“autocritique.”As such, the image almost literallycarries out a self‐critique: the opacity of thepainting is lost so that it becomes a transparentbox,leavingtheinnardsoffigurationinplainview.The strokes delineating the face were dividedbetweentheouterandinnerpanes insuchawaythat the portrait could only be perceived clearlywhen seen head‐on, becoming illegible from anyother angle. At the same time, the face wasrepresented in profile view, projecting shadowsonto thebackground(somethingthatbodies tendtodo,whileflatimagesdonot).

LeaLublincreatedherProceso a la imagen(ImageProcess)series in1970,an“activede‐codificationof the elements that constitute the system ofrepresentation.”14 Iconic paintings were hereprojected onto curtains made of strips oftransparentplastic,throughwhichviewershadtopass. Placing these images in a context thatreinventedtheirmodesofreceptiondidnotmeandelving into their genealogy or historic meaning.On the contrary, it emphasized how, as images,they revealed or naturalized their intrinsiccharacteristics and the narratives that served astheir armature. Proceso a la imagen alluded toboth a theoretical question about the nature ofimages and the very concrete legal process thatLublinwassubjectedtoinArgentinafollowingthecensorshipofBlanco sobre blancoin1970.

Blanco sobre blanco was exhibited at theExposición Panamericana de Ingeniería (Pan‐American Engineering Expo) in 1970 at theSociedadRural Argentina in BuenosAires. At theExpo, visitors to the Acrílicos Paolini companystandcouldseeanudemanandawomanonabed.This is more or less how the press described it,echoingthenews itemaboutpolicecensorshipofthe piece. The work was partially destroyed, but 14Ibid.

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therearedescriptionsandphotographspublishedinnewspapers(withblackbarsacrossthem)(Fig.4). The two figures in question were painted inAlkyd, twice, on two superimposed panes ofacrylicmeasuring160x120cm.Thefemalefigurewas in a supineposition,with themale figureontop and between her open legs, depicted in aconcise,realisticdrawingstylesimilartothatusedfor popular romance novels and adventuremagazines. The “bed” was actually a real whitesheetwithwrinklespressedinbetween,exceedingthe acrylic panes along the edges. According toBernard Teyssèdre’s description, the artist hadpainted the silhouettes inwhite on the firstpanewith black dotted lines on the second. Given theacrylic’s transparency, the drawings projectedshadows onto the background, contributing toviewers’ sensation of having two actual bodiesbefore them.15 As with Ottocritique, Lublin leftsome space between the sheets of acrylic.Employingopticalinterferencepatternscombinedwithfiguration,theartisttriedoutdifferentvisualpossibilities forawell‐knowntaboo: theamorouscouple. At the same time, in a reference toMalevichthatwasasliteralasitwasironic,Blanco sobre blanco suggested several equally literalmeanings:thereweretwopanesofacrylicpaintedinwhite,andtwowhitepeoplewererepresented,oneontopof theother,andthey inturnwereontopofawhitesheet.

On September 21, 1970, the press reported thatpeopleattendingthefairhaddenouncedthework,and a police officerwas sent to the exposition tocovertheworkandremoveitfromthegrounds.16In addition to the work being censored by thepolice and confiscated, a legal process wasinitiated that ultimately charged Lublin with“indecent assault”; a three‐month sentence washanded down two years later, in 1972.17 Thepowerful response to thiswork can only be fullycomprehended in relation to a “moral” person’s 15SeeIsabelPlanteandTeresaRiccardi,“Teladejuicio.LoeróticoyloblancosegúnLeaLublin,”Blanco sobre blanco. Miradas y lecturas sobre artes visuales,Vol.1,No.1(September2011):57‐58.16“Exposiciónrural.Miniescándalo,”Crónica,September21,1970,6.17PaolaMelgarejoandFlorenciaVallarino,“Eldiscursodelarteentrelaestéticaylacensura,” in María José Herrera, ed., Exposiciones de arte argentino 1956-2006(BuenosAires:AsociaciónAmigosdelMuseoNacionaldeBellasArtes,2009),137‐147.

intolerance in finding him or herself shifting andadjusting their position in order to observe acoupleinthemidstofasupposedlysexualact.Thiscorporeal dimension evidenced a performative,almost voyeuristic attitude that, if seen from aprudishly conservative perspective, would seemnothingshortofindecent.

Figure 4. LeaLublin,Blanco sobre Blanco,censoredpressreproductionof1969original.Paintingontwoacrylicboardswithbedsheet.ImagecourtesyofNicolásLublinonbehalfoftheestateofLeaLublin.

AsMichelFoucaultwoulddefineit,a“device”isasort of mechanism that makes one see or speak.This includesarchitectural installations,speeches,laws, administrative measures, institutions, andscientific statements, among other phenomena. AFoucauldiandevice is something thatmayhave amaterial formor concrete function, but if so, it isnot limited to its status as an object. Instead, itestablishes or sustains a regime of visibilityand/or enunciation that in turn modulates apower struggle.18 As visual devices, imagesmakeus do things; they always question us in thepresentandtheyoftendosoinavisceralmanner.ThisishowbothLublinandthosewhocarriedoutpolicecensorshipunderstoodthem.Suchastrongreactiontoexhibitingthispieceonaneroticthemein public resoundingly confirmed the potency ofvisual representations in general and of certainiconographicgenresinparticular,betheynationalemblemsoreroticimages.Thisisperhapswhytheartist utilized this episode as material in future

18GillesDeleuzeunfoldstherangeofmeaningsthatthisnotionacquiredforFoucaultin“¿Quéesundispositivo?” inFoucault filósofo (Barcelona:Gedisa,1990),155‐163.SeealsoGiorgioAgamben,“¿Quéesundispositivo?”Revista Sociológica,Vol.26,No.73(May‐August2011):249‐264.

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reflectionsonthestatusof images,whileshewasmountingalegaldefense.19

In 1972, the artist presented at the SalonComparaisons inParisaworktitledLecture d’une œuvre de Lea Lublin par un inspecteur de police(APolice Inspector’s Reading of a Work by LeaLublin) (Fig. 5). It was a group of photographs,officialdocumentsandpressclippingsreferringtoArgentina’s censorship of Blanco sobre blanco,arrangedonapanel.On the left side therewas aletter on Ministerio del Interior letterheaddescribing the work as “the images of a femalesubjectandanotherof theopposite sexon topofhercarryingout ‘thecarnalact’completely in thenude,withouttheirgenitalsvisible”onthesheetofPlexiglas.Onthelowerportionofthecenterpanel,there was a photograph of the work surroundedby various others that showed the police officercovering the piece in question with sheets ofnewspaper. The largest and most prominent oftheseshotswasplacedabovethereproductionofthe work, standing out among the other papers.This image of the policeman and other similar

19 Lublindidnothave to serve the sentencebecauseher lawyer,AméricoCastilla,made a successful appeal. Interview between the author and Américo Castilla,October2009.

shotswererepeatedonasmallerscaleinthepressclippings. The photographs of the work and the

policeman were juxtaposed with thephotomechanicalreproductionsofthesamescenein the press, in which a black bar covers thecouple,aswellastheofficialtypeddocumentwithitswrittendescriptionofthework.Differentvisualand written representations were laid out in anorderly but without a clear logic, as if on anevidence table or in a display case. This is howLublin introduced the censored work to theFrench public: by documenting the concreteeffectsofitsArgentinereception.

In all probability, this work could not have beenexhibitedinArgentina.Inthisperiod,ascapitalofthe“RepublicoftheArts”andthecradleofhumanrights, Paris served as an international platformfor many different Latin American artistic andpolitical scenes.Although the French governmentdeported “unruly” foreign artists such as HugoDemarcoandJulioLeParcinJuneof1968fortheirMay activities, radical art and film that wascirculated in limited or clandestine circuits inArgentina—such as Pino Solanas’ 1968 film La hora de los hornos (The Hour of the Furnaces)—

Figure 5.LeaLublin,Lecture d’une œuvre de Lea Lublin par un inspecteur de police,1972.Collageofphotographsandphotocopies.ImagecourtesyofNicolásLublinonbehalfoftheestateofLeaLublin.

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couldbeshownpracticallywithoutrestrictionsinFrance.20 The Amérique Latine non-offícielle(Unofficial Latin America) show, held in 1970,clearly confirmed this, as did the ubiquitousposters of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara inParisian shops.21 The cultural scene in Francemade it possible to denounce authoritarianregimesinSouthAmerica.AftertheSeptember11,1973 coup d’état in Chile, the issue of “Chileanexiles” honed the French public’s sensitivity onLatin American dictatorships and human rightsviolations.22

In the years immediately following May 1968 inFrance,aworksuchasLecture d’une oeuvre de Lea Lublin par un inspecteur de police alsoreverberated with the overall questioning ofauthorityandofthepoliceinparticularthatwasarecurring theme in Parisian culture. During thelate sixties and early seventies, Francewitnessedthe formation of artists’ groups whose activitieswereaimedatcriticizingtheBeaux‐Artssystem,inparticular its official initiatives. In parallel to thelarge cultural enterprises undertaken by GeorgePompidou’s government—such as theconstruction of the cultural center that bears hisnametoday,firstannouncedin1969—theerawasrife with cultural confrontations and policeinterventioninParisianartinstitutions.23

Compared to some artists’ interventionistinitiatives,Lecture d’une oeuvre de Lea Lublin par un inspecteur de police has greater depth in 20Demarco andLeParcweredetainedon June7, on theirway toFlins,when thepolice repressed strikers at the Renault factory in that town, some 40 kilometersfromParis.SeeArgentinos de París,200‐215.LeParchimselfhadpaid,inpart,fortheFrenchsubtitlesofLa hora de los hornos.21SeeIsabelPlante,“AmériqueLatineNonOfficielleoParíscomolugarparaexhibircontrainformación,”A Contracorriente: A Journal of Social History and Literature in Latin America,Vol.10,No.2(Winter2013):58‐84.22MarinaFranco,El exilio. Argentinos en Francia durante la dictadura(BuenosAires:SigloXXI,2008).23ExamplesincludetheactivitiescarriedoutbyAtelierPopulaireinMayandJuneof1968;theinternationalboycottoftheXBienaldeSãoPauloin1969,inwhichcriticPierreRestanyplayedakeyrole;theinterventionbyLaPolycritiquegroupinYvesKlein’s exhibition at theMusée d’art décoratif inMarch of the same year;Octobre 1969, a kind of anti‐biennial of Paris, held on the university campus; the JeunePeinturesalons,withthemottoPolice et culture(1969and1970);Amérique Latine non-offíciele,anexhibitionheldbyananonymousgroupofLatinAmericanartistsin1970; the Cooperative des Malassis collective, formed that year and dedicated toexperimentationwithcollectiveandengagé art; the takeoverof thePeintures de la policesalonin1971attheMuséed’ArtModernedelaVilledeParisbyagroupfromJeune Peinture; police censorship of two canvases by JeanMathelin in September,exhibitedinthesameParisianmuseum;theclosingofBernardRancillac’sexhibitionattheCentreNationald’ArtContemporain,alsoin1971;and,inOctoberofthatyear,the formationof theFrontdesArtistesPlasticiens (FAP) group, a non‐hierarchicalorganization that brought together some 80 artistswhose agendawas to halt theconstruction of the future Centre Pompidou and to boycott the Douze ans d’art contemporain en France exhibition. FAP considered both to be symbols of a “newculturalorder”thathadtriumphedaftertheeventsofMay1968.

aesthetic and theoretical terms, while also beingmore cryptic—and perhaps less efficaciouspolitically. The installation revealed the gapsbetweenwhatBlanco sobre blancohadactuallyputon view (without the optical effect ofmovement,an essential element of the piece), what viewersmay have psychologically projected onto itssuggestive imagery, and the anti‐erotic quality ofitsjudicialdescription.Lecture d’une oeuvre de Lea Lublin par un inspecteur de police comparativelyanalyzed each means of representation (writing,painting, and photography in different forms andlevels of quality) while incorporating variablesrelatedtodesireandthegaze.

The Underground River

Lublin’s discreet studies of images were createdalongside installations loaded with diverseexperiences and stimuli. Her navigableenvironmentssuchasFluvio subtunal (Sub‐tunnelFluvial), 1969, and Cultura: dentro y fuera del museo (Culture: Inside andOutside theMuseum),1971, can be considered expansions of thetransparentboxesofOttocritiqueandBlanco sobre blanco to architectural scale. The artist explainedthatthecontemplationrequiredbyapaintingwasbeing replaced by an “active, poly‐sensorialperception” in order to include viewers as activepartsof thework.24The exhibition itself took theform of a circuit along which Lublin’s earlierscrutinyof the imagewastreatedasathemeandputintopractice.

Fluvio subtunal was carried out as part of “Lasemanadeltúnel”(TunnelWeek)ontheoccasionof the inauguration of the sub‐fluvial tunnelconnecting the cities of Santa Fe and Paraná inArgentina.25 It was held at a 900 square‐meterlocationsituatedonacentralcornerindowntownSanta Fe thatwas slated for demolition, andwassponsoredby the InstitutoTorcuatoDiTella.Theprojectwascomplex,notonlyintermsofscalebut

24Lublin,“LeaLublin.Parcoursconceptuel1965‐1975,”2.25 My thanks to Guillermo Fantoni for providing me with these valuable pressmaterials.

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because of the wide variety of machines andmaterials,andthetaskofstructurallydividingthespace into nine sections.26 Photographs of theinstallation,conservedintheInstitutoTorcuatoDiTella’sCentrodeArtesVisualesarchives,provideasense of the surprise or unease that thisinstallationmayhavegenerated inacitythathadrarely experienced such an unorthodox artwork(Fig.6).27

In order to enter the venue, viewers had to passthrough“Lafuente”(TheFountain)bysteppingoncubes that emerged from colored water. Thissection concluded with foam rubber ramps thatled to the “Zona de los vientos” (Wind Zone).

26Photographsofeverysectionarenotavailable.Thedescriptionoftheseworksisbasedontheartist’sprojectandonJorgeGlusberg’scomments,mentionedbelow.Itis known that certain adaptations were made between the project and itsimplementationduetoproductionconditions. Inanycase,what isof interesttoushereistopointouttheabundanceandvarietyofmaterialsanddevicesondisplay.27 Guillermo Fantoni, Instantáneas sobre el arte de la ciudad de Santa Fe. Una antología desde el siglo XIX hasta el presente(Rosario:FundaciónOsde,2007),22.

There, a largenumber of columnsof air (inflatedtubesmeasuringtwoandahalfmeterstall,halfameter in diameter) hung from the ceiling, inconstant movement due to fans that functionedintermittently. The “Zona tecnológica”(Technology Zone) was next, accessed through atranslucentcurtainontowhichphotographsoftheworkers who had constructed the Hernandariastunnel were projected onto the floor, walls and

ceiling. Fifteen closed‐circuit television monitorsshowedwhatwashappeningatotherpointsalongthe course of the installation. The “Zona deproducción” (Production Zone) had cement‐mixingmachinesthathadbeenpaintedbyLublin,alongwithnaturalandartificialmaterialssuchasdirt, lime, sand, stones and styrofoam so thatvisitors couldmix themandconstruct forms.The“Zona sensorial” (Sensory Zone)was an enclosed

Figure 6. LeaLublin,Fluvio subtunal,1969.Contactsheetwithvariousviewsofan interactive,multimediaenvironment installed inSantaFe,Argentina. ImagecourtesyofNicolásLublinonbehalfoftheestateofLeaLublinandArchivosDiTella,UniversidadTorcuatoDiTella,BuenosAires.

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area with black light, where stimuli includedflorescent colors and odors. The “Zona dedescarga”(UnloadingZone)wasfullofinteractive,inflated polyethylene objects shaped like rabbits.The“Fluviosubtunal,”atransparentplastictube2meters indiameter and20meters long that gavetheentireprojectitsname,waslocatedinsidethe“Zona de la naturaleza” (Nature Zone), anenvironmentwith plants, trees, and animals. Thetube split this zone inhalf;water flowed throughit, and several obstacles had to be navigatedbetween entrance and exit. The final section ofFluvio subtunal was the “Zona de participacióncreadora”(CreativeParticipationZone),wheretheartist installed three “shooting ranges.” Archivalphotographsshowvisitorswithtoyriflesshootingat these rectangular targets framed to look likepaintings.Opinionsfromthepublicwererecordedandbroadcastoverloudspeakers.28

Lublin’s playful, sensorial environment hadseveralelementsincommonwiththe“labyrinths”that GRAV had created in Paris during the mid‐sixties,whichwerecircuitsdesignedforvisitorstowanderaroundin,manipulateobjectsandreceivediversetypesofopticalandtactilestimuli.29Fluvio subtunal most directly echoed La menesunda,however,MartaMinujín andRubénSantantonín’s1965environmentattheCentrodeArtesVisualesat the Instituto Torcuato Di Tella in BuenosAires.30 La menesunda was also a ludic,participatory, sectioned circuit that offeredsurprises at each stage of the route.Minujín andSantantonín had similarly incorporated closed‐circuit television into La menesunda to makeviewers aware of their own technologicalmediationwithin the space. Overall, however, La menesunda wasmarkedbyaNeo‐Dadaspirit thatFluvio subtunal eschewed; the former’s situationswere inspired by everyday life in Buenos Aires,organizedinsixteenenvironmentspresentedinanapparentlyrandomsequence.Avisitorcouldhave

28SeeJorgeGlusberg,Del pop a la nueva imagen(BuenosAires:Gaglianone,1985),304‐305.29 Beginning in 1963, this group’s motto was “it is prohibited not to touch.” SeeGroupe de Recherches d’Art Visuel, GRAV 1960-1968, exh. cat. (Grenoble: Centred’ArtContemporaindeGrenoble,1998).30 SeeVictoriaNoorthoorn, ed.,Marta Minujín. Obras 1959-1989, exh. cat. (BuenosAires:MuseodeArteLatinoamericanodeBuenosAires,2010).

make‐upapplied,beenvelopedbyconfettiandthesmell of deep‐frying or come across an intimatesceneplayedbytwoactorsinabed.

LublinmayhavevisitedLa menesunda,giventhatshe traveled to Buenos Aires in 1965 for thepreviously mentioned exhibition at La Ruchegallery.Atvery least,shewouldhaveknownof itthroughthepressandPierreRestanyinparticular.RestanywasoneoftheEuropeancriticswhomostoften and enthusiastically visited SouthAmericanmetropolises during the 1960s. While Restanyprimarilypromoted theNouveaux Réalistes groupand Mec Art during this period, the focus of hisinterestwasonurbanculture.31Thoughhistravelswere not limited to South America, what heexperienced in its peripheral metropolisescontributed to his position that the best art wasnow realist, urban and planetary.32 Lublin hadbeen in contact with Restany in Paris; he visitedBuenos Aires in 1965 and considered La menesunda “a capital event.”33 In addition, La menesunda had attracted over 30,000 visitorsduring the twoweeks itwas exhibited, anumberthat in Restany’s view was indicative of themagnitudeof the renovationBuenosAireswas inthe midst of in contrast to the institutionalpanoramainParis,basedonoldmodernistideas.34Withtheadventofthatera’smodernizationanditsimpactonculturalinstitutions,somecitiesturnedinto metropolises, true power plants of culturalproduction. From Restany’s perspective, BuenosAiresseemedlikeaRiodelaPlataversionofNewYork in comparison to conservative Paris,deserving of being re‐baptized “New YorkSouth.”35

31MichèleCone, “PierreRestanyand theNouveaux Réalistes,” inThe French Fifties: Yale French Studies No. 98(NewHaven:YaleUniversityPress,2000),50‐65.32Hewasalsoakeyally forArgentineans inParis suchasNicolásGarcíaUriburu,Gyula Kosice, Julio Le Parc and Lublin herself, whose production he helped toconceptualizeanddisseminateinthepressandinartinstitutionsandgalleries.SeeIsabelPlante,“PierreRestanyetl’AmériqueLatine.Undétournementdel’axeParis–NewYork,” inRichardLeeman,ed.,Le demi-siècle de Pierre Restany (Paris: InstitutNationald’Histoiredel’Art–ÉditionsdesCendres,2009):287‐309,andchapters2and6ofArgentinos de París.33PierreRestany,“LeshappeningsenArgentine:BuenosAiresàladécouvertedesonfolkloreurbain,”manuscriptsenttoOlleGranath(editorofKontrevymagazine),July21,1965,ArchivesPierreRestany–CentredelaCritiqued’Art,Châteaugiron,France,APR‐CCA.34 La Menesundareceived33,694peoplefromMay28toJune11.Memoria y balance 1965/66(BuenosAires:InstitutoTorcuatoDiTella,1967).35LetterfromPierreRestanytoMartaMinujín,December26,1964,APR‐CCA.

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In contrast toMinujín and Santantonín, however,Lublin’s aim was to reflect upon the “dialecticalopposition between the concepts of nature andtechnology.”36Fluvio subtunalwasconceivedofforacitythatwassmallandprovincialincomparisonwithBuenosAiresorParis,whoseurbanstructureand everyday habits, organized to a great extentaroundtheParanáRiver,wereprofoundlyaffectedby the construction of the Hernandarias Tunnel.Shedidnotengagethispublic’ssensesinordertodestabilize them, nor seek to decontextualizeeveryday behavior as an end it itself. Instead, byway of participation, she aspired to engage thepublic in analytical and historical reflection. Thelanguage Lublin used to enunciate her purposesand articulate her projects was permeated by astructuralism that recalls Eliseo Verón or OscarMasotta, among other Argentinean thinkers, whomay have collaborated on the project the artistcarried out in Chile in 1971 (see below).37 Shereversed the expression “túnel subfluvial” (“sub‐fluvial tunnel,” turning it into sub‐tunnel fluvialinstead)toidentifyhertransparentanti‐tunnel—afictional or dysfunctional replica of theunderwater passageway.Dismantling language tooperate on common sense, she unveiled theinterdependencyofnatureandtechnologyasbothconcepts and realities. This is why she madereferencetothetunnel’sconstructionprocessandlaborers, as well as the natural elementspertainingtoArgentina’scoastalregion.

When Fluvio Subtunal was produced in 1969,Restany returned to Argentina, accompaniedLublin on press interviews, and wrote about the 36Thethememaywellhavefallenwithintheframeworkoftheoverallplanofeventsfor the tunnel’s inauguration, given that therewas also an exhibition of computerworks at theMuseoProvincial deBellasArtesRosaGalisteodeRodríguez. See “Elfluviosubtunal,”Dinamis,No.16(January1970):58.37By themid‐sixties,bothVerónandMasottawere interested insemioticsand itsaimtoconstituteageneralscienceofsystemsofsignification.In1961,Verónmovedto Paris with a scholarship from the National Scientific and Technical ResearchCouncil (CONICET) to carry out post‐graduate studieswith Claude Lévi‐Strauss attheCollegedeFrance.In1962heattendedaseminargivenbyBarthesattheÉcolePratiquedesHautesÉtudes.StructuralismbegantobedisseminatedinBuenosAiresthrough his articles. See Eliseo Verón, “Sociología, ideología y subdesarrollo,”Cuestiones de Filosofía, Vol. 1, Nos. 2‐3 (1962): 13‐40. Upon his return, he wasDirector of the Centro de Investigaciones Sociales at the Instituto Torcuato DiTellafrom1967to1968.In1970,hemovedbacktoPariswithaGuggenheimgrant.During that period, he translatedAntropologie structural andTristes tropiques, byLévi‐Strauss,intoSpanish.Masottaorientedhisreadingtowardstructuralismduringtheearlysixties,whenhedisseminatedJacquesLacantotheSpanish‐speakingworldanddiscussedthepertinenceofsemioticsforaestheticinterpretation.Between1967and1969hepublishedthreekeybooksonthistopic:El “pop-art,” Happenings,andConciencia y estructura. See Ana Longoni, “Estudio preliminar,” in Oscar Masotta,Revolución en el arte. Pop-art, happenings y arte de los medios en la década del sesenta(BuenosAires:Edhasa,2004),9‐105.

project for theoverseaspress.38Despite SantaFebeing outside his usual circuit of capital cities,Restany reported on the environment withenthusiasm:

Fluvio subtunal is architecture that is bothformativeandinformative:itisofinteresttoallwhoareconcernedwithagreaterawarenessoftheiractsandemotions,thosewhoaretemptedto refuse to accept, even if only for an instant,theterriblepassivityoflanguage.39

Restany’s interest in the cultural effervescence ofcities like Buenos Aires was tempered by theincreased sensitivity to the politics of LatinAmericaandthe “ThirdWorld”moregenerally inFranceattheendofthedecade.Whenhereturnedto Paris from Argentina in 1969, he published aseriesofarticlesonSouthAmerica’smetropolises.In his view, repressive military dictatorships inArgentina and Brazil generated urgency on thepart of its artists “to devise an authentic LatinAmericanculture,ascaleofsensibilitythatwouldberealisticandoriginalatthesametime.”40

In December 1969, French president GeorgesPompidouannouncedtheconstructionofamajorcultural center in Paris: an impressive modernmuseum to restore the lost symbolic power ofpostwar France. While this museographicmodernization otherwise met with Restany’sambitionsforcosmopolitanculturaladvancement,Pompidou’s political agenda included nucleararmament and aggressive foreign policy. For thecritic, the realization of the museum wastantamount to surrendering twentieth‐centuryculture to “arms sellers.” Rather than a Frenchculture “fertilized by the smoke of cannons,”Restanywasmovedby thevitalityandresistancethat he detected in South American artists. “TheraisingofconsciousnessintheThirdWorldshouldbealessontoweFrench,whofindshelterinhabitandtradition.”41

38PierreRestany,“Lacrisedelaconsciencesud‐américaine,”Domus,No.486(1970):51‐57.39 Pierre Restany, “Una arquitectura de la información,” El Litoral, December 16,1969,MNBAArchive.40 Lublin’s work was juxtaposed with the 1968 Tucumán Arde project and HélioOiticica’sTropicalismo.PierreRestany,“Lacrisedelaconsciencesud‐américaine.”41PierreRestany,“LemuséeduXXesiècle,”Combat,February26,1970.

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Inside and Outside the “Third World”

LublinproducedCultura: dentro y fuera del museo(Culture: Inside and Outside the Museum) at theMuseoNacionaldeBellasArtes inSantiago,Chile,in1971.ThiswasoneyearafterSalvadorAllendewas elected President with the Unidad Popularparty’s alliance between different sectors of theLeft.Theprojectwasaninterdisciplinaryeffort“toraise questions about how the world isrepresented and how the different plastic andvisual languages used in transmitting it areconstituted.”42Inthissense,theultimategoalwasto “pointout themechanisms that ‘culture’ keepshidden.”43 Lublin aimed to compare the cultureindustry’s representation of social processes“outsideofthemuseum,”ontheonehand,andtheintellectual and technical processes of art andknowledge“insidethemuseum,”ontheother.Shesoughttounderstandhowpoliciesofinclusionandexclusionoperatedwithinmuseumsthroughtheirspecializationofknowledgeandvaluationofsomeimages over others, leading to a kind of splitbetweencultureandsociety.44Tothisend,Cultura deliberately accentuated the differences betweenthe museum’s inside and outside, while alsoproducing porosity in the conceptual barrierbetween museums and Chilean society at thistransitional moment. Its aesthetic has affinitieswith the demystifying practices that would cometo be known as “institutional critique,” butarticulated them along geopolitical lines.45 Whatwas happening “outside” the Museo Nacional deBellas Artes in Santiago in 1971 wasunprecedented anywhere in the world: socialismhadcomeintopowerthroughdemocraticmeans.

TheprojectbecamepossiblewhenartistNemesioAntúnez became Director of the Museo Nacional

42LeaLublin,“Dentroyfueradelmuseo,”Artinf (July1971),MNBAArchive.43 “‘Cultura fuera y dentro del museo,’ una investigación del conocimiento,” La Opinión,January21,1972,MNBAArchive.44 Aline Dallier, “Le rôle des femmes dans les avant‐gardes artistiques,” Opus International,No.88(Spring1983).HereIfollowTeresaRiccardi’sargumentsinthepreviouslycitedAustinpresentation,althoughIdisputethenotionthattherewasafeministpositionorparticularengagementwithgenderintheseworks.45It is likelyforthisreasonthatCultura is featuredinaNorthAmericanreaderoninstitutional critique. See Alexander Alberro and Blake Stimson, Institutional Critique: An Anthology of Artists’ Writings (Cambridge,MA:MITPress,2009).

deBellasArtesandinitiatedarenovationin1969.The museum was looking to articulate therelationship between the institution and thecitizenry in general. Antúnez oversaw theconstruction ofMatta Hall, 600 squaremeters ofexhibitionspaceonthebasementlevel.Itwasherethat Lublin situated her section dedicated to the“inside” of the museum. Lublin’s project joinedGordonMatta‐Clark’sClaraboya,also1971(oneofhis first architectural “cuts”), took placewithin atemporary exhibitions program initiated byAntúnez.46 In this sense, the institution itselfenabled this mode of institutional critique. Thecultural policies implemented during Chile’saccess to socialismmade it possible to revise thefunctioning of art museums as bourgeoisieinstitutions through notions like “critical” or“popular culture.”47 Santiago’s Museo de ArteContemporáneo also undertook initiatives in thisdirection, although in a different way, whichexplainswhytheywouldprogramaretrospectiveshowofmuralsby theBrigadasRamonaParra inthesameyearthatCulturawasheld.48

Cultura’s“Fueradelmuseo”(OutsidetheMuseum)sectionhadthreeparts.Firstwasthe“Murodelosmedios de comunicación masiva” (MassCommunicationsMediaWall)(Fig.7).Translucentscreenswere installed on the façade of the 1910building, showing audiovisual footage projectedfrom inside themuseum: a selection of themostimportant events that had taken place in Chileduring preceding months taken from the localmedia.Theoriginalplanwasforsixdocumentariestobeshownsimultaneouslyonalargesub‐dividedscreen,butpressreportsindicatethatthisdidnottakeplaceduetoalackofmeans.49

46 See Tatiana Cuevas and Gabriela Rangel, eds., Gordon Matta-Clark. Deshacer el espacio (Lima:MuseodeArtedeLima,2010).47SeeMartínBowenSilva,“Elproyectosocioculturaldelaizquierdachilenadurantela Unidad Popular. Crítica, verdad e inmunología política,”Nuevo Mundo Mundos Nuevos, January 2008, at http://nuevomundo.revues.org/13732 as of October 8,2014.48 Carolina Olmedo Carrasco, “El muralismo comunista en Chile: la exposiciónretrospectivadelasBrigadasRamonaParraenelMuseodeArteContemporáneodeSantiago, 1971,” inOlgaUlianova,Manuel Loyola andRolandoÁlvarez, eds.,1912-2012. El siglo de los comunistas chilenos (Santiago:InstitutodeEstudiosAvanzados,UniversidaddeSantiagodeChile,2012),299‐311.49ErnestoSaúl,“Juegosrespetuosos,”Ahora,December28,1971,MuseoNacionaldeBellasArtesArchives,Santiago.

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Existing photographs of the event nonethelessshow screens installed at the entrance to themuseum.The“Murodelahistoria”(HistoryWall)wasonthesouthernlateralfaçadeofthebuilding,with two translucent screens showing images ofkeyfiguresinChile’shistoryandconnectingthemto other historic figures in Latin America, againprojected from inside. The white surface of thenorthern lateral façade became the “Muro de laexpresión popular” (Popular Expression Wall),renewed daily so that the public could makedrawings or graffiti. This was filmed andtransmitted over televisions situated inside themuseum’shalls.

The “Dentro del museo” (Inside the Museum)section was organized in three sections in MattaHall (Fig. 8). Visitors following the route of theinstallationwereoffered informationonthemostimportant developments in the arts and sciencessincethemid‐nineteenthcentury.

This information was articulated with diagramsthat Lublin called “Paneles de produccióninterdisciplinaria” (Interdisciplinary ProductionPanels), labeled on the floor plan as PIPs. Forexample, a panel on linguistic theory linked thenames of Saussure, Whitney, Harris, Hocket andChomsky with arrows, along with succinctexplanations. The social sciences diagram beganwithMarx,writtenaboveinthecenter.Inordertoassemble these synoptic schematics, the artistworkedwith several specialists in physics, socialsciences, linguistics, philosophy, psychoanalysis,visual arts and optics, including Verón, exiledBraziliancriticMárioPedrosa,andChileanCarlosMartinoya,amongmanyothers.50Inspiteofeffortsby all the teams who collaborated, as Lublinconfessed to the press, they were unable topresent the project in its totality; the graphicswerenotreadyintime.

50Thelistofcollaboratorsvariesaccordingtothesource,surelyduetodifferencesbetweenwhatwasplannedandwhatwasfinallycarriedout.TheArgentineanteamlisted before the work was realized included Juan Carlos de Brasi (philosophy,methodology), Jorge Sabato (physics), Jorge Bosch (mathematics), Eliseo Verón(human sciences), Diego García Reynoso (psychoanalysis), Oscar Masotta (socialhistory of insanity), Juan Carlos Indarta (linguistics), Alberto Costa (architecture),and Analía Werthein (visual arts). These names do not coincide, however, withLublin’sownaccountoftheproject.SeeLublin,“Dentroyfueradelmuseo.”

Figure 7. LeaLublin,Cultura: dentro y fuera del museo,1972,detail.PlanofMuseoNacionaldeBellasArtesdeSantiagofaçade.ImagecourtesyofNicolásLublinonbehalfoftheestateofLeaLublin.

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AsafloorplantheartistpresentedintheHacia un perfil del arte latinoamericano(TowardaProfileofLatin American Art) organized by the Centro deArteyComunicación(CAYC)in1972indicates,thePIPs alternatedwith a series of curtainsmade oftranslucent strips—“Pantallas transparentes”(Transparent Screens)—on which a selection ofart, ranging from Impressionism to 1971, wasprojected (Fig. 9). Visitors had to walk throughthem in order to continue along the installationroute,whilelisteningtoarecordedcompilationofmusic that corresponded to the same periods oftime. Lublin had to put up signs to indicate thatviewersshouldpassthroughtheprojectedimages;otherwisetheytendedtoremaininfrontofthem,watching.Inthemiddleoftheroom,closedcircuittelevisionshowedalivetransmissionofwhatwashappeningoutsidethemuseumonthethreewalls.

Optical‐perception investigations carried out byCarlos Martinoya, the Chilean physicist who hadcreatedaseriesofdeviceswithwhichheobtained“unprecedented visual effects and particularchromatic experiences” were also shown here.51Across from this kinetic production related toscientific technique, there were examples ofpopular language inanonymousmanifestations—street murals and graffiti—recorded by way oftechnological devices such as cameras andtelevision.

51 Ana Herlfant, “Cultura dentro y fuera del museo,” Eva, January 7, 1972, MuseoNacionaldeBellasArtesArchives,Santiago.

Figure 8. LeaLublin,Cultura: dentro y fuera del museo,1972,detail.FloorplanoftheMuseoNacionaldeBellasArtesdeSantiago.ImagecourtesyofNicolásLublinonbehalfoftheestateofLeaLublin.

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According to Bernard Teyssèdre, the artist spentthree months in Chile. In spite of her efforts,however (she had managed to achieve thecooperation of local institutions like Chile‐Films,televisionstationsandtheSchoolofFineArts),theprojectwasexhibitedforonlyafewdays,andwasmissing some of the sections and props detailedabove;itisimpossibletoreconstructacompletelyreliable sense of everything that was on display.Nonetheless, the press reported on the event totheextentthatitsoundsasiftheartist’sdialecticalintentions were fulfilled to some extent: “Insidelies what is classified, arranged in order, frozen.Thestreetisaphysicalplacewhileinsidethereisintellectual play; outside lies reality while insidetherearerepresentationsofreality.”52

52ErnestoSaúl,“Juegosrespetuosos.”

In Lublin’swork from1967 on, representation isno less important than reality; understandingprocessesofsignificationisidealforapprehendingthe reality they represent. Culture was notsomethingtobediscardedasawhole,astheanti‐intellectual camp of the New Left claimed. Theartist was convinced that the socio‐economicchanges brought about by Allende’s regime (andby Cuban socialism) would not come to fruitionunless inherited Western culture participated inthe active process of revision. As such, Culturaproposed close ties between themuseum and itslocal context. The project aimed for nothing lessthan to contribute to Chile’s political process,takingforgrantedthatculturehadafundamentalroletoplayinarticulatingpoliticalconcepts.

Figure 9. LeaLublin,Cultura: dentro y fuera del museo,1972,detail.Photographofprojectionsofworksofartfromdiversetimeperiodsontransparentscreens.ImagecourtesyofNicolásLublinonbehalfoftheestateofLeaLublin.

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In Allende’s Chile, public art institutions couldrepresentobstaclesintheprocessofsocialchange,but they also held the possibility of becominginstruments for facilitating the new state’s aims.Enunciated from this very specific place, Culturaalso established connections with art history,contemporary art, and the artist’s own priorexperimentation, inanattempttoharnessthefullpotential of the museum to symbolize andrepresent on a wide variety of mechanisms anddevices.53

In1972,LublinreturnedtoFranceandsettledinastudio granted to her by the city of Paris. Inaddition topreparing theaforementionedLecture d’une œuvre de Lea Lublin par un inspecteur de police, she began working on a new version ofDentro y fuera del museo. The project waspostponedseveral times,and itwasonly in1974that she managed to develop a version that waslimited to thesectiononartdiscourse forGalerieYvonLambert.Thisdiscoursewasnotapproachedas an autonomous domain, but rather as a factorconnectedtoothersocietaldiscourses.Shesetupthe“Pantallas transparentes”andtheirrespectiveprojections of masterpieces from art history, butnotthe“Panelesdeproduccióninterdisciplinaria.”There were no interventions in the gallery’sexterior, but she did bring material previouslyforeign to the art realm—sound recordings—intotheexhibitionspace.Theprojectwasroundedoutwith Polilogue exterieure (Exterior Polylogue), afictitious dialogue of sorts (or a collectivemonologue)comprisingtaperecordingsofgalleryowner Yvon Lambert, Lublin herself, writerPhilippe Sollers and poet and essayist MarcelinPleynet, the latter twobothco‐foundersof famedmagazineTel Quel.With questions or themes setforth by Lublin as the point of departure, theyexpounded on the difference between word andimageandonthecurrentstateofpaintingandart.The artist once again included other, specializedvoices to introduce theoretical issues into herwork. Thepresence of twoofTel Quel’s founders

53 Jorge Glusberg’s description is the most complete; I have combined it withinformationfrompressandarchivalphotographs.

speakstotheartist’sinterestinstructuralanalysisaswellasherintellectualnetwork.54

Aboveandbeyondthecircumstantialreasonswhythemostambitiousversionofherprojectwasnotcompleted, it seems highly unlikely that a workwith characteristics such as the one she hadcarried out in Chile could have been brought tofruition in a Parisian museum. Teyssèdre quipsthat he can hardly imagine the Musée Nationald’ArtModerne ceding one of its exteriorwalls toallow people to express their thoughts onPresident Pompidou via graffiti. He sees it asequally unlikely that images on France’srevolutionary strugglesmight beprojected insidethe museum. Analogies between institutions inChile and Argentina, which were insistentlysubjected to critique, and their Frenchcounterpartsarenotaseasytoconstructasitmayseem.

Myinterest inthisarticlehasbeentoaddressthesense of place in Lublin’s production between1965 and 1972. For Lublin, place is bothgeographicalandasiteofenunciationfromwhichmeaningswerearticulatedinrelationtothepotentimage of the Third World and its proximity toEuropeanculture.The seriesVer claro, aswell asworks likeFluvio subtunal,Cultura: dentro y fuera del museo andLecture d’une oeuvre de Lea Lublin par un inspecteur de police, were all site‐specific:their meaning cannot be disassociated from theplace in which they were carried out. Theprevailing tendency up until now has been touniversalize them as either institutional critique,which neglects significant differences betweendiverse institutional contexts, or feminism,whichisnotalwayssufficientlyattentivetothediversityofLublin’sbodyofwork.55

54 I recently securedthe tape recordingsofPolilogue extérieure, but unfortunatelytoo late toinclude inmy analysis here. Nonetheless, we can look for clues in thecompilationofessaysPleynetpublishedthreeyearsearlieronimportantfiguresinmodern painting. This historiographical project aimed to critique the idea of art’sprogressive evolution by situating contradiction as one of modern painting’sconstitutiveelements. Inthissense,Pleynet’sperspectivewasinharmonywiththedeconstruction of art history that Lea Lublin had been carrying out in her artisticproposals for almost a decade. See Marcelin Pleynet, Enseignement de la peinture (Paris:ÉditionsduSeuil,1971).55FormoreonfeministreadingsofLublin,seeFrançoiseDucros,“Mémoiredeslieux,mémoire du corps, dit‐elle” in Lea Lublin: Mémoire des lieux, as well as TeresaRiccardi’sworkmoregenerally.

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Lublin’s earliest experimentation withdeconstructing Western culture’s visual objectshas been associated with certain insistence withgender perspectives. It is certain that pieces likeBlanco sobre Blanco orMon Fils (My Son, 1968)invitefeministinterpretations,56andthatfromthelatter half of the seventies on Lublin herself didarticulate her discourse in relation to genderissues.57Nevertheless, the complexityandvarietyofherworkrequireadiverserangeofframeworksof interpretation in accordance with each piece.For themajority ofworks andprojects discussedhere, themost accurate assertionwould seem tobethattheywerepresentedasculturalcritique.Itis hardly convincing to propose that thedeconstructivespiritappliedtoarthistorywasanartistic strategy pertaining towomen, or that thepenetrable structures participated in rhetoricrelated to soft receptiveness.58 Let us recall, forexample, that for the Journée dans la rue in1966,GRAVartistshad constructed severalPénétrables(Penetratables) using rubber tubes, adenominationanddevicethatSotowouldtakeupagain the following year, making them morewidely known.59 These proposals involvingvisitors’ bodies were linked to intentions todestabilize everyday perception by way of activeparticipation. The projects by Lublin analyzed inthisarticlewouldseemtobeheaded in thesamedirection, with the fundamental difference thatwhat the artist was putting to the test were arthistory and museography, considered to beparadigmaticactivitiesinstructuringusesofvisualrepresentation.

Inthissense,thefateoftheseworks’internationalrecognitionwasverylikelymarkedbythefactthat 56 In fact, Cornelia Butler and Lisa Gabrielle Mark includedMon Fils in the well‐knownexhibitionWack! Art and the Feminist Revolution,exh.cat.MOCA(Cambridge,MA:MITPress,2007).57 See Teresa Riccardi, “Miradas e historia(s) de santas: Lea Lublin y Orlan entregéneros,” La autonomía del arte: debates en la teoría y en la praxis. VI Congreso internacional de Teoría e Historia de las Artes (Buenos Aires: Centro Argentino deInvestigadoresdeArte(CAIA),2011),209‐219.58Herewecoincidewithcertainmistrustofaparticularessentialismwithrespecttowomen artists’ production that Georgina Gluzman has pointed to in relation toincludingaworkbyMartaMinujínandRichardSquiresinthepreviouslymentionedWack!Exhibition.SeeGeorginaGluzman,“AcercadelaslecturasfeministasdelaSoftGallerydeMinujínySquires,”Actas de de las III Jornadas de Historia, Género y Política en los ’70 (Buenos Aires: Instituto Interdisciplinario de Estudios de Genero,UniversidaddeBuenosAires,2010),athttps://www.academia.edu/1625244/Acerca_de_las_lecturas_feministas_de_la_Soft_Gallery_de_Minuj%C3%ADn_y_Squires59 Regarding this experience, see Plante, “La multiplicación (y rebelión) de losobjetos.”

the issues they touch on lost interest in Europefromthemid‐1970sonward,andthatworkssuchas these became impossible in Latin Americaduring the new political panorama of the sametimeframe.Withthemilitarizationoftheregion’sgovernments by 1974, the potentiality of LatinAmerica as a bastion of international culturaldevelopment and political ‘resistance’ dissipated,and thesiteof enunciation it representedquicklyfaded.60

Likemanyotherartists,LeaLublinmovedtoParisinorder to furtherherprofessionalization and toproveherselfinaninternationalarena.Hermovesaway from the production of discreet image‐objects and toward interventions in situ,ephemeral productions and participation madethephysicalpresenceofthepublicbeforeorinsidetheworkanincreasinglyrelevantfactor.Similarly,thesiteswherethesenewexperience‐basedworkswerecarriedout(orwheremoretraditionalworkswere shown) became essential for achievinginternational resonance. In a 1968 interview, theartistexpressesthisclearly:

In order to develop our work we must keepourselves informedonadailybasis, instantly,ofwhathappensinthevisualarts.Ihave“my”public in Buenos Aires, but Paris is aninternationalcenterforinformationandsowefind out [what is going on] personally anddirectly,making a real confrontation possibleby attending shows. Otherwise, if artists arefaraway,theybegintofollowtheleadofthosewho initiate a movement in Paris without athoroughknowledgeofwhatitisabout.Here,every person should create their ownmovement.61

To a large extent, Lublin created her ownmovement. The fact that she resided in Paris didnotmean that her careerwas limited to Europe.Thanks to her movements between differentgeographicalsites,shedevelopedherownmodeofproduction: projects deeply informed bystructuralism’spossibilitiesforcriticalthought.Atleastuntil1972,theartistcapitalizedonhertrips

60FredericJameson,Periodizar los ’60 (Córdoba:Alción,1997).61“DesdeParís:diálogoconLeaLublin,”Caballete,No.47(May1968):7.

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andalternatingstaysinthecapitalcitiesofFrance,Argentina and Chile. As a migrating artist, shedevelopedwork thatwasparticularlysensitive tothe differences between each site’s specificpolitical circumstances, institutional panoramasand intellectual traditions in addition to theculturalbaggagecarriedbythepublicineachcity.Her work addressed the asymmetries betweenEurope and South America in its operation,incorporating them into her analysis of therhetoric of culture. It might be said that she putsemiotics’programtothetest,bothasasourceforartistic experiences and as a method in contextsless“universal”thanParis.

“Between Paris and the “Third World”: Lea Lublin’s Long 1960s’”, .Artl@s Bulletin, vol....

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