Church Letter Of Welcome

Y. .. Foreword

By Marta Nin
Amèrica House Deputy Director Catalunya

and curator of "Absence"

remember the impact that I made-do over a year now, read the proposed Gustavo Germano, an Argentine photographer based in Barcelona, \u200b\u200bhe did not know. Just three pages. An idea built on a beautiful and simple concept. Clean. No gimmicks, gimmicks or intentions. Forceful in its perfect simplicity. Gustavo Germano did not need a book of photos to convince; proposed deal with the pain through intangible. No tricks. I wanted to locate photographers who no longer: the advantage of art as a channel change, communication, conviction, excitement, of rebellion, militancy for the memory.
When, after three months Germano returned from Argentina's Entre Rios province with the first tests, the pain of others locked me in the eyes water. The feeling lasted seconds. Curious, I thought. I was already prepared for what we would see. Or not? Are only two pictures together on one page. Two young men jump. A gray-haired man jumps. The same field. The same green.
absences. The exhibition moves, stirs, provokes deep wounds, in tune with the public in a universal frequency. Excited. That is their success. His great potential. From the Council of the Generalitat of Catalonia, Joan Saura, to deputy Isabel Allende, through the Uruguayan songwriter Jorge Drexler or Catalan filmmaker Manuel Huerta, Argentina's special responsibility for Human Rights, Judith Said, the "luthier" Carlos Núñez Cortés, the Venezuelan writer Luis Britto García, Ziraldo Alves Brazilian graphic artist, writer and Argentine journalist Horacio Verbinstky or the Iberoamerican Secretary General, Enrique Iglesias of Uruguay. And both groups that has not stopped his name but his impressions excited. 'Absences' leaves no one indifferent. It is impossible. The photographs, their similarities and differences, they get - again and again - a piece of silence, suspended time, indoor.
'Why what an institution like Catalunya Casa Amèrica so committed to a policy statement? " I was asked in an interview. I had to mentally repeat the question several times. Oh yeah, 'Absences' is a political show. Even, 'as policy. " But that is not its letter, nor the grounds to stop when you leave the room. 'Absences' is above all a citizen or public exhibition on display. Wives, brothers, sisters, daughters, mothers, friends, citizens who lived through the hell one day of violence exerted against them by the government of his country. Citizens with an accomplice and militant attitude say, I'm here so you see anyone not remember to practice the silence did not win the game, why expose myself and let me shoot.
Beyond the obvious political positions, to the family photo album there, the citizens of this world thinks, reacts from a universe that has just shared. 'Absences' working with sensitive material: photography to immortalize the everyday, the small, follow suit. A material to which it is impossible to ignore. So 'Absences' harvest so warmly received, so convinced so overwhelming. And that's why we received so many congratulations on 'Absence'. Because if something has got to Gustavo Germano your bet is to bring the conceptual to the more everyday horror. Without fanfare. No show. No impact performances.
Since late December, "Absence" will leave the Catalan capital and start a long trip: Madrid (Casa de América / January), Lleida (14 ª Mostra Cinema Llatinoamericà / March), Buenos Aires (Centro Cultural Recoleta / February) Paraná, Entre Ríos, (Museum of Fine Arts / April), Palacio de la Moneda (Santiago de Chile / July), Museo della Resistenza Fuzzy (Turin / May). And the list keeps growing: Rosario (Memorial Museum), Asuncion, Paraguay, Cornella, Sant Joan Despi ... Each new visit to receive proposes a new roaming exposure.
In the capital of the Republic of Argentina, ABSENCES will be opened on 26 February by the new president-elect Cristina Fernandez de Kishner Argentina. In April, the exhibition "return" to Parana, where people of the Single Registry of truth, of the Association CHILDREN (Regional Paraná) and AFAD Gustavo Germano may share with the materialization of the work and support they provided, at all times - a year and a half ago. In July, in Santiago de Chile, Allende Foundation will seek the complicity of President Michele Bachelet to open this exhibition. Difusso Museum of the Resistenza Turin wants to translate the exhibition catalog (now in a bilingual Catalan / Castilian) into Italian. 'Absences' not for adding complicity. Gustavo Germano would say, 'and ... the ball grows. " Because the conceptual proposal of 'absence' to engage the visitor gets from the first minute. And with its approach to beat in the depths of the subconscious as practice tells us that memory is an exercise in courage and honesty, not malice. And that's where the lesson of 'absences' goes straight to the stomach, brain and heart.
A beach in black and white. Two bodies lay on honeymoon. A beach in color. Mar. Arena.
absences.

Saying For Congratulations

the ball grows

By Horacio Verbitsky

Writer and journalist

The forced disappearance of persons who must vanish in the nothing was the method chosen by Argentina's 1976-1983 dictatorship. According to several of their leaders, and sought to avoid conviction of the Holy See, with the approval of the hierarchy stealth Argentina. But in return got to that dismal past to become an insomniac perpetual, as the curse that Neruda thought to Franco. More than criminal trials, the investigative journalism or philosophical essays, art realizes that the stabbing vacuum causes unexplained absence. As Juan Carlos Distefano sculptures or poems of Juan Gelman, Carlos Alonso boxes of English or Gucemas Ramos, Gustavo Germano photographs and points in each legend replace the absent name evokes the trauma of identity founder Argentina contemporary and introduce us to the mystery of time with the silent violence of a frozen gesture.

The Cervical Rib Needs

Absences

"Absence" is an exhibition project that, based on photographic material from family albums, shows fourteen cases through which the universe gets face of those who no longer are: workers, neighborhood activists, students, workers, professionals entire families, women and men, victims of the systematic illegal repression and forced disappearance of persons established by the military dictatorship in Argentina between 1976 and 1983.

The Argentine photographer based in Barcelona, \u200b\u200bGustavo Germano, back thirty years later, accompany your camera to family and friends to the same places, in similar conditions to those pictures again, now with the hurtful presence of absence of the loved one.

The work, presented in a constant dialogue between before and now, show changes in the environment over the years and those two times in a Parallel impossible presence-absence.

"Absence" is intended to and in the complicity of the family his rationale. In its militancy, the families of the victims claim, posing for the camera, the space should also have been busy. And in that vacuum, we see no longer.