15 Dec Art and activism: Mondongo Group's new exhibit
Source Credit: Content and images from Wall Street International Magazine by Nadia Yannuzzi. Read the original article - https://www.meer.com/en/81309-art-and-activism-mondongo-groups-new-exhibit
On the 12th of June, the Argentine Senate sanctioned the so-called “Ley Bases” (Bases Law). This law holds significant importance for the government as it lays down the guidelines for the profound reforms that President Javier Milei intends to implement in the country. The initial proposal was much more ambitious, but political negotiation forced the scope of changes to be gradually narrowed down (though the change making with this new legislation is still quite profound). This legislative package takes its name from a classic book in Argentine political history, written by Juan Bautista Alberdi in 1852. He is a figure vindicated by this new government, perhaps due to his opposition to Juan Manuel de Rosas, a significant figure for Peronism.
While the Senate was in session, the Congress building was surrounded by security forces as thousands protested against the legislation. Tension in the street was high, and clashes between demonstrators and police erupted swiftly. The deployment of forces during opposition protests is becoming another hallmark of this government, which claims to uphold the slogan of freedom and argues that the right to movement cannot be restricted by the right to protest.
The day after, with over 30 people still in prison, the Museum of Latin American Art (MALBA) inaugurated “Demonstration”, the new exhibit by the artist duo Mondongo to commemorate the 90th anniversary of Antonio Berni’s painting “Manifestation”. This is one of Argentina’s most important artists of the 20th century and one of the most iconic Argentinian works of art.
The curatorial concept of MALBA’s “Demonstration” propose a chronology in three moments and a painting inside another painting. Upon entering, viewers traverse a makeshift dwelling of corrugated iron and wood featuring a reproduction of “Sin pan y sin trabajo” (Without Bread and Without Work) by Ernesto de la Carcova, a pioneer artist who painted the reality of Argentina’s working classes at the end of the 19th century. In Berni’s demonstration, we can see a banner which says “Pan y Trabajo” (Bread and Work) in references to this piece. Confronting each other in the dark are both manifestations, between one of Mondongo’s circular painting of a shanty town (although with certain nods to Argentina, it could represent any part of the Global South).
Antonio Berni, born in Rosario in 1905, began his artistic training at a young age, including a period in Europe like many Latin American artists of the early 20th century, and got in touch with avant-garde movements. In the 1930s, back in Argentina, Berni started his realist phase, even writing a manifesto about it. The period from 1930 to 1943 in Argentine historiography is known as the Infamous Decade. It was marked by the first coup d’état in the country’s history and the reinstatement of antidemocratic practices such as electoral fraud and severe repression of political opponents. It is aligned with global context like the 1929 crisis and the rise of totalitarianism in Europe.
Berni depicted the effects of economic and political crises in a series of three paintings: “Manifestation” in 1934, “Los desocupados” (The Unemployed) in 1935, and “Chacareros” (The farmers) in 1936. These monumental works (2 meters by 3 meters) were executed on sackcloth with tempera. Originally, Berni intended these pieces be displayed at factory entrances, as a way to express his political activism as an artist committed with the masses of the working class. This period coincided with the golden age of Mexican muralist, with whom he debated. Berni arguing that canvases, lacking walls, could have the same power to transform society.
In the 1960s, Berni started two series of works to portray the lives of the poorest sectors through two of his iconic characters: Juanito Laguna, a boy from the slums, and Ramona, the prostitute, using materials scavenged from city dumps (clothing, cans, paper, etc.).
In 1999, in the firsts stages of another economic crisis, Mondongo Group emerged, taking its name from a traditional Latin-American dish made of cows guts. Initially as a trio — Agustina Picasso, Juliana Laffitte, and Manuel Mendanha — Mondongo continued the tradition of artistic expression with unconventional materials, much like Berni in the 1960s. As art critic Kevin Power notes, Mondongo uses consumer society’s products, engaging in provocative gestures such as their 2004 portraits of the Spanish royal family with tiny coloured mirrors (it’s commonly saying in the Latin-American collective knowledge that in the America’s conquer we gave gold to the Spanish and in return they give us collared mirrors). Another example is the black saga, where Mondongo reproduce explicit pornographic images with cookies.
For over 20 years, Mondongo has experimented with their signature material: modeling clay. The work with this material initiated with a Walt Disney’s portrait and includes the “Red saga” where they work with the original version of the Little Red Riding Hood tale. Their experimentation arrives at its climax in the “Baptistery of colours” which is a six-square-meter dodecahedron of iron and wood with 3,276 squares of modeling clay inside to present the entire colour spectrum.
The artists used to define their technique as “sculppaint”, a play on words mixing sculpt and painting. So their version of “Demonstration” is also made of modeling clay. However, Mondongo’s manifestation is no longer anonymous or homogeneous like the original; it portrays recognisable figures (such as writers Bizzio and Fogwill, artist Marta Minujin, filmmaker Albertina Carri, and others, including friends and family of the duo) and takes place in Argentina’s central stage for collective moments, the Plaza de Mayo. This new manifestation jumps out of the canvas, is three-dimensional, and the modelling clay gives it a different texture, making it seem as we are immersed in the middle of that crowd.
The artists argue that with all the things happening right now in Argentina, the exhibition takes a new relevance. The exhibition prompts reflection on those moments of collective gathering that are demonstrations, where a multitude becomes a welcoming and safe space for people united by an idea. In both demonstrations is a child at the centre, the only one looking directly at us, as if asking, “What now? What will happen next? Where are we going?”
As I finish these lines, Argentina celebrates its independence and four people remain detained from the disturbances on June 12th. President Milei has just launched his “May Pact,” emulating the signing of independence and reviving the tradition of military parades in the streets of the capital — a rare occurrence due to societal reservations linking military presence on the streets to the last military dictatorship. The government’s decision is paradoxical: street closures for the parade were allowed and a massive citizen attendance was expected. So we can say that there are street closures and groups of people in public spaces expressing their opinion who are good and others who are criminals and are violating the right to free movement.
Argentina’s present is uncertain, but in the words of the immense artist Federico Manuel Peralta Ramos, “Art is about taking responsibility for the pain and joy of an era”. Mondongo did not hesitate to follow that maxim.
Source Credit: Content and images from Wall Street International Magazine by Nadia Yannuzzi. Read the original article - https://www.meer.com/en/81309-art-and-activism-mondongo-groups-new-exhibit