MSSA exhibitions brochure. 1st period 2018 by Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende

ART + COMMUNITY

“... the gesture of those artists ... corresponds to a common feature in the contemporary artistic collectivity. This community is intimately devoted to the ideal of a more just, free and humane society than that which currently prevails in the largest part of the world”. “Necessary Declaration”, International Committee for Artistic Solidarity with Chile. Santiago, November 1971.

Under the motto “Art + Community”, the Salvador Allende Museum of Solidarity commemorates and brings up to date during 2018 the collaborative networks that have been present since the establishment of the Museum. Its origins date back to early 1971 in Santiago de Chile, with the visit of international intellectuals and artists, in the context of what was called Operation Truth. That is when the idea of creating “a museum for the Chilean people” was born. Through a call to the artists of the world, president Salvador Allende encouraged the donation of artworks that soon arrived from different corners of the world. This utopian gesture of solidarity established the foundation of an original museum model, characterized by its broad ethical and aesthetic vision. Today, our Collection consists of 2700 works that seek to stimulate a critical questioning regarding the ways we co-exist in the world. In their condition as public heritage, these creations are kept and researched by the Museum, following the foundational impulse of being a living institution, open and situated in the present, establishing a dialogue with its history and the possible futures. 46 years after its foundation, the persistence of this initiative takes hold by opening new networks of collaboration on a neighborhood, national and international level. Re-thinking the meaning of solidarity today is what moves us to continue building community through artistic and social action.

MSSA COLLECTION

THREE PERIODS OF THE MUSEUM

The periods in the history of the MSSA are marked by the course of recent Chilean history. Since its establishment, the Museum has adopted three names, which also define its patrimonial collection.

MUSEUM OF SOLIDARITY (1971-1973) This period is characterized by the donations of prominent international artists in support of the Popular Unity: Joan Miró, Victor Vasarely, Lygia Clark, Frank Stella, among others. Almost 670 works arrived to Chile, thanks to the International Committee for Artistic Solidarity with Chile (CISAC), headed by Brazilian art critic Mário Pedrosa, which had its administrative headquarters at the Latin American Art Institute of Universidad de Chile. The Museum was inaugurated on 17 May 1972 and three exhibitions were held before the coup d’Etat of 11 September 1973.

SALVADOR ALLENDE INTERNATIONAL MUSEUM OF RESISTANCE (1975 – 1990) The coup submerged the Museum in a deep invisibility: track was lost of part of its collection and its organizers suffered exile and had to go underground. The project was reorganized in 1975 from abroad, with the work of

Mário Pedrosa, Pedro Miras, José Balmes, Miguel Rojas-Mix and Miria Contreras, among other cultural organizers and artists. To denounce the atrocities committed by the civicmilitary dictatorship, as a gesture of resistance, was the motivation for the donation of new artworks. Miró, Chillida and Carlos Cruz-Diez donated for a second time, while Julio Le Parc, Wilfredo Lam, among others, sent their first contributions.

SALVADOR ALLENDE MUSEUM OF SOLIDARITY (SINCE 1990) After the return to democracy in Chile, the collections of previous periods were gathered and placed under the care of the current MSSA in their status as public goods. Since 2005, the Art and Solidarity Foundation is in charge of managing, publicizing, investigating and activating this collection, which has continued to grow with donations of creators such as Alfedo Jaar, Yoko Ono, Gracia Barrios and others.

A SITE OF MEMORY IN THE REPÚBLICA NEIGHBORHOOD Located in the República neighborhood, a traditional district of great architectonic and historical wealth, the house that since 2006 has hosted the Salvador Allende Museum of Solidarity belonged to the Belgian businessman Amadeo Heiremans, who commissioned its construction in 1925 to architects Fernando Valdivieso and Fernando de la Cruz. Following his death in 1945, the building became the Spanish Embassy in Chile until 1967. It was later acquired by the Universidad de Chile to establish the Department of Humanistic Studies of the School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, an epicenter of the artistic avant-garde and the resistance during the dictatorship. In 1976, this space became the center for telephone surveillance of the Central Nacional de Informaciones (National Information Center, CNI), a repressive body of the civic-military dictatorship. After those dark years, the building was reclaimed by the Chilean state and in 2004 it was acquired by the Salvador Allende Foundation, an organization that promotes the legacy of the former President. Currently, the MSSA takes active part in the construction of the history and memory of the República Neighborhood, working creatively and collaboratively with social and cultural actors.

FIRST CYCLE OF EXHIBITIONS

â&#x20AC;&#x153;I thank the idealists of this project... for helping me understand that art can be more than a painting, it is a revolutionizing thoughtâ&#x20AC;?. MSSA Guest Book, Fernanda Lucero, Santiago, October 2017.

DEBUT 43 works reunite with their Collection

Curated by MSSA Archive and Collection areas

This exhibition is a public celebration of the arrival to the Museum of a set of works donated between 1972 and 1973, which after the coup d’État were clandestinely deposited under custody of the National Museum of Fine Arts (MNBA). The hidden works were produced between 1960 and 1973, and correspond to donations from Switzerland, USA, France and Japan, by artists committed to the Museum’s cultural project. Conceived as a journey through the breaks and opacities in our cultural history, the exhibition —including graphic works, paintings and sculptures— offers the first public exhibition of these 43 works. Among the works that stand out are the abstract expressionist work of Robert Motherwell, the silkscreen prints of Japanese artist Tetsuya Noda and the “Armando Zegrí” collection, established in honor of this multifaceted Chilean writer, who created in 1953 one of the first galleries for Latin American art in New York. The show also commemorates the two exhibitions of the Museum of Solidarity that were organized at the beginning of 1973 with the works of Joan Miró, Eduardo Chillida and Noemí Gerstein, among others; it includes a reference to the historical and social context of the arrival of these works to the country. Research has a relevant space within the exhibition, through the announcement of lost works, the location of which is still under investigation and the restoration of the pieces, as a part of their recuperation process, after being hidden for four decades. The recovering of the works is part of an inter-institutional collaboration with the MNBA and the National Center for Conservation and Restoration (CNCR), institutions that operate under the Cultural Patrimony National Service of the Ministry of Cultures, Arts and Patrimony.

< Image: Tetsuya Noda, Diary: sept 11th ´68, 1968 (detail).

After its exhibition at the Contemporary Art Museum of Barcelona (2015) and the Haus Der Kulturen Der Welt in Berlin (2016), this archival and documentary exhibition arrives at MSSA, excavating the history of the museums of solidarity organized in support of the causes of Palestine, Nicaragua, South Africa and Chile, established during the tumultuous seventies and eighties, under the ideals of political and social struggle. The similarities and particularities of these four experiences of artistic action against established power were investigated by two curators of Lebanese origin, Kristine Khouri and Rasha Salti. The professional team at MSSA actively collaborated in the research of the Nicaraguan case. Thus, the exhibition weaves the connected history of the International Art Exhibition for Palestine, in Beirut, Lebanon (1978), the Art for the People of Nicaragua initiative (1981), the collection Art Against Apartheid in South Africa (1979) and the Museum of Solidarity (1971), today Salvador Allende Museum of Solidarity, the only one still active. The narrative of the exhibition also presents the networks of solidarity of collectives based in Paris, Rome and Tokyo; the artistsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; unions in Damascus, Casablanca, Berlin and Warsaw; and the denunciation actions in the Biennials of Venice, Baghdad and Rabat. After its exhibition in Chile, this showâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tour will continue during 2018 to Sursock Museum (Beirut, Lebanon), Palestinian Museum (Birzeit, Palestine) and MMGA Foundation (Amman, Jordan). Kristine Khouri is an independent writer and researcher in visual arts and archival practices, currently living in Beirut. Rasha Salti is an independent film and visual arts curator and writer, working and living between Beirut, Berlin and Paris. Image: Arabic cover of the bilingual catalog of the International Art Exhibition for Palestine, Beirut, 1978 (detail). >

PAST DISQUIET Curated by Kristine Khouri and Rasha Salti

BLACK CITY

Artist: VÃctor Hugo Bravo

A destroyed contemporary city, pervaded by abuse of power and premeditated violence, is the proposal of the exhibition by Chilean artist VĂctor Hugo Bravo, who uses installation and painting as his main artistic media. Violent and bellicose objects, built with all sorts of industrial waste, resemble brass knuckles, stilettos and clubs. Shelves packed with objects created in order to cause harm refer to a hidden arsenal or an archive of judicial evidence, while a voluptuous oil painting by Peter Paul Rubens in military camouflage style alludes to a despairing black city, excepting the politics of whitewashing: actions of social sanitization as new mechanisms for the aestheticization of shadows, nooks and crannies of the system. VĂctor Hugo Bravo (1966) is a visual artist, independent curator and lecturer. He received a degree in Visual Communication in Plastic Arts with a major in Painting at the Contemporary Art Institute in 1992. Director of Caja Negra Artes Visuales since 1999. He has participated in more than 100 collective and individual exhibitions in different museums and galleries in Chile and abroad, among which we find the Mercosur Biennial (Brazil), LAZNIA Center for Contemporary Arts (Poland) and the Cairo Biennial (Egypt).

< Image: Photograph of the process of the work, courtesy of the artist.

MAPS EXHIBITION HALLS

FREE ACTIVITIES

PUBLIC PROGRAMS

DEBATE AND THOUGHT SEMINAR THE TEXTILE ART OF ANNI ALBERS Led by Briony Fer, Art History Professor at UCL, London. Moderated by Josefina de la Maza, art historian. Jointly organized with UC Architecture and Design. Tuesday 03.04 / 11 am. / Third floor MSSA

PAST DISQUIET CONFERENCE

Kristine Khouri and Rasha Salti, curators of the exhibition Moderated by Daniela Berger, Exhibitions Program Coordinator Monday 09.04 / 7 pm. / Third floor MSSA

SEMINAR ARTISTIC EDUCATION AS SOCIAL ACTION

In the context of the anniversary of the MSSA and the Artistic Education Week, we ask, what are the foundations of an artistic education that includes social action in Chile? Thursday 17.05 / Third floor MSSA

SEMINAR 1968: THE UNIVERSITY REFORM IN VISUAL ARTS This seminar addresses a reflection on the deep changes in the relationship between art and social life in the artistic, pedagogic and museum domains 50 years after the University Reform. Thursday 7.06 / Third floor MSSA

WORKING SESSIONS ON COLLECTIONS AND MUSEUMS IN CHILE

On the occasion of the reflections and discussions regarding the Debut exhibition, these sessions will address the challenges presented by authorsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; rights, conservation, research and valuation of collections in our country. Thursday 2.07 / Third floor MSSA

MEDIATION GUIDED TOURS AND MEDIATION ACTIVITIES

Be a part of our activities for schools, universities and organizations, exploring the exhibitions through dialoguing methodologies seeking critical thinking through guided tours (GT) and experimentation workshops (EW).

1. Debut. 43 works reunite with their collection

GT: Rescue operation (children and teens) Pirating of Archives (youth and adults) EW: Collective composition: the first strokes in a museum (infants and Special Education Needs) Opening the cube and showing the works (children and teens)

2. Past Disquiet

GT: Speaking out (children and teens) Disquiet Pasts, suspicious presents (youth and adults)

3. República Neighborhood

GT: Following the traces of the República Neighborhood’s memories (teens, youth and adults)

GUIDED TOURS IN ENGLISH

Schedule a guided tour about historical and artistic aspects of the MSSA in English, for foreign visitors. Fees according to the number of visitors.

Information and reservations: mediacion@mssa.cl

COMMUNITY OUTREACH HERITAGE DAY CELEBRATION

Activities at the museum during the day. Sunday 27.05

THE NEIGHBORHOOD’S PERSPECTIVE

This project has planned a series of meetings at República Neighborhood with the neighbors of the museum in order to explore and recognize its history. Through conversations and experimentation workshops, the project aims at reconstructing, collectively and individually, the places, stories and issues which are materially and immaterially embodied by the neighborhood. Experimentation workshops: Every Tuesday, 6 pm Textile: April and May Creative writing: May and June Photography: June and July

EQUATIONS FOR MEMORY We challenge you to reflect upon memory and future, drawing from Tzvetan Todorov’s phrase: No doubt, everybody has their right to reclaim their past, but there is no reason to build a cult of memory for memory’s sake; to consecrate memory is another way of making it sterile. Once the past is reestablished, the question must be: what can we do with it and to what end? Tzvetan Todorov, Bulgarian-French philosopher (1939-2017)

1. After reading the quote, go through every equation, filling the blanks with a concept that gives meaning to the suggested order. You can write or draw. There are no wrong answers, whatever you propose is related to your own reflection. 2. Once you complete all three equations, detach the sheet from the booklet and put it into the letter box at the reception. If you wish, take a picture of it and share your results in social networks using #mssachile.

DIRECTOR

Claudia Zaldívar

COLLECTION

Caroll Yasky / Coordinator Camila Rodríguez / Conservator Héctor León / Registrar Antonella Guevara / Adjunct Assistant