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www.flacsoandes.edu.ec HARVARD REVIEW OF LATIN AMERICA WINTER 2015 VOLUME XIV NO. 2 Published by the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies Harvard University IN EVERY ISSUE BOOK TALK GARBAGE Breeding Gangs 77 A Review by Marcela Valdes FIRST TAKE Art as Civic Acupuncture 79 Waste by Marty Chen 2 A Review by Pedro Reina-Pérez TRANSFORMATIONS Bringing the War to Mexico 80 Trash as Treasure by William L. Fash and E. Wyllys Andrews 8 A Review by Andrea Oñate Recycle the Classics by Doris Sommer 11 A Recycling (of) Tradition: A Photoessay by Andrew Lantz 14 Tracing Back Marijuana Stigma 82 Trash into Treasure by Tina Montalvo and Charles Martin 16 A Review by Viridiana Ríos RECYCLING LIVES BUILDING BRIDGES Living off Trash in Latin America by Martin Medina 20 We Make Things Happen 84 Recycling Livelihoods by Lucía Fernández and Martha Chen 25 by Marcela Rentería Ciudad Saludable by Albina Ruiz Ríos 29 The Sound of Garbage by Rocío López Íñigo 32 A Long Way from the Dump by Evelyn Mansilla 34 THE ART OF TRASH Trash Moves by Maite Zubiaurre 38 Beautiful Trash by Paola Ibarra 41 ONLINE Daniel Lind-Ramos by Lowell Fiet 44 Look for more content online at A Present from the Sea by Sonia Cabanillas 46 revista.drclas.harvard.edu Burning Messages by Michael Wellen 48 Haiti in the Time of Trash by Linda Khachadurian 50 Thinking on Film and Trash by Ernesto Livon-Grosman 53 CONFRONTING WASTE ON THE COVER Privatizing Latin American Garbage? It’s Complicated… by Sarah Hill 56 “Descarga Cero” by Jake Trash in the Water by James Howe and Libby McDonald 60 Kheel, environmental director of Puntacana Resort & Club Zero Waste in Punta Cana by Jake Kheel 63 in the Dominican Republic, 66 Recycling in Guatemala: A Photoessay by Kellie Cason O’Connor shows waste before being Buenos Aires by Jessica Sequeira 70 processed in its ambitious Transforming Values by Julia Leitner 73 Zero Waste Program. REVISTA.DRCLAS.HARVARD.EDU ReVista 1 GARBAGE Burning Messages Antonio Berni’s Provocative Trash Aesthetic BY MICHAEL WELLEN A BOMB EXPLODED AT THE ENTRYWAY TO ART- these works epitomized the artist’s creativ- from the rear) appear at mid-ground. An ist Antonio Berni’s home and studio in ity and his mastery of materials. Through ominous grey cloud hangs over the scene. Buenos Aires early one morning in 1972. them, he wove together controversial con- Yet, despite his miserable surroundings, Fortunately no one was injured: the art- tent and form to create a tightly knit set Juanito is not to be viewed purely with ist was away in Paris, his wife startled of social and political commentaries that pity. Instead he perseveres, being an but safe in their bedroom a few rooms resonated with the Argentinean public. underdog with street smarts. As Berni away from the blast. Why had Berni been Berni began developing his idea of reminded interviewers, “Juanito is a boy targeted? And by whom? Initial news Juanito, a boy living in the shantytowns who is poor, not a poor boy.” reports speculated that terrorists had on the fringes of Buenos Aires, around At the same time that Berni created bombed the wrong address, intending to 1959-1960. Berni later explained on a assemblages of Juanito, he also invented hit a nearby government building. But 1977 album about his character, which his own form of printmaking—techniques nowadays most agree the bombers were he co-created with musician César Isella: he called “xilo-collage” and “xilo-collage- aiming for Berni and were part of an an- “When I first started sketching scenes of relief”—that incorporated trash materials ti-Communist terrorist group—possibly the poorer neighborhoods I used to look into his woodblocks; the resulting paper a precursor to the infamous Argentine at the barrio kids and felt that my char- prints contained rich surfaces of emboss- Anticommunist Alliance, or Triple A, a acter lacked an identity of its own. So I ing and debossing. In 1962, Berni won first secret government-affiliated death squad decided to give him a name; I wanted to prize for printmaking at the prestigious that carried out assassinations and il- name the character, this archetype of all Venice Biennale, where he showcased legally detained intellectuals and rival those children of greater Buenos Aires and several assemblages and large xilo-collag- political leaders during the Dirty War all the little boys in every Latin American es depicting Juanito fishing, hunting and of the 1970s. Berni, briefly a member of city. He could be from Santiago, Lima, bathing in the abandoned areas nearby the Communist party in the 1930s, had Rio de Janeiro, or Caracas….” Like many factories. With his prize money, Berni set long sympathized with the left. But in all Argentinean families at mid-century, the up a studio in Paris and began developing likelihood the attack on his home was not fictional Laguna family had migrated his second protagonist, Ramona Montiel, prompted by his political affiliation, but from the countryside to the capital city in a lower-middle-class girl, raised Catho- rather by his artwork and the powerful search of jobs and better lives, only to find lic, who worked as a seamstress to sup- critical message contained within. that the available work—mostly menial port her family. Motivated by desires for At the time of the bombing, Berni was and low-paid factory positions—forced the finer things in life, Ramona became arguably at the height of his career—one them to live on the margins. Berni con- attracted to the glitz of nightlife, working that stretched during much of the 20th structed images of Juanito and his family as a cabaret dancer and eventually a pros- century. In the 1930s and 1940s, he had from a variety of found trash taken direct- titute. Ramona served as a prism through gained national recognition for lead- ly from the streets of actual shantytowns: which Berni explored conflicting societal ing the country’s Nuevo realismo, or corrugated metal, factory waste, broken pressures and desires. Judged for selling New Realism, movement, channeling toys, damaged electronic components, her body, Ramona is also a powerful hero- his exceptional skills as a painter to cre- dirty cloth scraps, tin cans and various ine who uses her sexuality to gain influ- ate mural-sized scenes about working- other pieces of garbage. In a representa- ence and wealth. class life in the era of the Great Depres- tive example from the series, Juanito Goes Like Juanito’s, Ramona’s narrative sion. During the 1960s and 1970s, Berni’s to the City (1963), we see a life-sized Juan- takes place in Buenos Aires, but there are prominence reached new heights, above ito made from discarded clothing, plaster key differences between them: whereas all for his series about two fictitious char- and paint, his hair likely strands of an old Juanito was the subject of various assem- acters, Juanito Laguna and Ramona broom. He wades through a pile of gar- blages, Ramona’s narrative unfolded pri- Montiel. In this series, Berni transformed bage on his way to the city center, perhaps marily through prints. Also, Berni chose trash into imaginative visual narratives in search of work, or to bring lunch to his to incorporate different materials into about contemporary Argentinean reali- father, the metal worker, as the title of a his Ramona works, namely, images from ties. Narrating episodes of Juanito’s and different assemblage announces. Rows of fashion magazines, pieces of lace, plasti- Ramona’s lives in a non-linear sequence, buildings and a diesel truck (viewed oddly doilies and furniture pieces that he scav- 48 ReVista WINTER 2015 Clockwise from right: Ramona en la calle, 1966, xilo collage relief; La sordidez, de la serie Monstruos cósmicos, c. 1964; Juanito ciruja, 1978; Juanito va a la ciudad, 1963. All but Juanito ciruja are highlights of the col- lection at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. enged in Parisian flea markets and that spoke to Ramona’s material conditions and her desire for glamour. For nearly twenty years, Berni alter- nated between creating images of Juanito and Ramona, using each to address a dif- ferent set of timely subjects. (In fact, they catures of recognizable figures, such as of trucks. Folk singers including Mer- do not appear together in Berni’s work). The Sailor (1963), which exaggerates the cedes Sosa created music about Juanito, Through Juanito, Berni reevaluated trash, pointed nose of admiral Isaac Rojas, who and some of the nation’s most influen- literally bringing it into established art helped overthrow Juan Domingo Perón in tial writers, including Ernesto Sábato, centers and encouraging art collectors 1955. In the mid-1960s, Berni also created wrote versions of Ramona’s story. These and the elite to confront images of the large monsters of trash, generally under- characters’ popularity continues today. poor and downtrodden, people who gen- stood as characters from Ramona’s night- They appear in school plays and text erally go ignored. As evidenced by Juanito mares. With titles like Sordidness, Hypoc- books, but also have Facebook fans and the Scavenger (1978), Berni’s boy hero risy, and Voracity, they embody the deadly appear animated in YouTube videos. Yet, lives with pollution and environmental sins consuming modern society. Darkly the problems that Juanito and Ramona waste generated by mass consumerism. comedic, the monsters are at once amus- faced—including class and gender dis- He makes do, even when he appears ing and general indictments of the people crimination, pollution, government powerless. Through his Ramona series, in power as well as of the common man.