"War is a Great Disgrace" Exhibition

Guided tour of the "War is a Great Disgrace" exhibition at the Marc Museum
Silvia Dolinko and Guillermo Fantoni, authors of the curatorial texts, will guide the tour of one of the exhibition's core elements. It will be held on July 31st, with free admission.
This Thursday, July 31st, at 6:00 p.m., at the Dr. Julio Marc Provincial Historical Museum, there will be a guided tour of "A War Between Two Wars," one of the core elements of the "War is a Great Disgrace" exhibition. The tour will be led by Silvia Dolinko and Guillermo Fantoni, authors of the curatorial texts for the exhibition.

Along with Silvia Dolinko (School of Art and Heritage, UNSAM-Center for Research in Art and Heritage, Conicet), we will visit the room dedicated to the "14 Engravings" portfolio, published in 1935 by Unidad Publishing House, which contains works by renowned artists such as Berni, Berlengieri, and Facio Hebequer. With Guillermo Fantoni (Center for Research in Argentine and Latin American Art, UNR), we will tour the space that displays the sculptures of the Paino brothers and recalls the 14th Rosario Autumn Salon of 1935, in which the Chaco War played a prominent role.

Silvia Dolinko holds a PhD in Art History from the University of Buenos Aires and is an independent researcher at Conicet. She specializes in 20th-century Argentine and Latin American art, with an emphasis on the history of engraving and the printed image. She is a professor at the University of Buenos Aires and dean of the School of Art and Heritage at the National University of San Martín. He has published several books and academic articles in his area of expertise.

Guillermo Fantoni holds a PhD in Humanities and Arts with a minor in History. He is a member of the Scientific Research Program of the Research Council of the National University of Rosario (UNR) and a full professor of Argentine Art at the Faculty of Humanities and Arts at the same university. He directs the Center for Research on Argentine and Latin American Art and edits the magazine "Separata." He has curated significant exhibitions and published books, articles, and essays in specialized national and international media.

"Unity in the Face of War" (text by Silvia Dolinko)
Between late 1934 and early 1935, prints by established and emerging artists were compiled in the portfolio "14 Grabados," presented by the critic Córdova Iturburu, published in Buenos Aires by Editorial Unidad. Considering the names of the publishing house, the prologue writer, and the participating artists, it's possible to surmise that this work was the precursor to the Association of Intellectuals, Artists, Journalists, and Writers (AIAPE), which, founded in June 1935, had an important editorial anchor in Unidad magazine. These projects, undertaken in the context of the anti-fascist front policy, were strongly influenced by the hegemony of the Communist Party.

In those years, the multi-faceted use of woodcuts, etchings, and lithography established printmaking as a modern artistic production associated with the dissemination of leftist imagery and struggle. These were the techniques used to produce the 100 prints that make up this portfolio.

The monochrome images that comprise it—except only for Guillermo Facio Hebequer's striking red flag—show peasants and workers, combative masses and haranguing orators, crippled children, caricatured bourgeois, and stylized symbolic figures. The works of Juan Berlengieri and Antonio Berni focus on denouncing the war; the latter's print—the earliest of his production known—demonstrates his commitment to the Communist Party's position on the Chaco War.

Ninety years after their creation, the 14 prints are emerging from the portfolio for the first time and are displayed in full public view in an exhibition.

"The Activism of the Paino Brothers and the Alternatives of the 14th Salon of 1935" (text by Guillermo Fantoni)
In May 1935, Antonio Berni participated with his colleagues and disciples from the Popular Mutual Association of Students and Plastic Artists in the 14th Autumn Salon of Rosario. Given the open nature of that edition, it was the only opportunity for the group members to present large-format works with social and political themes, many of them created together and using new techniques, following the aesthetic and ideological guidelines proposed by David Alfaro Siqueiros in the controversial lectures given in Buenos Aires and Rosario during 1933.

Consequently, one of the most resonant contemporary events, the bloody dispute between the armies of Paraguay and Bolivia between September 1932 and June 1935, was addressed by these artists.
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