Carla Barbero
Conference Report. November 2023.
I am writing this report the day after the far-right candidate won the presidential elections in Argentina. I open the report in this way because, as an Argentinian curator working in the country, this information is of the utmost relevance because of the tragedy it may imply for culture and art. It is a theme that cut across several of the presentations, not only because of the more or less neglected relationship of governments and states with institutions and certain groups of people but also because it is essential that in such adverse contexts, we question the role of museums and our professions. In that sense, I particularly recall the contributions of Elvira Espejo, Luis Camnitzer, Daina Leyton, Claudia Saldívar, María Belén Correa, and Marian Pastor Roces.
Espejo's concept of a “mutual nurturing of the arts” offers a paradigm of knowledge about culture and the arts that is diametrically opposed to the Western-Eurocentric view and which has a great power of “connectivity”. Mutual nurture – meaning to practice the utmost care for natural resources and other forms of flora and fauna because they are the sources of materials used in artistic works and also part of our cultural heritage – is a broader, more generous, and anti-patriarchal idea than the traditional notion of collections. A cultural paradigm centered on care is an enormous challenge faced by today’s societies, which are enslaved by consumerism, individualism, and the loss of empathy. As Camnitzer said, ostentation and the predominance of arguments in favor of protecting property do nothing more than contribute to a cultural hegemony that, today, is based on an overwhelming process of decentralization. This diagnosis is directly linked to the growing culture of hate and far-right governments that are emerging in the world. Now, what is the role of artists and museums in this context? Camnitzer spoke of complicity. Through a credibility pact between artists-museum-community, the former obeys the hegemonic rules set by the institutions. And these – even with the supposed educational shift that has proven to be nothing but a token gesture – have not been able to counteract the de-education process that is replacing knowledge with new frivolous forms of cultural consumption. I agree with Camnitzer’s argument that this scenario is eroding democracy as the highest value we have in common.
Between Espejo and Camnitzer, a picture is drawn of the paradigm in crisis, and thus of the cognitive crisis of today. It is a crisis that manifests itself in the tension between the search for a more caring relationship with the environment, one that is less dependent on extraction and that emancipates us from the demands of utility and the notions of domestication that technical education and the “enlightened oligarchy” seem to promote in museums. Camnitzer proposes a radical artistic shift grounded in knowledge and respect for uselessness and imaginative speculations that allow us to transcend ourselves and access the unknown. To this, I humbly add the need to expand the voices, bodies and sensibilities that have yet to find possibilities for expression and life in museums and in art. In this regard, I was moved by the presentations of Leyton and Correa, who are constructing tools and spaces to provide access to cultural forums for communities that have historically been excluded by patriarchal and ableist models. Layton shared the idea of the “bipedal pact”, which crystallizes the tyranny over and subjugation of certain groups of people, for whom the museum is just one of the institutions where this occurs. These denials, normalizing imperatives, and patriarchal structures must be revised immediately by enforcing the existing laws. It is curious how, at least in Argentina, the state has been at the forefront of enacting laws such as the Gender Identity Law (2012) and yet, even in museums, LGBTQIA+ are “subjects for the arts” but have no representation or part in the institutions, save a few exceptions. In today’s political context, museums and museum workers should be especially considerate of being agents in the defence of the human rights that have been acquired and commit ourselves to reconstituting museums as safe spaces (as mentioned by Zaldívar), spaces of care and shelters of life, both for their communities and for those who work there.
I am very grateful to have participated in the Annual Conference thanks to this grant and look forward to being a part of it again in the future. I was able to reunite with colleagues I admire, meet with other professionals, listen to ideas, and have experiences that were enriching and essential. The encounter also provided an important opportunity to strike up conversations about future collaborations. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the Museo Moderno team for being excellent hosts, and I hope that CIMAM, as the largest network of art professionals and museums in the world, acts as an allied organization in the dark times ahead in this country.
Bio
Since 2007 I have been working in the field of visual arts in museums and other public institutions in Córdoba and Buenos Aires, Argentina. My professional practice focuses on institutional curatorship; the creation of research, exhibition and editorial projects in the visual arts; and teaching as a space for creative experimentation.
I worked as Curator (2017-2022) and Head of the Curatorial Department (2021-2022) at the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires where I produced the following retrospective exhibitions and their corresponding books: Alberto Goldenstein's La memoria en los bordes 1982-2018 (2018), Delia Cancela's Reina de corazones 1962-2018 (2018), Max Gómez Canle's El salón de los caprichos (2019), Ad Minoliti's Museo peluche (2019) and Elda Cerrato's El día maravilloso de los pueblos (2021). I also curated the group exhibition Paisaje peregrino by Adriana Bustos, Claudia Del Río and Mónica Millán (2021), among other special projects with Argentinean artists such as Cotelito, Elian Chali, Diana Aisenberg and Verónica Meloni.
As an independent curator, my recent projects are: Sentimental by Cotelito (Galería Moria, Buenos Aires, 2022); Parampará by Manuel Brandazza (Galería Pasto, Buenos Aires, 2022) and Aerofósil by Nacha Canvas (Galería Quimera, 2022).
In her teaching practice, since 2022 she coordinates the curatorial practice workshop Asamblea Permanente in the Art Department of the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella. At the same institution she is also a tutor in the Artists' Programme since 2020. Since this year she has been a curatorial lecturer at the Faculty of Arts of the National University of Córdoba. Previously I coordinated three editions (2014, 2015 and 2016) of the Programa de Pensamiento y práctica en artes visuales organised by the Fondo Nacional de las Artes and the Ministerio de Cultura de la Nación. In addition, since 2019 I share with Javier Villa the artists' clinic AB-ELE.
Since 2016 I have co-directed Unidad Básica Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Córdoba, a research collective through which I carry out the publishing project Publicaciones UB. With this imprint we have published books by artists and essays on art in Córdoba. On the other hand, in the Área Pensamiento Latinoamericano of the Agencia Córdoba Cultura (2011) I developed the Programme for the Promotion of Research in the Arts.
From 2006 to 2016 I worked as a curator in museums in Córdoba such as Museo Caraffa (2007), Centro de Arte Contemporáneo Chateau Carreras (2008-2011), Museo Dionisi (2017), and especially the curatorial project of Espacio Cultural Museo de las Mujeres (2012-2015).
Graduated in Communication Sciences (2003), I completed a specialisation in Processes and Practices of Contemporary Artistic Production at the Faculty of Arts of the National University of Córdoba (2017). I am currently a PhD student in History and Comparative Theory of the Arts at the Universidad de Tres de Febrero in Buenos Aires.