In 1985, just two years after the return to democracy, Buenos Aires lived a stage of hope and optimism. In the midst of that expectant climate, from that avalanche of enthusiasm, where everything seemed to resurface from the ashes, Sara Facio, one of the great artists of Argentine photographic art, came up with a fabulous idea: convert the communication hall that unites The San Martín Theater building with the homonymous cultural centerin a gallery dedicated to photography and give life to an stripped environment. Kive Staiff, director of the TeatOr in those years, he accepted the challenge and on May 27 the photo gallery was formally inaugurated.
That first official space of the city dedicated to the exhibition of photos became a national and world reference by which they have paraded first international exhibitions. Masters of Masters in the History of the Image as Cecil Beaton, Alejandro Witcomb, Annemarie Heinrich or Grete Sternthey were shown next to those of outstanding contemporaries as Sebastião Salgado, Ralph Gibson, Franco Fontana, Alicia D’Amico, Adriana Lestido, Eduardo Grossman and Marcos Lópezamong many others.
Facio remained as director until 1998 and the visual artist Juan Travnik followed him in the management for two decades. Then a three -year pause would come for renewal and value of the building, built by the architects Mario Roberto Álvarez and Macedonio Ruiz. In mid -2018, after reopening, a curatorial committee made up of Ariel Authier, Rosana Schoijett and Bruno Dubner, who in 2022 ceased in their functions for “deep differences in the criterion of how to conceive and program” (sic). They were followed by art helena Ferronato (currently responsible for the museums of the city), with the function of Visual Arts Coordinator of the Theater Complex. And last year, as of February, the photographer, journalist and art director Claudio Larrea is the new manager of the place of the place.
New stage
“It is a big responsibility because the rod has to be very high. I come to this space since it began to work. The photo gallery, along with the Lugones room (dedicated to the cinema), were my places of reference in the city. I was going to watch Fritz Lang’s movies and then went on to watch the exhibitions. My idea is to resume what Sara Facio bequeathed us that gave this place her prestige as a photographer”, Summarizes Larrea about his expectations, by talking with news.
“They barely confirmed that I would take care of the place I started investigating what was the conductive thread of the exhibitions of these four decades. I noticed that I always prevailed a look that took care of the quality, the way of exposing and diversity. The quality was the common denominator. In addition, there was always a historical exhibition that Juan Travnik stipulated and I find it interesting to rescue.”
The photographer exposed in the photo gallery His exhibition “Republic of Waires” (A series of black and white photos of an imaginary republic, where he captured images of the city with a style that reminds of German expressionism), when he received the proposal to take the reins of the site and quickly, organized the programming of 2024 and put together this year’s.
“To program, I try to build the year as if it were a score. There are five specific samples, but there are also the balconies of access to the plate of the Martin Coronado room where other exhibitions are articulated. Some more of the moment or the present such as people of my city (contest that organizes the city bank) south. Last year, for example, there was a tribute to Tadeusz Kantor (playwright Polish) and Carlos Furman’s photos were exposed about his passage through the theater and there was also a tribute to Alfredo Alcón when he was ten years after his death, ”says Larrea.
What is coming
“This year I started with Jorge Miño. I asked him to relieve the theater, whose building turns 65, but to conceive it with his abstract gaze of architecture. Will continue Lena Sunkay who lived in 1989 in Berlinwhen the wall was about to fall. Then comes Paula Grandío that with her polaroid she took night photos of the city trying to see the ghostly or dreamlike point, “says Larrea. In the fourth sample I return to black and white with something more federal. I chose Marcos Fury who had worked in news in profile And take the project that Ansel Adams, one of the parents of photography a little. He toured Yosemite, a natural park in the United States, and made incredible records. Marcos, with that purpose, toured the interior of the country. ”
“To close, I thought about Boleslaw Senderowicz, a Polish photographer who in Buenos Aires began to take fashion photos in his studio. He has some of splendid women in the fifties like that of a lady sitting on the engine of an ampla Founding fulgor that he had, ”concludes the director.
They are forty years in which all expressions contributed a criterion of diversity and rigor that left their mark. Always in the search to reflect aesthetic trends and show the progress of a constant evolution art.
Image gallery
