Women, Art & the Periphery | Mujeres, arte y periferia
Artists-in-Residence, screening, installation, worshops, performance
Women, Art & the Periphery was a series of multimedia events conceived and curated by Sara Diamond featuring contemporary art by Chilean women who played an active role in unofficial culture developed in Chile after the 1973 military takeover. In the fall of 1987, Video In hosted the residency of Chilean artists Diamela Eltit, Nelly Richard and Lotty Rosenfeld (1943-2020) that included workshops, community meeting, an installation, and art action by Rosenfeld. The Floating Curatorial Gallery at Women in Focus presented multimedia works by thirteen Chilean contemporary artists, co-curatored by Eltit, Richard and Rosenfeld. Other events included Rosenfeld in residence at Western Front, Eltit’s talk at La Quena Coffeehouse, and several lectures at local universities.
Colectivo de Acciones de Arte / Centre for Cultural Investigation and Artistic Creation – CADA (1979-1983) was formed by Eltit, Richard and Rosenfeld under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in Santiago, Chile. This multidisciplinary space for production, publication and critical discourse. Their concerns included an exploration of Indigenous cultural forms and current Chilean issues in relation to Western-influenced experimental art forms.
Video In Newsletter
Newsletter No.5 November 1987.
Publisher: Video In. Design: Joe Sarahan
Catalogues
Issue #42: Vol. 9, No. 2, Fall 1987
Issue functions as Catalogue for “Women Art and the Periphery”, video by Chilean Women at Video Inn and other locations, in collaboration with Women In Focus. Pages 7-16. Introductory text by acting editor, Karen Knights.
Publisher: Satellite Video Exchange Society
Editor: Karen Knights
Artists: Aguilar, Paulina; Barrios, Gracia; Berenguer, Carmen; Bru, Roser; Donoso, Luz; Eltit, Diamela; Errazurriz, Virginia; Errazurriz, Paz; Gonzales, Nury; Hughes, Helen; Rosenfeld, Lotty; San Martin, Julia; Toro, Julia; Binning, Sadhu; Hundal, Sukhwant; Samuel, Julien; Trujillo, Catalina
Curator(s)Clark, Donna; Richard, Nelly; Eltit, Diamela
Author(s)Eltit, Diamela; Richard, Nelly; Rosenfeld, Lotty; Cook, Conal; Condy-Berggold, Craig; Todd, Loretta; Tomlins, Colin; Knights, Karen; Ronderos, Cecelia
Year Published: 1987
Month Published: November
ISBN / ISSN #02286726
Contact the archivist to access.
Women, Art & the Periphery [Exhibition catalogue]
Publisher: Women in Focus Society
Artists; Aguilar, Paulina; Barrios, Gracia; Berenguer, Carmen; Bru, Roser; Donoso, Luz; Eltit, Diamela; Errazurriz, Virginia; Errazurriz, Paz; Gonzales, Nury; Hughes, Helen; Rosenfeld, Lotty; San Martin, Julia; Toro, Julia
Curator(s)Eltit, Diamela; Richard, Nelly; Rosenfeld, Lotty
Year Published: 1987
Languages: English and Spanish
Catalogue for the exhibition presented by The Floating Curatorial Gallery at Women in Focus, November 11 – December 19, 1987, of thirteen Chilean Contemporary Artists’ Multimedia Works. Acknowledgements, credits and foreword by Donna Clark for WIF, introduction by D. Eltit and essay by N. Richard. List of works. All texts produced in both languages.
Photo Documentation
This Line Is My Weapon / Esta linea es mi arma
Lotty Rosenfeld
Video In. November 27 – December 19, 1987.
Comprised of two video components- The Disappeared Ones, Today and Yesterday and Pity the Conquered. Rosenfeld juxtaposed the disappearance of thousands of Chilean since Pinochet’s rule with the genocide of the Indigenous ‘las onas” people.
Art Actions: Lotty Rosenfeld
December 4, 1987
Cross Intervention: Georgia Street.
This intervention took place in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery. The Gallery occupies is the former Vancouver Law Courts building, a designated heritage landmark, designed in the grand classical style. Situated on a city block bounded by Georgia, Howe, Hornby and Robson Streets, it is a notablelocated in the heart of Vancouver’s business and commercial core in Vancouver, Canada.
Sound Intervention: Provincial Court of British Columbia. 800 Hornby Street.
Lotty Rosenfeld Statement
Sound Intervention
Audio Documentation
Nelly Richard Talk & Slide Presentation
Chilean Art History
Video In, 1988.
SVES_0852a
SVES_0852b
Additional Resources
SVES fonds
Administrative files
A061 [programming files]
A099 [photo file]
A197 [poster]
Video Out International Distribution
Videos
| Zona De Dolor I | Diamela Eltit | 1985 | Chile | 1504a |
| Zona De Dolor II | Diamela Eltit | 1985 | Chile | 1504b |
| Zona De Dolor III | Diamela Eltit | 1985 | Chile | 1504c |
| Para No Morir De Hambre En El Arte | CADA | 1979 | Chile | 1504d |
| Inversion De Escena | CADA | 1979 | Chile | 1504e |
| Ay South America! | CADA | 1981 | Chile | 1504f |
| El Padre Mio | Diamela Eltit | 1985 | Chile | 1504g |
| Milla De Cruces Sobre El Floor | Lotty Rosenfeld | 1979 | Chile | 1504h |
| Une Heriday Americana | Lotty Rosenfeld | 1982 | Chile | 1504i |
| Proposicion Para (entre) Cruzar Espacios Limites | Lotty Rosenfeld | 1983 | Chile | 1504j |
| Paz Para Sebastian Acevedo | Lotty Rosenfeld | 1985 | Chile | 1504k |
| Ay De Los Vencidos | Lotty Rosenfeld | 1986 | Chile | 1504l |
| Yo No Le Tengo Miedo A Nada | Tatiana Gaviola | 1984 | Chile | 1505a |
| La Gallinita Ciega | Tatiana Gaviola | 1987 | Chile | 1505b |
| Popsicles | Gloria Camiruaga | 1984 | Chile | 1506a |
| Diamela Eltit | Gloria Camiruaga | 1986 | Chile | 1506b |
| El Pan Nuestro De Cada Dia | Gloria Camiruaga | 1987 | Chile | 1506c |
| El Mensajero | Hernan Littin | 1987 | Chile | 1507a |
| Palabra De Mujer | Lotty Rosenfeld | 1986 | Chile | 1507b |
| La Comida | Sybil Brintrup | 1983 | Chile | 1508a |
| Topology II | Solidad Farina | 1983 | Chile | 1508b |
| Confidencias | Solidad Farina | 1985 | Chile | 1508c |
| 700 Planos Para Kafka | Sandra Quilaqueo | 1985 | Chile | 1508d |
| Auto-criticas | Marcela Serrano | 1980 | Chile | 1508e |
| Somos + | Pablo Salas | 1985 | Chile | 1510 |
| Esta Linea Es Mi Arma | Lotty Rosenfeld | 1987 | Chile | 1587 |
| | – + | Lotty Rosenfeld | 1987 | Chile | 1588 |
| | | Lotty Rosenfeld | 1987 | Chile | W0010 |
| + | Lotty Rosenfeld | 1987 | Chile | W0011 |
| = | Lotty Rosenfeld | 1987 | Chile | W0012 |
Sara Diamond fonds
File: SD-04-01-002 – Diamela Eltit and Nelly Richards – interview
Creator: Sara Diamond
VIVO Media Arts Centre Page 394
SD Sara Diamond fonds
Title: Diamela Eltit and Nelly Richards – interview
ID: SD-04-01-002
Date: Undated (date of creation)
Physical description: 1 folder
Item located in box 54, folder 05
Women In Focus fonds
File: [Paulina Aguilar work included in 1987 exhibition]
Creator: Women In Focus
Date: 1987
Physical description: 1 folder. File consists of documents pertaining to work by Paulina Aguilar which was featured in the exhibition Women, Art & the Periphery (11 November 1987-19 December 1987). File also includes three colour slides depicting the artist’s work, which was created in 1982.
File: Margins and Institutions: Art in Chile Since 1973
Creator: Nelly Richard
Description: 1 folder. File consists of five copies of “Margins and Institutions: Art in Chile Since 1973” by Nelly Richard. Publication is a special issue of Art & Text.
Access
Contact library@vivomediaarts.com for access.
Biographies
Diamela Eltit
The Chilean writer and artist Diamela Eltit was born in Santiago in 1949. She obtained a degree in literature from the Universidad de Chile in Santiago, has taught in schools in Chile and abroad, and is currently Distinguished Global Professor in Creative Writing in Spanish at New York University. Eltit turned to the visual arts, specifically art actions, in the late 1970s, when she formed—along with the poet Raúl Zurita, the sociologist Fernando Balcells, and the artists Lotty Rosenfeld (b. 1943) and Juan Castillo (b. 1952)—the group CADA (Colectivo de Acciones de Arte). From 1979 to 1983 CADA staged multiple art actions in Santiago’s working-class neighborhoods and at art institutions to disrupt the authoritarian order established by the dictatorial regime of Augusto Pinochet. During her years with CADA, Eltit performed and recorded for the video camera a series of actions titled Zonas de dolor (Zones of pain). In Zona de dolor I, from 1980, Eltit is seen washing the sidewalk in front of a brothel on Maipú Street while reciting the text of her unpublished novel “Por la patria” (later published as Lumpérica). She edited the video to begin with images of her lacerated arms and legs. The video Zona de dolor II, from 1981, shows Eltit kissing a homeless man. The brief encounter is marked by sexual and class tensions further heightened when she leans back and the man begins kissing her more intensely. Eltit’s actions contrast with those of CADA in that she approaches art actions as a way to explore womanhood, gender, and marginality rather than solely as an institutional and political critique.
She has also coauthored other video projects, including Con frio, con lluvia, con calor (With cold, rain, heat) and El padre mio (My father), both from 1986. Eltit has always felt a great affinity for the visual arts, particularly during the Pinochet regime, as an outlet to express her views on social and political issues. An important contributor to the cultural debates that challenged the military dictatorship, Eltit has published widely in journals, including Revista de crítica cultural, and in the books Lumpérica (1983), El infarto del alma (Heart attack of the soul; with photographs by Paz Errázuriz, 1994), and Emergencias: Escritos sobre literatura, arte y política (Emergencies: Writings about literature, art, and politics, 2000). Many of her novels have been adapted for the theater and published in translation. Eltit was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (1985) and a grant from the Social Science Research Council (1988); she has also received numerous other awards and appointments. From 1991 to 1994 Eltit served as Chilean cultural attaché to Mexico. In 2013 Princeton University acquired her archive, which includes manuscripts, letters, and photographs.
(Bio by Marcela Guerrero)
Nelly Richard
Born in France, Nelly Richard studied Modern Literature at the Sorbonne (Paris III), and has lived in Chile since 1970. Her book Margins and Institutions: Art in Chile since 1970 (1986), which gave shape to the Escena de Avanzada in Chile, is considered a key reference in the field of Latin American art and critical theory. She was the curator of the unofficial selection of the Paris Biennale (1982) and since then has undertaken a number of curatorial initiatives, both in and out of Chile, revolving around aesthetics, politics, memory and gender. In 1987 she was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. She was the founder and editor of Revista de Crítica Cultural from 1990 to 2008, and was the director of the Master’s Program in Cultural Studies at Universidad ARCIS, in Chile, from 2004 to 2010.
Her most notable publications include: Diálogos latinoamericanos en las fronteras del arte: Leonor Arfuch, Ticio Escobar, Néstor García Canclini y Andrea Giunta ( 2014); Crítica y política (2011); Crítica de la memoria: 1990 – 2000 (2010); Feminismo, género y diferencia(s) , (2008); Fracturas de la memoria. Arte y pensamiento crítico (2007); Residuos y Metáforas, ensayos de crítica cultural sobre el Chile de la Transición (1998); La Insubordinación de los Signos, cambio político, transformaciones culturales y poéticas de la crisis (1994); and Masculino/Femenino, prácticas de la diferencia y cultura democrática (1993).
Lotty Rosenfeld
Carlota Eugenia Rosenfeld Villarreal (20 June 1943– 24 July 2020), known as Lotty Rosenfeld, was an interdisciplinary artist based in Santiago, Chile. She was born in Santiago, Chile, and was active during the late 1970s during the time of the Chilean military coup d’état. She carried out public art interventions in urban areas, often manipulating traffic signs in order to challenge viewers to rethink notions of public space and political agency. Her work has been exhibited in several countries throughout Latin America, and Internationally in places such as Europe, Japan, and Australia.[Wikipedia]
ARTnews, “Lotty Rosenfeld Dead”, Maximilíano Durón, July 24, 2020.