CHAPTER III

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AFFECTS

 "Affects" proposes to approach different experiences of the body. These are bodies legally deprived of liberty, bodies taken to an urban scene that transits without perceiving their existence. Bodies pose; bodies of interrogated sexualities; bodies that refer to transitional emotions. The theory of affects addresses intermediate states, intensities, the passage from body to body (human, non-human, body parts). The ‘not yet’, what is ‘between’ (in-betweenness, becoming / non-becoming, belonging / non-belonging). Baruch Spinoza stated "No one can determine what the body can." It is configured in that not yet. This section proposes to think about that process that does not close, that does not end, that seeks the affectivity of what follows, what follows, what follows...

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Andrea Giunta, Rethink Everything notes.

Imprisoned woman. Adriana Lestido lives with them; photography gathers information that changes every day. Prosecuted, punished, dismissed, absent; the words are written in chalk on a blackboard to erase and rewrite the numbers. They are women mothers of children who live with them. They prey with them. In isolation the bodies of these women touch, rest, vibrate forms of sensuality. With the pandemic the prisons of the world exploded. In Argentina, the debate installed the social contradictions that the pandemic had only numbed. The present has to manage the conflicts that go through it every day. The horizon of the future remains too close to the urgent present.

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Andrea Giunta, Rethink Everything notes.

»» Watch We are Memory with Adriana Lestido, Encuentro Channel.

[...] What makes your book so inusual and mysterious is the nature of your (the photographer’s) presence. What we see happening – existing – is existing as though you weren’t there. Nobody gives the impression of beeing photographed. And yet, at the same time, each image has been chosen and gathered with so much love and compassion. You are absolutely there with what and who you are photographing, and you are absolutely not there!

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It´s as though you use a time exposure but set, not for 30 seconds, but for eternity. And the eternal (as Spinoza tells us) is not everlasting but timeless. They are prophecies of what has already happened. And the lens is a curious kind of telepathy.

John Berger, correspondence with Adriana Lestido

Ananké Asseff records a poignant image of the forms of erasure, that of herself, of her own motionless presence in the urban transit of people passing by. The expression mutates, first serious then with an almost frozen smile. The grammars of the crowd are based on the contagion of the bodies. In Mass and Power, the extensive analysis that Elias Canetti wrote about mass, analyzes its grammars, but does not include the possibility of a contrast between the movements of the body that are transmitted in urban traffic and the complete arrest that embeds the motionless presence of the artist. The film allows us to think about the affections that are not contagious. Here nobody perceives the body, the immobile and inadequate presence to the zigzagging routes of those who pass. "Empty yourself": the word on the flag allows us to think that absence-presence in the monumental format of a flag: red, as if its extensive vertical surface could install the voice of a dissident subjective voice.

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Andrea Giunta, Rethink Everything notes.

Affections, experiences of the body. Adolescents, by Juan Travnik, preserves the transitional time of a deep mutation of the body and the affections. It is perceived in that time when the first person and the assemblage establish their tracks, the signs of a sexual identity that investigates its borders, that interrogates binarisms.

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Andrea Giunta, Rethink Everything notes.

In his series Adolescence, Juan Travnik portrays in his studio, during the 80s and 90s, a group of young adolescents, constituting this work as one of his first essays that accounts for such an attractive, fresh, overflowing stage of life, impulsive as difficult, distressing and uncertain for those who go through it. Leaving childhood behind, facing the changes in the body imposed by the appearance of puberty and the conflictive start of adulthood, supposes mixed emotions, feelings that go from euphoria to nostalgia and that the artist captures in a set of varied and exquisite portraits where each one reveals their own unique and unrepeatable nuances of the personality of the portrayed models. Details are of special relevance in this series, highlighting Travnik's gaze: purist, sensitive and with pictorial touches. Images that interpellate, interrogate, leave no room for the possibility of indifference, frontal proposals in which we feel induced to confront the issue and give rise to reflection.

María Carolina Baulo, Rethink Everything notes.

"Yin and Yan" is a principle of Eastern philosophy that maintains that all things in the universe exist by and coexist alongside an other that opposes them, that complements them. In addition to Moira, the model that Vivian works with for years, a second model allows us to interrogate the borders of a binary sexuality. The limits of the bodies are blurred in a hypnotic video that makes evident the points of contact between bodies that, juxtaposed, question each other.

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Andrea Giunta, Rethink Everything notes.

[...] with these photographs she also questions the relationship between body and female image, body and male image. The affective mist surrounding the definition of these singularities, which are not singularities, that are singularities in terms of the representation of a person's affectivity, but not in terms of the sharp separation between two heteronormative ways of understanding sexuality or bodies.

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Andrea Giunta, Rethink Everything notes.

Nicola Costantino activates the memory of the body built by art history. The female body. She returns to the archive of poses and gestures from which the masculine gaze observed it. She assembles the Boticelli pose, the Bacon pose, and unfolds her body, evidently exposing the construction of the gaze that is operated in his famous paintings. In the photograph that we include, an interstitial moment is registered, in which the mentioned pictorial scenography has not been constructed. Nicola is in an intermediate state, while looking at the printed copy of the painting whose posture she is going to replicate. The gaze is disordered, navigating between the body and  representation

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Andrea Giunta, Rethink Everything notes.

BIOGRAPHIES | CHAPTER III

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Adriana Lestido (b. 1955). Buenos Aires, Argentina.

She was the first Argentine photographer to receive the prestigious Guggenheim scholarship. Her work is recognized nationally and internationally, she has won awards and grants, such as the Hasselblad Prize in Sweden (1991), the Mother Jones of the United States (1997), the Konex (2002), and the Achievement Award. , by the Argentine Association of Art Critics (2009), among others. In 2010 she received the Bicentennial medal and was named Outstanding Personality of Culture by the Legislature of the City of Buenos Aires. Since 1995 she has developed an intense teaching activity coordinating workshops and clinics on the use of photography as a means of expression. She is the author of five books: Mujeres preas, Argentine Photographers Collection, Buenos Aires (2001, 2nd edition 2008); Mothers and daughters, La Azotea Editorial, Buenos Aires (2003), published with the support of John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation; Interior, edited by Capital Intellectual, Madrid (2010); La Obra, edited by Capital Intellectual, Madrid (2011) and Lo Que Se (anthology), edited by Capital Intellectual, Madrid (2012). Her work has been exhibited in individual and group exhibitions in various countries such as Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, the United States, Spain, France, Germany, Sweden, Scotland, Denmark, Belgium, China and Japan. Today, her work is part of national and international collections, both public and private, such as the National Museum of Fine Arts and the Museum of Modern Art in Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires, Argentina), Museum of Contemporary Art Castagnino + MACRO (Rosario, Argentina), Museo de Bellas Artes (Caracas, Venezuela), Museum of Fine Arts (Houston, USA), Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain and Bibliothèque Nationale (Paris, France), Hasselblad Center (Göteborg, Sweden), among others. She lives and works between Buenos Aires and Mar de las Pampas.

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Ananké Asseff (b. 1971). Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Ananké Asseff is a visual artist, with a formation in scenic arts and integrates different disciplines and languages. Her work includes photography, installation, video, object and performance. Her work belongs to renowned private and institutional Collections such as Tate Modern in London, J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, Centro de Arte Contemporáneo Wifredo Lam from La Habana and ARTER in Istanbul. From Argentina: Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires, Fondo Nacional de las Artes, the Museo Castagnino+MACRO, FOLA Fototeca Latinoamericana, the Museo Emilio Caraffa and the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes Argentina. She has represented Argentina in international Biennials such as La Habana (2010), Bienal de Curitiva (2017), BIENALSUR (2017-2018). Her work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Mexico, Colombia, Cuba, Germany, Holland, Mexico, Paris, Spain, Switzerland, United States and China.She was nominated by the Infinity Award (USA) in Art category (2017). She has received different awards and distinctions such as Konex prize in Photography, awarded by the Fundación Konex (2012), Grant from the Fondo Nacional de las Artes in (2001, 2012,2014 and 2018), ), Premio Mamba-Fundación Telefónica Arte y Nuevas Tecnologías (2011), Premio Federico J. Klemm a las Artes Visuales (2009), scholarship from the Academy of Media Arts KHM in Germany and a residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada (2004 - 2005), Premio Leonardo a la Fotografía awarded by the Asociación Argentina de Críticos de Arte (2002), Premio Salón Banco Ciudad (2002), Premio Rioplatense de Artes Visuales (2004), subsidy from the Fondo Metropolitano de las Artes de Buenos Aires (2007), among others. Her work has been published in diverse specialized publications since 2002. In 2012 she published her book ANANKÉ ASSEFF: WORKS 2001- 2012. Ediciones Lariviere, Buenos Aires. Asseff has developed in the Performing Arts (dance and theater) between 1990 and 2005. She was in charge of the artistic direction of the Biennial Foundation Medifé Arte y Medioambiente 2016-2017. She lives and works in Buenos Aires.

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Juan Travnik (b. 1950). Buenos Aires, Argentina.

He began his photography studies in 1966. He is a photographer, curator and teacher. He has served as a photojournalist, portraitist, and advertising photographer. He participated as an artist, lecturer and curator in international colloquia, meetings and festivals. He is a founding member of the Argentine Photography Council. From 1998 to 2015, he directed the Photo Gallery of the San Martín Theater. In 2001 he created and leads until 2015 the Photographic Space of the Teatro de la Ribera. He is a Full Member of the National Academy of Fine Arts. He works as a teacher in the field of photography. He directs the Photography Degree at the National University of San Martín. He has written numerous catalogs, presentations, notes and essays on the subject. His photographs were presented in countless individual and group exhibitions in Argentina, the US, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil, Uruguay, Spain, France, Belgium, Italy, Russia, and Slovenia, among other countries. His works appear in different monographic books and anthologies of Argentine and Latin American photography. Among the most important collections that his works have are: National Museum of Fine Arts of Buenos Aires, Argentina; Museum of Modern Art of Buenos Aires, Argentina; Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris, France; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, United States; Bibliothèque National de France, Paris, France; University of Salamanca, Spain; Musée de la Photographie à Charleroi, Belgium; Federico Klemm Foundation, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Museet for Fotokunst, Odense, Denmark; Lehigh University Collection, United States.Among other distinctions, he obtained the Platinum Konex (2012), the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Scholarship (2006), the Silver Pyramid for Career, the Academic Foundation for Visual Arts (1998) and the Foundation Award. Klemm to the Visual Arts (2004). His works have been published in numerous anthologies, and in the following personal books: Juan Travnik Paisajes. Antennae Collection. Text by Julio Fuks. New York, United States, 2014. Falklands. Portraits and landscapes of war. Photographs by Juan Travnik. Lariviére editions. Argentina, 2008. the remains. Argentine photographers collection. Dilan Editors. Argentina, 2006. Juan Travnik. Editions University of Salamanca. Spain, 1997.

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Vivian Galban (b. 1969). Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Photographer specialized in the investigation of supports, processes and contemporary technology applied to artistic creation. She studied architecture at the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism of the University of Buenos Aires (1993) and completed the Postgraduate Diploma in Conservation and Rehabilitation of Architectural Heritage at the same Institution (1996). She founded the first Interactive Multimedia Development Agency: MediaLab Argentina, Buenos Aires and Mexico City (1996/2012) and the first Center Layout and 3D Modeling in Buenos Aires (1994/1996). She participated in the Draft Program Artist residence in Kyoto Art Center, Japan (2005) and made specialization Beyond The Silver Gelatin Print in Penumbra Foundation, New York (2018). Her works were selected in the Buenos Aires Photo Award (2015); at the ArtexArte Biennial (2015); in the Metrovías Contemporary Photography contest (2011) and the XVII Biennial of Visual Arts in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia (2010). She has taught numerous workshops and seminars. She currently heads the chair of “Aesthetics, Contemporary Art and Culture” at the Institute of Photographic Arts and Techniques Audiovisual of the National University of Avellaneda, Buenos Aires. They stand out among her exhibitions “Valley of the Yosemite, from the Rocky Ford, 1872” at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Buenos Aires (MACBA) curated by Teresa Riccardi (2016); “We do not know what a body can” curated by Valeria González (2014) and “Exhibition in Real Time” (2019) by Rolf Art.

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Nicola Costantino (b. 1964). Rosario, Argentina.

In twenty years of production her work has evolved from sculpture, clothing, mechanical objects and installations to photography and videoinstallation. The body is the constant focus of her field of investigation, and the artist refers to the violent treatment it receives at the hands of consumption and fashion. Over the last decade, Costantino includes herself autoreferentially in her photographic and video art production. She portrays scenes of art history and paradigmatic female characters, constructing the subject of the image on the basis of performance and acting in careful scenographies. The manufacture of her objects and the images capture an acute sense of beauty, provoking at the same time a certain atmosphere of discomfort that is hard to resolve. Some of her most recent projects include Rapsodia Inconclusa (Colección de Arte Amalia Lacroze de Fortabat, 2015), Eva–Argentina. Una metáfora Contemporánea (55th Venice Biennale, 2013), Alteridad (Centro Cultural Santa Cruz, Rio Gallegos; Museo Provincial Rosa Galisteo, Santa Fe; Museo Provincial de Bellas Artes Dr. Pedro E. Martínez, Paraná; ECU, Rosario; Nave Cultural, Mendoza; Centro Cultural J.A. Conte Grand, San Juan, 2012-13) and Exposición Monográfica (Daros Latinoamérica, 2011).

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