An Exercise of Postmemory About Aparecer, of the Insurgentes Art Collective

Abstract

The article addresses an artistic intervention carried out a decade ago in the city of Córdoba (Argentina) by the artistic collective Insurgentes on the anniversary of the last civic-military dictatorship (1976-1983). The approach of Aparecer, o del combate por la existencia [“To Appear” or the combat for existence] constitutes a critical post-memory exercise, which seeks to map the practices of a generation that cites previous ones, specially those of the 60 and 70s. Rather than a literal translation of the category to the phenomenon in question, we think of post-memory beside an specific artistic practice. The proposal a) develops the post-memory category in its theoretical and political dimensions, pointing out objections and strengths; b) presents an anachronistic cartography by which Insurgentes can be placed in the artistic activism of that time and c) goes through the intervention Aparecer as an exercise of post-memory, namely, a temporal mismatchin four dimensions: the question about what is contemporary, the affective relationship with the past, the quotation, and the question of the subject.