[sad music begins]
Male narrator Here, you see an image of a matadero, or slaughterhouse, and another of a cemetery, marked by a cross looming above the Latin word “Pax,” or peace.
Both buildings are actually models, constructed by photographer Esteban Pastorino. They are based on real structures built in the 1930s in the interior of Buenos Aires province. These buildings were originally designed by architect Francisco Salamone. Curator, Judith Keller.
Judith Keller Argentina had a military coup in 1930 and the government was very authoritarian.
[music ends]
This was an effort by this governor to make his province a reflection of the national ideology of the time. He commissioned Salamone to create these very weighty, but very impressive structures, that are now for the most part in ruins.
Male narrator If these places still exist, why not photograph the real site?
Judith Keller This technique of creating models to be photographed and basing them on imagery that the artist wants to reinterpret, this is part of a movement internationally in the 1990s of fabricated photography, of wanting to be in complete control of your photograph. The style does not need to be governed by what you can find in the real world.
[music resumes]
Male narrator Pastorino’s models allow him to tell a particular story: he isolates the buildings in a deep gloom and uses an antique printing technique that slightly blurs and distorts the images.
Judith Keller He’s commenting on what was thought of as a utopian state in the 1930s; but from his point of view it certainly turned out not to be that way. And it’s one of the many contradictions in the history of Argentina.
[music ends]
