Escrache al General Galtieri / Escrache to General Galtieri, 1998, print 2003, Grupo Etcétera..., screen print.
Courtesy of Archivo Etcetera
Transcript
Male narrator Beginning in the 1990s, new movements called to account those who had committed crimes under the dictatorship almost twenty years earlier.
[party sounds begin]
These photographs of the activists known as Grupo Etcétera capture something called an escrache: a public performance designed to signal to the community the presence of a person whose crimes have not been brought to justice.
[party sounds end]
Curator, Idurre Alonso.
Idurre Alonso The escraches were something very festive. That’s why you see people playing with instruments. You see the media, because this was also a way to get the attention of the media. And then they’re wearing masks, so they can’t be identified by the police.
Male narrator This particular escrache targeted the former general Leopoldo Galtieri, living anonymously in a suburb of Buenos Aires. Etcétera performed in front of his house one night during the 1998 World Cup.
Idurre Alonso What Etcétera did for this escrache was to put together a soccer game, and that’s why you see them with these T-shirts of the Argentina team, you see the blue and the white. And this was a soccer game that was Argentina versus Argentina.
[sounds of a crowd begin]
Male narrator Among the many things this action symbolized was the contradiction of a government turned against its own people.
Idurre Alonso At the very end of the escrache, they did a penalty kick. The soccer ball was filled with paint.
[sound of a referee whistle]
Male narrator The ball was placed on the penalty spot.
[announcer in background yells: “He takes his run up and... strikes!”]
The goalkeeper — dressed in military uniform — missed the ball. It sailed past ...
[announcer in background yells: “GOAL!!!!”]
... splattering against Galtieri’s house, marking it for all to see.
[all sound effects end]
And the role of photography here?
Idurre Alonso Most of the photographs that are in the Gesture section, at the time were documents. But because we don’t have anything else about the actions that were being done, eventually they become the work of art, themselves.