Description

Catalogue of the exhibition Therapy , presented at Malba between March 19 and August 16, 2021.

The particular force with which psychoanalysis developed in Argentina gave rise to multiple connections with local art. This book compiles the research on the subject that led to the exhibition. Therapy : nearly two hundred works by more than fifty Argentine artists—from surrealist manifestations to happenings and their contemporary reinterpretations—accompanied by a rich selection of documents.

The artworks and documentation are reproduced here, grouped thematically (sinister themes, surrealism, dreams, art and madness, psychodrama and happenings, psychoanalysis and institutions), as developed in the essays by the three curators: Gabriela Rangel, Verónica Rossi, and Santiago Villanueva. Also included is another essay, specially commissioned from historian Mariano Ben Plokin, on the development of psychoanalysis in Argentina, and two texts by interdisciplinary artists Marisa Rubio (Naranja Milano Questa) and Claudia del Río. A special section, "Oliveros Encyclopedia," compiles works by artist-patients from the psychiatric colony in that town in Santa Fe province. Finally, artist biographies and a select bibliography are included. This important catalogue, edited by Gabriela Rangel, thus offers a broad overview of the complex relationship between Argentine art and psychoanalysis, a previously understudied topic, without exhausting its implications.

In his essay, Plokin highlights: “For decades and to this day, Buenos Aires has been considered one of the world capitals of psychoanalysis. This is due not only to the enormous number of therapists trained in the specialty (…) but also to the presence of a psychoanalytic language and 'way of thinking'.”
Along the same lines, Rangel explains: “ The discipline became popular in the 1930s in newspapers and magazines and, later, in mass media such as film and television. In the 1960s, its discourse expanded, and several of its figures came to occupy a prominent place in the programmatic content of experimental art centers such as the Torcuato Di Tella Institute and the Center for Art and Communication (CAyC).”

Authors
Gabriela Rangel
Verónica M. Rossi
Santiago Villanueva
Mariano Ben Plotkin
Claudia del Río
Marisa Rubio

Technical specifications
Published by: Malba
Year: 2021
Type: Exhibition catalog
Binding: Paperback
Dimensions: 28 x 20 cm
Weight: 1.34 kg
Spanish
Pages: 388
ISBN: 978-987-47588-3-5