Until July 12, 2026, the exhibition "Making Art History – The Adolfo Luis Ribera Archive" is on display in the basement galleries of the National Museum of Decorative Arts.
Adolfo L. Ribera (1920–1990) developed his professional career as an art historian between 1950 and 1990. He taught Art History at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) for forty years and participated—along with Julio Payró and Héctor Schenone, among others—in the creation of the program in 1963 at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters. Among other institutional management roles, he directed the Eduardo Sívori Municipal Museum of Fine Arts and the National Museum of Fine Arts of Buenos Aires. He was a member of the National Academy of Fine Arts, the institution that currently houses his personal archive.
The exhibition's main objective is to showcase Adolfo Luis Ribera's personal archive, to critically reflect on his life and work, and to highlight the documentary heritage linked to the archives of art historians in Argentina. Through the exhibition of documents and materials from the archive, the focus will be on the significance of Ribera's figure in the institutionalization and professionalization of art history in Argentina. The archive reveals Ribera's intellectual and professional practices, working methodologies, reference readings, methods of observation and recording, and the relationships he established with the people and institutions with whom he interacted throughout his career—themes that unfold in this exhibition across its various sections.
The curatorial team is composed of researchers Patricia Basualdo, Carla García, Catalina Fara, Berenice Gustavino, Sofía Maniusis, Marcelo Marino, Juan Cruz Pedroni, and Alejo Petrosini, with the participation of archivists Noelia Bruzzone, Natalia Efron, and Carolina Katz, and exhibition design by Maya Mercer and Maite Larumbe.
The Adolfo Luis Ribera Collection was donated to the National Academy of Fine Arts in 2017. It comprised over 40 boxes, each measuring 40 x 40 x 30 cm, and contained index cards, writings, travel diaries, manuscripts of publishing projects, surveys with notes and drawings by Ribera, correspondence, personal photographs and photographs of his works, slides, clippings, and catalogs collected by Ribera throughout his research, as well as cameras and other objects—essential tools for surveying and analysis.
Following the donation, part of the same research team began working with the archive and sought funding for its processing. With the support of the Academy [and its then-president, Matilde Marin], in 2022 the team obtained a grant as a Multiannual Research Project [PIP] 2022-2024 awarded by CONICET, entitled "Historiography of Argentine Art." "Discursive Formation and Disciplinary Practices Based on the Study of the Adolfo Luis Ribera Documentary Collection [1920-1990]" directed by Sandra Szir. The team is part of the Research Area in Argentine and Latin American Historiography of the Center for Research in Art and Heritage – CIAP, an Executive Unit dependent on CONICET and the School of Art and Heritage [EAyP, UNSAM].
Since 2022, a team of archivists from CIAP [Noelia Bruzzone, librarian; Carolina Katz, archivist; and Natalia Efron, conservator] has been organizing and classifying the Ribera Archive according to document types, in accordance with national and international standards. They have made progress in developing a database and have stabilized the collection under appropriate conservation, storage, and access conditions. Researchers have supported this process, which has facilitated the study of the documents and allowed us to further identify and analyze Ribera's working practices as an art historian. These practices include methodologies for data collection and recording, cataloging, and image organization, as well as procedures and styles related to writing and publishing.
The study of Adolfo L. Ribera's work based on his documentary legacy contributes to the analysis and dissemination of the specific characteristics of the history of art history within Argentine institutions—universities, museums, and academies. It also allows us to problematize the ways in which art history constructed its perspective and designed its technologies for studying Argentine and regional art [particularly the colonial period and the 19th century] throughout the 20th century.
Adolfo Ribera's contribution to our historiography of the visual arts is significant. First, he brought to the forefront a previously undervalued period of national art. Furthermore, it is worth mentioning that Ribera broadened the scope of his interest to include the material culture of the period [silverware, furniture, clothing, and other aesthetic objects] beyond a canonical tradition focused on painting.
No less relevant was his application of a scientific methodology for collecting information about these objects from primary sources [newspapers, magazines, documents, and period records] and their systematic and rigorous analysis.
The curatorial approach was organized around six thematic axes:
1. Technologies of the Visual: The Historian and His Gaze. This section displays images, travel diaries, notebooks, and work logs, printed ephemera, index cards and drawings by Ribera, and other objects that illustrate the methods, materials, and technologies used to observe, record, and process the object of study in art history: the image or visual content and the gaze of the art historian. His cameras, travel mementos, and annotated itineraries will also be exhibited.
2. Writing Practices. This section will showcase materials that allow us to follow the creative process behind his books: some manuscripts with his author's marks, amendments, and marginal notes; the photographs taken for that publishing project; and the completed and published book. For example: The Portrait in Buenos Aires.
3. Expanding the Gaze: Networks, Objects, and Knowledge. This section will showcase his social, intellectual, and professional networks, from the most obvious aspects of his career to the more unexpected ones.
4. Clues, Traces, Works: Ribera's Expert Reports. Documents that allow us to trace some of the expert reports Ribera conducted to determine authorship, his working methodologies, and his results.
5. Ribera Between the Museum and the University. This section presents Ribera as a teacher (courses on Renaissance and 19th-Century Argentine Art), director of museums [Sívori and the National Museum of Fine Arts], documents and images related to these, and other endeavors.
6. Among Documents: The Archival Value of Adolfo Luis Ribera. This section presents, in a self-referential manner, problems related to the processing, organization, and classification of his own archive, as well as specific issues concerning the safekeeping and conservation of certain document types and complex materials.
This exhibition invites visitors to explore the origins of art history studies within the university setting in our country [which has established itself as a regional benchmark] and to critically examine the epistemological and ideological foundations that shaped the discipline.
It also aims to highlight artistic historiography as a tool for cultural critique in the construction of memory and the social present, as well as to underscore the importance of preserving and conserving the archives of intellectuals and prominent figures in the arts and thought as means of defending and prioritizing our country's cultural heritage.
In a context of devaluation and threats to the public university system, presenting this documentary material is a uniquely important contribution to the reflection, understanding, and care of our national cultural heritage.
* Special for Hilario. Arts, Letters, Crafts