El Di Tella. Historia íntima de un fenómeno cultural.
Fernando García. Buenos Aires. Paidós. 2021.
Quarto (23 x 15 cm), 717 pp.
The Di Tella. Intimate history of a cultural phenomenon is an essential book for those who enjoy the artistic avant-gardes of the second half of the 20th century. It contributes a novel, detective material; on numerous occasions contributed from the voice of the protagonists. Although the Di Tella Institute (Buenos Aires, 1963 - 1970) and its spaces for creation have already deserved thousands of pages in doctoral theses and essays from criticism and art history, the contribution of this new look leads to rejoicing although moments the reader must process a level of information that is alluvial.
To achieve the task, Fernando García immersed himself in the Archives of the Di Tella Institute today preserved in the University of the same name and to the information obtained there -he is titled a pop archaeologist in that search for the traces of the past- he knew how to add everything necessary to trap us. His agile writing invites us to be part of the dialogues, to cross-examine. The thing is, he explains, "with the archive you can reconstruct history, but not experience, which is non-transferable”, and with good sense, he launched into interviewing all the survivors of that cultural plant. Thus the book reaches the dimension that now captivates us, its true contribution. In its pages are the sharp opinions among peers, as alive as in those days when everyone was part of that phenomenon but without losing their identity, their preferences, rancor and rivalries.
The Institute -located in 936 Florida Street, in the heart of Buenos Aires- contained an art exhibition space, a theater room and three cultural activity centers; the Visual Arts Center (CAV) directed by Jorge Romero Brest, the Audiovisual Experimentation Center (CEA) led by Roberto Villanueva and in the sound field, the CLAEM under the tutelage of Alberto Ginastera, also integrated by the Electronic Music Laboratory, whose manager was Fernando von Reinchenbach.
The author describes the “geography” -through also the network of actions and personal ties- with its epicenter in Floridanópolis and its satellites in the suburbs ... In that universe of the sixties, Edgardo Gimenez, Luis Felipe Noé shone with their own light, Ernesto Deira, Rómulo Macció, Jorge De La Vega, Roberto Jacoby, Marta Minujín, Dalila Puzovio, Juan Carlos Distéfano, Julio Le Parc, Gyula Kosice, Federico Klemm, Les Luthiers, Marilú Marini, Oscar Masotta, Norman Brinski, Miguel Grinberg, Humberto Rivas and many others who are part of this Report. And together with them, information and anecdotes flow from those who, although they did not participate in the Di Tella activities, deserved to be included in this “intimate story” of Fernando García, as was Alberto Greco, or Palito Ortega himself, a pop idol of the Greco himself, and Ana Kamien as well, Marilú Marini's artistic adventure companion in a kind of “Pro-dance” with Mercedes Robirosa -the sister of the visual artist Josefina Robirosa- and Gabriela Martínez, at that time Antonio Seguí's partner.
Of course, in very interesting pages we enjoy the story of La Menesunda, that work that projected Marta Minujín into the future (1), without avoiding other possible authorship -or co-authorship-, perhaps overshadowed by the personality of the "primordial female" , as Rafael Squirru had baptized her.
It is impossible to list here all the artists and stories gathered in this monumental work, we only intend to convey to them the emotions that its reading has awakened us: there were 717 pages traveled with pure pleasure.
Note:
1. Of enormous international projection, Marta Minujin has just participated in the Manchester International Festival with a work of her own: a structure containing 20,000 books, with the representation of Big Ben prostrate in Piccadilly Garden. The installation showed the famous clock located in the seat of the Parliament of the United Kingdom and her message led to reflection: This is how Britain is after Brexit?
La Plata Monatsschrift. Buenos Aires, 1873 - 1876. Presencia científica europea en la Argentina del siglo XIX.
Roberto A. Ferrari. Buenos Aires. Olivos. Editions in Focus. 2021.
Quarto (23 x 15 cm), 261 pages.
Interested in the history of science and photography, Roberto A. Ferrari focuses his attention here on a magazine published in Buenos Aires in the second half of the 19th century, in German, La Plata Monatsschrift. His complete collection, forty-eight numbers, extremely rare, brings together collaborations of prominent German-speaking scientists who were working in our country and neighboring territories in those years.
Ferrari incorporates in his book several articles translated for the first time into Spanish, a bilingual index of everything published in this monthly and with a very friendly text, places us in time. The sciences in the national reorganization, the foreign presence, centers of scientific activity and periodical publications, are some of those chapters, as well as the footprint of Humboldt and his contributions, and the German immigration and the role of the monthly La Plata Monatsschrift.
The publication spread throughout the presidencies of Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (1868 - 1874) and Nicolás Avellaneda (1874 - 1880), two active promoters of science in our country. The German journalist Richard Napp was its editor and in the case of a private proposal, it received state support because the national government sought throughout this time to disseminate the benefits of the country in terms of its natural resources, indicating that it was a field of action fertile for the arrival of foreign capital and professionals.
We are now before a book that brings together texts almost unknown even to specialists, and that opens to those interested in the Argentine history of the 1870s, when the country advanced towards its development in all areas, being a pole of attraction for numerous European scientists. Ferrari pleasantly surprises us with a new title. Your reading is worth enjoying!