La nostalgia de Antonio S.
Artist name
Artist year born
1950
Artwork make date
1976
Artwork title translation
Antonio S.'s Nostalgia
Artwork material
paper
graphite
graphite
Artwork dimensions
height: 33cm
width: 33cm
width: 33cm
Artwork type (categories)
Drawing
Accession method
Donated by Roque de Bonis 1993
Accession number
10-1993
Label text
La nostalgia de Antonio S. is an early work by Remo Bianchedi. It was produced in 1976 in Kassel, Germany: where Bianchedi had been invited to spend four years studying graphic design and visual communication. In this same year Argentina, Bianchedi's country of birth, was at the height of what has come to be known as its Dirty War, waged by a repressive military junta against sectors of society that were perceived to be 'subversive'. This work stands as a metaphor for the horrors of this period, most specifically for the dehumanising methods that were employed by the military.
For Bianchedi and other artists, the chaos of this period demanded a return to traditional media such as drawing, painting and sculpture. This is evident in this carefully rendered work on paper. In the drawing, the mutilated, intertwined figures of a male and female lack any form of identification apart from the bombilla, a typical Argentine vessel used for making mate, a type of tea that is used here as a national symbol.
For Bianchedi, portraiture is an important mode of representation; beyond describing or imitating people he seeks to 'acknowledge and make evident certain things and certain people...like putting identity into practice'. Through portraits such as La nostalgia de Antonio S., created at a distance from Argentina, Bianchedi remembers the disappeared and attempts to reconstruct what the Dirty War stripped away.
Joanne Harwood
For Bianchedi and other artists, the chaos of this period demanded a return to traditional media such as drawing, painting and sculpture. This is evident in this carefully rendered work on paper. In the drawing, the mutilated, intertwined figures of a male and female lack any form of identification apart from the bombilla, a typical Argentine vessel used for making mate, a type of tea that is used here as a national symbol.
For Bianchedi, portraiture is an important mode of representation; beyond describing or imitating people he seeks to 'acknowledge and make evident certain things and certain people...like putting identity into practice'. Through portraits such as La nostalgia de Antonio S., created at a distance from Argentina, Bianchedi remembers the disappeared and attempts to reconstruct what the Dirty War stripped away.
Joanne Harwood
Last updated date
2008