Key Principle
Argentine artists in the 1960s transformed participatory art from celebratory immediacy into "mediated constraint, manipulation and negation" (p. 118). Rather than concealing exploitation beneath liberation claims, they made class exploitation the explicit structural content. Masotta's term: "an act of social sadism made explicit" (un acto de sadismo social explicitado, p. 111). This is art as lens through which to engage contradictions, "not as an ideal social model" (p. 109).
Why This Matters
The Argentine lineage demonstrates that participation need not be emancipatory or consensual to be politically potent. Making the sadistic structure visible -- rather than performing solidarity -- can itself be a critical act. This counters the ethical turn's assumption that art must model good collaboration.
Good Examples
- Masotta, To Induce the Spirit of the Image (1966): Paid elderly participants endured fire-extinguishers, deafening noise, and blinding light before a paying audience. Masotta told audiences they paid 200 pesos to watch while participants were paid 600 pesos to perform -- making the economic circuit visible (p. 109). He refused exit flags because it would "soften the situation" (p. 110).
- Bony, La Familia Obrera (1968): A working-class family, paid double wages, sat on a plinth in a gallery. Wall label: "Luis Ricardo Rodriguez, a professional die-caster, is earning twice his usual wages for just staying on show with his wife and son" (p. 113). Audience response was "largely adverse and horrified" (p. 113).
- Jacoby/Escari/Costa, Total Participation (1966): An anti-Happening that existed "purely as information, a dematerialised circulation of facts" -- no original event to attend (p. 108).
- Boal, Invisible Theatre (early 1970s): Unframed public performance where "spectators would see the show, without seeing it as a show" (p. 122). A scripted restaurant scenario exposed that an actor would need 10 hours of labour to pay for a 10-minute meal (p. 122-123).
Counterpoints
- Brazilian vs. Argentine: Brazilian art invited viewers to "sense and feel"; Argentine art demanded viewers "think and analyse" (p. 106).
- Masotta's Lacanian ethics: Drawing on Lacan's Seminar VII, "the only thing one can be guilty of is of having given ground relative to one's desire" (p. 111) -- social aggression reframed as ethical fidelity rather than cruelty.
- Boal's later weakness: Theatre of the Oppressed relocated from dictatorship to Western Europe became "rehearsals for healing" rather than revolution, "reduced to a technique for coping rather than changing" (p. 125).
- Tucuman Arde (1968): To deliver unequivocal political messaging, participatory strategies had to be abandoned for conventional spectatorship -- suggesting a structural tension between participation and political clarity (p. 122).
Key Quotes
"I felt a bit cynical, but neither did I wish to have too many illusions. I didn't want to demonise myself for this social act of manipulation which in real society happens every day." -- Oscar Masotta, p. 110
"There was something within the Happening that allowed us to glimpse the possibility of its own negation." -- Oscar Masotta, p. 113
Rules of Thumb
- Reification deployed as artistic strategy can expose what solidarity rhetoric conceals
- Making economic transactions transparent within the work is itself a political act
- Participation structured around absence, division, or missed encounter can be more powerful than collective unity
- Art under dictatorship shapes form through necessity, not just aesthetic choice
Argentine Genealogy of Social Aggression (p. 111-114)
- Roberto Arlt (fiction) -- literary precursor of social cruelty as material
- Alberto Greco, Vivo-Ditos (1962-64) -- encircling the poor as living sculptures
- Marta Minujin, Suceso Plastico (1965) -- audience entrapment with 500 live chickens
- Oscar Masotta, To Induce the Spirit of the Image (1966) -- paid elderly endure aggression
- Oscar Bony, La Familia Obrera (1968) -- working-class family displayed on plinth
Related References
- The Ethical Turn and Its Discontents - The consensus framework these artists reject
- Delegated Performance and Living Currency - Contemporary continuation of exhibiting people
- Directed Reality and the Grey Zone - The scripting/chaos question these works push to extremes