It is no news that women have historically found it harder to develop themselves as professionals in diverse male-dominated work environments. This is even truer in the case of female artists in the 1930s: Stern had to struggle against all imaginable and unimaginable odds, in order to become one of the pioneers of modern photography in Argentina and a referent of protest art in the world. Apart from having opened the prize-winning ringl+pit photography and design studio with her friend Ellen Auerbach in 1930 in Berlin, she was also able to present the first one-woman exhibition in Buenos Aires in 1943. Besides, from 1948 to 1951, she contributed weekly with a series of photomontages entiteld "Sueños" (Dreams) to the column "Psychoanalysis Will Help You". Published in the Argentine magazine Idilio (Idyll)-edited by sociologist Gino Germani, under the pen name Richard Rest-this distribution was widely read by a female audience; thus contributed to forge their identities through psychoanalitic views on the dreams of working-class women. Mobilized to social ascendance by the promises of President Juan Domingo Perón-as well as the figure of his first wife Eva Perón-these women found themselves with the urgency of understanding their role within their households and society.
These fotonovelas (literally: photo-soap operas) embodied her life-long path of research and experimentation, and managed to condense in a quasi-filmic way a whole narrative within a frame. This was clearly influenced by the advertisement techniques developed in her early years; but at the same time with unconventional traits which led to a Middle Way between advertising campaigns and surrealist weirdness. Following her subversive whim, not only did she build a whole universe condemning submissiveness, but she also somehow even taunted Freudian psychoanalisis itself by subtly breaking its patterns in her compositions, in order to show her own opinions on the matter. As a matter of fact, considering the phallocentric core of Freud's theory, somehow psychoanalisis and female liberation are not necessarily unequivocal synonyms. At the same time, by renaming her works in later exhibitions-thus detaching herself from the titles provided by Germani-she gave a clear hint of her aim to create her own agenda.
New Objectivity & the world upside-down:
If one had to choose a word which encompasses Grete Stern's work-both artistically an ideologically-the term would be "opposition". In this sense, her main concern has always been to subvert the relation between the observer and the observed; denoting a clear inheritance from her years in the Bauhaus with her teacher Walter Peterhans (a clear referent of the Neue Sachlichkeit or New Objectivity current, promoting a very close observation). She usually attributed to him her ability to see things photographically, saying he had taught her a new way of seeing: first deciding on the point of view. This can be clearly observed in her work, where roles are usually questioned, inverted and put at stake. In this sense, patriarchy is not only seen as an alienating force (with monstruous macho figures threatening housewives or transforming them into home appliances), but also as a phenomenon acquiesced by women themselves who, in order to keep their lives secure and unaltered, end up acting as accomplices of this objectionable dynamic.
Imprinting the Faces of Chaco:
In 1959, when invited to teach a photography seminar at the University of the Northeast, in Resistencia (Chaco, Argentina), Stern discovered another subject of research: the lives of aboriginal people in Gran Chaco. To pursue this quest, she managed to obtain a grant from the Fondo Nacional de las Artes in 1964, whence travelled through the northeast of Argentina, documenting their socio-cultural problems and portraying their culture and souls. Again, her objective was not to enframe their culture into a shallow depiction or mere chronicle, but to create consciousness about their living conditions and the richness of their culture -particularly their craft-making skills. Again, Stern used her artistic gift for a bigger mission other than amusing the eye of the spectator, reminding us of the extensive transforming power of the Arts.
Photo Gallery:
Film Gallery:
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