Following in the footsteps of two exceptional photographers: Stern and Coppola

He Film cycle at the Victoria Ocampo Housethe headquarters of the National Endowment for the Arts Located on Rufino de Elizalde Street, it began with the screening of the documentary “From the Bauhaus to Argentina. Following in the footsteps of Grete Stern and Horacio Coppola”by the German director Anne Berrini.

The filmmaker was born in Dessau, where she attended the Bauhaus, school where the avant-garde sprouts of almost all disciplines of design and modern art germinatedtold the story of her research. Married to an Argentine, Berrini He discovered among the Bauhaus artists the couple made up of the German Grete Stern and the Argentine Horacio CoppolaBoth photographers arrived in Argentine exile in 1935, when Nazi persecution was increasing in Europe.

Barely two months had passed since their landing when, invited by Victoria Ocampo in October 1935, Stern and Coppola They presented their first exhibition in Buenos Aires, in the magazine South. Jorge Romero Brest highlighted in the same magazine, “extraordinary importance” which without hesitation attributes to “the first serious manifestation of photographic art that we have been able to see.”

The Victoria Ocampo House It is, without a doubt, the right place to carry out this screeningThe film shows the great house with rationalist lines that the architect Wladimiro Acosta built in Ramos Mejia for the Coppolawith an aesthetic similar to the house of VictoryBut the images linger on shots of the city of Buenos Aires.

The back cover of the book “Grete Stern. Photographic work in Argentina”published by the National Endowment for the Arts in 1995, shows a notable contrast: next to the Kavanagh tower, the dome of the Basilica of the Most Holy Sacrament is outlined, reminiscent of the imposing Berlin Cathedral.

For its part, the city of Coppola is straight and solitary, still and silent. And despite the differences, both share a similar gaze. But the images of Coppola They resemble the “essential” Buenos Aires of Borges. In fact, two metaphysical corners of Palermo photographed by Coppola They illustrated the first edition of 1930 “Evaristo Carriego” by Borges.

Among those interviewed by Anne Berrini The documentary features the brilliant Gyula Kosice. The artist expresses his avant-garde affinity, shows the photomontage of the MADI poster, and thanks Grete Stern the publications that he provided during the war because they allowed him to stay up to date, since he continued to receive news from Europe. The Bauhaus had closed its doors definitively in 1933, but its members spread their knowledge throughout the world.

Photography hardly generated resources and, already separated from Coppola, Stern He worked registering works at the National Museum of Fine Arts, where he met Jorge Helft. The collector recognized his talent and was perhaps his first buyer.

The dialogue between Anne Berrinand the brilliant researcher Louis Priamauthor of numerous texts on Grete Sterneven the aforementioned book, was full of surprises. Priam He said that he was asked for help organizing the photographer’s archive, and he thought he should send someone he completely trusted. “And then I gave the job to my wife”she confessed, and she spoke at length about the friendship that the two had established and their evening chats over whisky.

Then, Priam had the privilege of accompanying Stern during some of the brave trips she undertook through the Gran Chaco to photograph the aborigines. She described the difficulties of travelling through these territories with no hotels and difficult roads. And, in return, the interest of anthropologists in these works, which she always particularly appreciated, taken between 1958 and 1964.

Psychoanalysis

The incredible escalation of Argentine interest in psychoanalysis, a treatment that reached popular levels in our country, is reflected in the series of photomontages of Grete Stern and the writings of Gino Germani which explored the dimension of the unconscious in the middle of the 20th century. The photomontages with a Dada-surrealist aesthetic have a symbolic charge that is perceived as disturbing for the time, while the texts – no less disturbing – interpret the enigmatic meaning of dreams.

Images and words entered a territory charged with desires, fears and repressions. These works seduce foreigners and, of course, Anne Berrini also. Challenging categories and prejudices Stern and Germani They adapted to the style of a gossip magazine, without sacrificing the quality of their work. On the contrary, both created a style that was as attractive as it was accessible.

Germansfounder and professor of the Department of Sociology at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, corresponded with the readers of “Idyll”revealed to them the hidden meaning of their dreams and informed them about the principles of psychoanalysis.

In the Italian texts, the desire for his interlocutors to develop “their possibilities of expression” is evident, which They resist being “smothered between four walls”that they reach the “expansion of personality”and that the “unused forces of the psyche are prepared to emerge from forced inactivity and from the limits that constrain it”. Nothing more stimulating than the pages of “Idilio”, for those who believed that they could – or should – “give free rein to your impulses”.

The photomontages of Stern They say it all: they show the figure of a woman inside a cage or at the top of a staircase; facing the abyss or taking an exam; turned into a toy next to the immense hand of a man, or terrified in front of a train that turns into a monster and is capable of devouring her.

Today, the images remember the awakening of the innocence of the female bourgeoisie of our country: “dreamer”but loaded with intellectual aspirations. Here the filmmaker analyzes the social context and establishes differences between the character of the ideal woman Eva Peronhomely, and Stern’s, capable of surviving on its own. In one of the dreams, A woman like Sisyphus, lifts an immense stone knowing that it will fall again.

Priam He said that friends, family and neighbors posed for photos of Sternand that the landscapes, backgrounds, objects, and secondary characters came from images in his archive. “As he had to deliver a photomontage a week, the work was intense. This demand left him little time to correct or retouch the photomontages.”he explained. As a result, today we have two versions of each of those dreams: the one in the “Idilio” magazine and the one in the archive of Sternalready corrected.

The president of the National Endowment for the Arts, Tulio Andreussi Guzmanthe directors and the team of the organization, put the emphasis on the close relationship of Stern and Coppola with the institution. There they financed research into the Gran Chaco and published several of their books.