Wildenstein in Buenos Aires or the double game of identifications and silences
Valuing and preserving the artistic heritage coming from the destruction and looting because of the Second World War in Europe is an idea which encouraged a wide number of auctions and sales of works of art in the commercial galleries of Buenos Aires during the forties. However, the discourse displa...
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| Formato: | Artículo revista |
| Lenguaje: | Español |
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Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidades. Escuela de Historia
2017
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| Acceso en línea: | https://revistas.unc.edu.ar/index.php/RIHALC/article/view/18924 |
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| Sumario: | Valuing and preserving the artistic heritage coming from the destruction and looting because of the Second World War in Europe is an idea which encouraged a wide number of auctions and sales of works of art in the commercial galleries of Buenos Aires during the forties. However, the discourse displayed in catalogues and press articles, which appealed to the role of collectionism in that dramatic context, contrasts with the absence of information regarding the origins of the works which could eventually be linked with the Nazi plundering. The mission of preserving the high culture and the feeling of inheriting part of the European tradition did not seem to leave room for any kind of ethical questioning among the Buenos Aires high bourgeoisie. In the context of a commercial marketing that by the middle of the 20th century showed strong competitors regarding the importance of paintings, the subsidiary of Wildenstein Gallery stood out in Buenos Aires. It has settled in the city between 1939 and 1940, with the reputation of a successful performance in Paris with subsidiaries in London and New York.The purpose is to explore certain aspects of Wildenstein’s development during its first years in the Argentinean capital. The focus is in the strategies of insertion in the commercial space as well as on those exhibition policies used to cover the demand of European painting at the same time as it contributed to encourage that double material and symbolic ownership, favored by the dispersion of the heritage. An attempt is made to analyze the role of the gallery within that double game of identifications and concealments articulated by a sector of the artistic cartography in the context of World War II and which partly persists up to the present. |
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