Marta Minujín is a conceptual artist who created works of art that are specific to pop art current, depicting, through the use of irony or humor contemporary events, which she referred to as “happenings”. Her artistic career reflects different historical and creative movements that define her versatile, free floating style. Two different artworks that summarize Minujín’s challengeable and pliable artistic style, while also illustrating her creative singularity, are “Parthenon of Books” and “Sweet Bread Obelisk”.
The works of Marta Minujín debate social happenings, aspects that have influenced the reality of Argentina and Buenos Aires in particular across decades. From criticizing a male dominated authority to commemorating the fall of a seven year dictatorship, the artist has created artworks that reflected each historical moment. Moreover, through the use of soft, impermanent materials used to create her artworks, she expresses her idea that art is ephemeral, describing moments in the present and as time goes by, the old art must be replaced with new art. The “Sweet Bread Obelisk” was designed in 1979 and it implied hanging 30.000 sweat breads on an iron structure, depicting the artist’s irony addressed to a masculine oppressive regime, considering the fact that the obelisk was at that time a symbol of Argentina’s patriarchal lifestyle. While the sole nature of the obelisk represented the artist’s perceived military rigidity that defined Argentina at the end of the seventies, the sweet bread was her playful approach of softening the social rigidity. The sweat bread sculpture lasted for 11 days and when it was dismounted, the seat bread was served to people witnessing the fall of the Obelisk, as a sign of igniting the mass energy for capturing a historical moment. Symbolically, the fall of the “Sweat Bread Obelisk” marked the artist’s prophetical vision of the ephemeral nature of the patriarchal authority that governed the political and social reality in Argentina during the seventies.
Several years after the “Sweat Bread Obelisk” event, in 1983 Marta Minujín transposed another happening in art. The “Parthenon of Books” reflected the artist’s response to the fall of the dictatorship in Argentina, expressed through the creation of a monument of books that were banned during the regime. A total number of 30.000 books prohibited by the military dictatorship were assembled on an iron structure, symbolizing the end of the authoritarian regime, the liberation of Argentina and the free access to culture, hence the connection with the Athenian Parthenon symbolizing the cradle of culture. Compared with “Sweat Bread Obelisk”, in “Parthenon of Books” the artist used books instead of bakery products and the artistic monument symbolized differed. While the obelisk defined a symbol of oppression and military rigidity, the Parthenon symbolized the openness to freedom and cultural expression. Nevertheless, the two artworks are very resembling, both expressing the artist’s creed about the ephemeral nature of happenings, as they were dislodged soon after creation. Both artistic representations are made of impermanent materials (sweat bread in the first and books in the second) and these materials were distributed to the by-passers witnessing the demounting of the sculptures.
Marta Minujín’s artistic style trespasses social happenings in a chameleonic nature, enriching the Argentinian pop art. Her practice builds a debate over the impermanent nature of events that shape people’s living. Her artworks, such as “Sweat bread Obelisk” or “Parthenon of Books” sculptures demonstrate that through the use of irony or humor the artist expresses her attitude towards specific happenings that influenced Argentina, celebrating the events by giving away the materials that composed her sculptures.
Bibliography
Minujín, Marta. El Obelisco de Pan Dulce. ReactFeminism. n.d. http://www.reactfeminism.org/entry.php?l=lb&id=187&e=t.
Revista Ucema “Conversando con Marta Minujín”. Revista Ucema. 17: 2011.
Verlichak, Victoria. “Monograph Marta Minujín”. ArtNexus, n.d. http://artnexus.com/Notice_View.aspx?DocumentID=21029.
