Darkness Visible: The Long Shadow of Dictatorship

Darkness Visible: The Long Shadow of Dictatorship is an exhibition to mark the 50th Anniversary of the coup d’état that ushered in Argentina’s last military dictatorship (1976–1983), a regime of State terror that implemented a systematic policy of censorship, kidnappings, torture, murder and the forced disappearance of 30,000 people, while driving thousands more into exile. Under this regime, the government repressed all forms of artistic expression. This historic trauma left deep wounds in society, resulting in a trail of images, absences and scars that continue to shape how the violence is remembered and retold. Fifty years on, and in light of the current attacks on democratic institutions worldwide, the exhibition revisits the ways artists have addressed violence – both in its most overt manifestations and in its subtler, yet equally effective, forms.

Bringing together eighteen artists and collectives, mostly from Argentina and from a wide range of generations and works spanning the 1970s to the present, this exhibition positions art (with its understanding of the sensory, and its capacity to move along the threshold between the visible and the invisible) as a vehicle for understanding history, protecting memory, engaging in activism and raising awareness of violence. The exhibition includes works by major contemporary artists who responded to this historic moment with concern, condemnation or criticism; artists who embodied the transition from dictatorship to democracy; and artists who continue to denounce the violence that prevails in contemporary societies and the increasing physical and psychological violence against women and LGBTQ+ communities, most notably in the form of femicide.

In Paradise Lost (1667), John Milton uses the term “darkness visible” to describe Hell. This oxymoron serves as an apt metaphor for the role of the visual arts in bringing to light what has been hidden or censored and yet remains unbearably present. The exhibition adopts this metaphor to raise several questions: How can art give visibility to bodies, ideas and lives that were forcibly disappeared? What visual and cultural forms have the power to denounce atrocities without reproducing mechanisms of spectacle or banalisation? How is historic trauma reinterpreted across generations to keep the act of remembering alive? How does political authoritarianism intersect with gender-based violence? How can spaces for political participation and social interaction be created and upheld in contexts of extreme authoritarianism? As these questions take on a sense of urgency, the strategies devised by the artists of Darkness Visible guide us through the shadows of the present. 

Though anchored in the specific history of Argentina’s last dictatorship, the exhibition still speaks to a broader global condition. It urges us to remember, and steers us toward what is left to imagine, while re-opening the question of what democracy might yet become. What promises still lie on the democratic horizon? What forms of life, justice and collective imagination are yet to be accomplished?

The selection of works brought together by Darkness Visible arises out of a sustained curatorial conversation that long predates the project. It draws on artists studied, exhibited, collected and accompanied by the Museo Moderno for many years – artists who have shaped some of its most defining and vibrant exhibitions. As our institution celebrates its 70th Anniversary, we continue to look back on our own history and affirm those aesthetic strategies vital to sustaining creative imagination and freedom of expression as forces central to human development. Rooted in the Moderno’s engagement with history and memory, the exhibition foregrounds their urgent and ongoing relevance in the present.