Public Order

Mixed media works by Graciela Sacco

February 4, 2001 – March 30, 2001

AMA | OAS Gallery
OAS Main Building
17th Street, NW (Corner of Constitution Ave.)
Washington, DC 20006

THE EXHIBITION
Public Order consists of various artworks that have been part of different shows in cities such as Boston, Buenos Aires, Havana, Mexico City, Caracas, New York, Paris, and Sao Paulo.

Graciela Sacco’s work is both engaging and controversial. She has always been interested in the relation of art with everyday life. Sacco uses the heliographic technique to depict, among other things, social issues and civil unrest in Argentina, her native country, as well as in other nations. She does this by confronting the viewer with powerful images of urban protests, marches, strikes, and riots.

Sacco is also concerned with themes such as hunger, poverty, freedom of speech, and social injustice. Following the tradition of other women artists who have explored the intervention of public spaces, such as American Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger, or Brazilian Regina Silveira, Sacco sometimes uses streets, construction sites, public buildings, schools, etc., as a vehicle to broaden public and social awareness.

 “The observation of the urban space and advertisement graphics also led me to recognize the existence of a visual colonization that encompasses the manipulation of mass media; I also became aware that aesthetic strategies f communication displayed on streets interact with all citizens and that the contemporary artistic image is a political image; political while it assumes its time both aesthetic and artistically,” says Graciela Sacco.

Sacco is also interested in exploring the impact of light in the artistic field. She has been using heliography in her artworks for over ten years. Heliography is a technique used by architects to produce blueprints of houses and cities. This technique allows the artist to reproduce her images in almost any media she chooses. She uses wooden sticks, curtain blinds, paper, spoons, and all kinds of materials. She goes on to say that “if they asked me what I would like to heliograph if it were possible, I would say smoke, ice, snow, clouds, water, projecting images over these surfaces and making the touch of light on those substances are as ethereal and powerful as the substance itself.”