Enclosed Invocations

Analysis of three works exhibited by a sculptor from Córdoba in 1989

Abstract

In the following text I will explore three sculptures by the Argentine artist Martha
Bersano (1952-), exhibited in the solo exhibition entitled La mujer en el arte:
esculturas de Martha Bersano, held at the Centro Multinacional de la Mujer,
from the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, in the city of Córdoba in 1989. One
of them was entitled Cerco (Cerco I), made in 1983 prior to Raúl Alfonsín’s
presidential inauguration. The other two, El Cerco IV and Innovaciones, were
created during the volatile election year of 1989, in which political and economic
uncertainty encouraged social unrest, hastening the transfer of the presidency
from Alfonsín to Menem. I infer that these three sculptures may have
represented cries, chokings, pleas, as a possible artistic response to the
situation in 1983, and later in 1989, the year of the aforementioned exhibition.