Claudia Andujar. Marcados

MALBA will present Marcados, a group of over eighty black and white photographs by Brazilian artist Claudia Andujar (Neuchâtel, Switzerland, 1931) never before exhibited in Buenos Aires. From 1981 to 1984, Andujar spent long periods of time in the lands of the Yanomami Indians, mostly in the basin of the Catrimani River, a tributary of the Branco River at the Brazilian border.

This work, which is anthropological in nature, was motivated by two factors: the desire to help the Yanomami people survive by vaccinating inhabitants of a number of settlements and—on a more conceptual level—the desire to positively identify individuals in order to counter the artist’s own experience in which family and friends were singled out and killed by the Nazis in concentration camps.

Claudia Andujar, along with two doctors, took a great many photographs of their expeditions and surroundings. They identified each individual photographed with a number hanging around their necks that were used as images in immunization records. This exhibition contains the images of the “marked,” that is, a selection of photographs documenting the expedition, the original immunization records, as well as some contact sheets that attest to the thorough and precise nature of the work Andujar did for this cause.

The Marcados series was shown for the first time at the 27th São Paulo Biennial (2006) whose theme was “How to Live Together.” The exhibition also features documents that put the photographs into context, among them “Informe 82” (1982) produced by the Comissão Pró Yanomami (CPY) over which Claudia Andujar presides.