1968: The Fire of Ideas

_{Marcelo Brodsky, London, 1968, 1968-2015. From the series 1968, the fire of the ideas. Black and white archival photograph by Patrick Nairne (1968). Intervened by Marcelo Brodsky with handwritten texts (2015).}

Lecture by Marcelo Brodsky

Artist Marcelo Brodsky will discuss his recent artwork, 1968: The Fire of Ideas, a visual essay using archive material from the social movements of 1968.

1968 was the year the youth from around the world took to the streets to demand greater freedom and a more active participation in the political life and decision-making of their societies. Quite often these demands were met with violent State repression.

To recapture the spirit of those times, Marcelo Brodsky researched various photography collections and visual archives around the world for three years. These photographs evoke the events in an emotional way. They contain details, stories, and reflections that make it possible to read and understand the demands of each time and place. Brodsky’s visual essay is complemented by his intervention on the photographs with colour, drawing, or text. Specific details of the context and circumstances are brought out, underlining the effervescence of the call for change.

Marcelo Brodsky is a conceptual artist and Human Rights activist who uses photography to intervene in the ongoing debate about Argentina’s Dirty War (1976-1983). Framed by trauma and its theory his visual essays engage critically with an international network of memory projects.

Brodsky’s work combines printed text with photographs, and his own photography with that of others, in an attempt to analyse Argentine social history relating to repression. Using the frozen image he aims to reinstate the ‘disappeared’ in the collective memory of a nation. Brodsky’s two seminal photographic projects are Buena Memoria, 1997 and Nexo, 2001.

Organised by Professor Sarah Wilson, Dr Klara Kemp-Welch and Dr Jo Applin, Marcelo Bodsky’s lecture is part of the Courtauld Institute Sackler Lecture series.

1968: The Fire of Ideas
Lecture by Marcelo Brodsky
Monday 5 February 2018
6:00 pm – 7:00 pm

The Courtauld Institute of Art
Kenneth Clark Lecture Theatre
Somerset House,
London, WC2R 0RN

Free event, open to all, booking required.
Book your place here.