Lotty Rosenfeld. ‘Me niego’

“All art is political. Even an innocent watercolour flower includes a stance on something, and that in itself is political.” asserted Lotty Rosenfeld. 

The selected video art pieces have been chosen in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Chilean military coup. Six pieces created between 1979 and 1989: One Mile of Crosses on the Pavement (1979), An American Wound (1982), Proposal to (between) cross limit spaces (1983), Woe to the Defeated (1985), Peace for Sebastián Acevedo (1985), and Captives (1989). These works denounce the way in which political, economic and social power operates across the whole of society.

Rosenfeld’s work, the first female artist in Chile to use video as a medium, is an ever-evolving, interconnected piece that draws from historical and current events.

Lotty Rosenfeld’s first and iconic work, One Mile of Crosses on the Pavement, marks the beginning of the catalogue of her uninterrupted trajectory of street interventions spanning more than 40 years around the world. She uses the lines that divide the road traffic lanes crossed with another line of the same characteristics, resulting in a + symbol. The road sign and the street serve as its support. The work begins locally in the city of Santiago de Chile, specifically on Avenida Manquehue, an avenue with a panoramic view of the hill of the same name, which in Mapudungún means: place of condors. The mile of crosses starts at the crossroads of Avenida Los Militares and ends at Avenida Presidente Kennedy, intersecting concepts of armed forces and American imperialism, both responsible for the military coup and the subsequent dictatorship in Chile.

Alejandra Coz