La práctica artística en contextos de dramas sociales

Using various examples of contemporary installation art, this essay explores questions of social practices, liminality, absence, and mourning. Borrowing theories from Didi- Huberman, Victor Turner, Jesús Martín-Barbero, Giorgio Agamben, and others, the author discusses the role of imágenes de crisis created by artists such as Doris Salcedo, Erika Diettes, Teresa Margolles, and Ambra Polidori in providing a site for mourning within a setting of extreme social conflict and disintegration. In places where disappearance is the norm, things like clothing and personal belongings perform a metonymic function in conveying the agonistic relation between image and absence. Turner’s notions of social drama and liminality, in particular, provide a paradigm that allows us to reevaluate the relationship that forms among rite, culture, and art during times of intense social disequilibrium. (JEB, article in Spanish