Montevideo, Uruguay: Centro de Fotografía de Montevideo [CdF], 2015
Condition: New, Signed, Sealed, Edition of 600, 11x21cm, 212pages, Softcover
Catalogue of the homonymous exhibition held in 2011 at the Centro de Fotografía de Montevideo (Uruguay), in 2014 at Galeria Vermelho (São Paulo) and in 2016 at The Photographers' Gallery (London, England).
Artist Rosângela Rennó was invited by the Centro de Fotografía (CdF) of Montevideo to create an artistic project based on the collection of photographer Aurelio González, who worked for the Uruguayan Communist Party newspaper El Popular. They are photos made from 1957 to 1973, when, sensing the proximity of a military coup, González hid all 50,000 negatives in a place that was difficult to access. He would find them again much later, more than thirty years after hiding them.
The images are a record of the years of political crisis and economic decay in Uruguay, which, as in many other Latin countries, preceded the installation of a military dictatorship. Rennó's precise selection contains only 32 photos, which mix hope and desolation - much more desolation than hope, it must be said. Festive demonstrations, football matches, boxing fights, funerals, vehicles stopped in the middle of the streets, street children and the military, who, as the visual sequence progresses, gain protagonism in the images.
