Imágenes performativas y racialización en la obra de Pedro Figari. Apuntes sobre la normalización de los cuerpos negros en el Río de la Plata

Abstract

This work delves into the painter Pedro Figari’s representation of Afro-Rioplantense culture, at the beginning of the 20th century, in a context of an avant-garde production that sought to support an “American” and national ethos. Based on a question about the place of art in the construction of a local “blackness”, I analyze his pictorial work, along with certain prevailing discourses of the time (of the artist himself and some contemporary intellectuals), as a biopolitical device of racialization, which focused on the black body, its capabilities and its culture. Thus, I intend to gain a better insight into the role that his production played in the construction of a highly performative racial imaginary. It is my believe that the “embodied imagery” his work produced, helped to create senses, perceptions, impressions, aesthetics and performances linked to the Afro-Rioplatense identity that remain valid until today. One of my hypotheses is that there is a “regional stamp” of blackness in this area, strongly influenced by the work of this painter, which makes it possible to show and make legitimately visible “blackness” within national context, both Argentine and Uruguayan. Furthermore, I propose that this “regional stamp” is the product, in part, of this historical process of racialization of imaginary, subjects and practices that occurred through the crossing and feedback between artists and intellectuals in their task of giving form and content to recent nations