One might assume that Columbia University's Wallach Art Gallery would follow the policies of the university’s ongoing suppression of student led activism protesting ICE raids and the genocide in Gaza. However, Lotty Rosenfeld’s retrospective Disobedient Spaces, presents an uncensored point of view: political activism and collective art action are powerful tools to combat authoritarian systems of oppression.
Born in 1943, Rosenfeld grew up in Santiago and lived through the U.S. backed 1973 coup by dictator Augusto Pinochet. The exhibition highlights the evolution of her work from early etchings to her videography and public art action. It opens with an eye-catching red wall with oversized prints taken from video footage of her pivotal work “Una Milla de Cruces Sobre el Pavimento”(1979) in which she laid white tape and bandages across traffic lines to create, as the title suggests, crosses on the pavement. Rosenfeld continued to speak out against Pinochet’s dictatorship with the art collective CADA, whose “NO+” campaign invited the public to finish the sentence “No More…” in their own words.
Seen today, Rosenfeld’s interventions feel simple yet radical. A strip of tape laid on the pavement is a visual interruption of authority and the status quo. Disobedient Spaces reminds visitors that small acts of resistance, particularly those carried out in the street during times of heightened military presence, can build visibility, solidarity and community under systems of oppression.
- Nicole Bunis
I like how you frame the exhibition in relation to the broader social and political context around the university—it adds another layer to how the work can be read. It made me think about how the show might resonate differently depending on where and when it is experienced. I also remember writing about Rosenfeld’s tape intervention on the pavement in my journal, and how that small, almost minimal gesture subtly disrupts the order of everyday space. Reading your response brought that back to me, especially the idea that something so simple can feel both quiet and radical at the same time. It also made me think about how these small interventions can extend beyond the individual gesture and open up a more collective dimension, like in the “NO+” campaign you mentioned.
ReplyDelete