It is the third time that, always through a different perspective, sisters Rut and Silvia Rubinson approach the topic of immigration. On this occasion, though, the proposal is visually symphonic. As our country reached the 200th anniversary of its independence, this exhibition is a great homage to those who, as the Rubinsons put it, “reinvented their roots in a new language, with creative tenacity, risking everything for their ideals.”
After helping their father to materialize a book on his memories as an immigrants’ son, Both Rut and Silvia remained interested in the topic, which they continued developing in their artistic productions—each of them in their own and distinctive way.
Rut, lyrically conceptual, approached it displaying suitcases, which work as carriers of dreams, and paper boats, which navigate through imagination. She has thus developed, with great austerity, a visual poetics of her own.
As I already wrote once, Silvia, in turn, “with spots and graphisms, with or without letters, shows us the past in the present.” Hers is also visual poetry, but instead of taking ideas as a point of departure, she starts from sensitive gesture, transmitting great nostalgia through the use of foggy writings, as if they were letters addressed to the past.
That’s how in 2009 the sisters came to develop the exhibit “Activists of Dreams”, at “Espacio de Arte Amia.” In its prologue, they stated that immigrants “Privileged being over having, and honored their pledges through acts of an uncompromising ethics.”
In the current exhibit/installation, Rut and Silvia extend this homage to all the different immigrations Argentina received throughout its history. Following a thought already expressed in that prologue, they chose the name “INHERITANCE AND DIFFERENCE”: “In that endearing hug, immigrants respected both inheritance and difference, forging a present and future of hope.” They repeat that phrase as a leitmotif in a text that, written in several languages, constitutes the manifest of this exhibit at the Centro Cultural Recoleta. One feature of the exhibit that stands out is the display of great paper scrolls, on which the works are developed. Since ancient times, scrolls have been associated with the narration of the life of peoples, some of them even acquiring the status of sacred writings. We are dealing, in this case, with the memory of our nation, itself the product of the convergence among people coming from countless different countries, as well as indigenous peoples.
Luis Felipe Noé
Buenos Aires, February 2011