Tracing the Past: Marcelo Brodsky's Photography as Memory Art

Andreas Huyssen has called the Argentinian photographer Marcelo Brodsky's latest project, Nexo (2001), memory art, that is, a form of public mnemonic art that oscillates from installation, photography and monument to memorial, breaking artistic boundaries. The article will explore the role of photography in the field of human rights and the interspace between private and public spheres. Brodsky's work aims to reinstate the gaps in the collective spheres of recollection and this will be contextualized in his artistic production from the late 1970s onwards. Nexo follows on from the internationally acclaimed project Buena memoria (1997) that was also an attempt to create a bridge for the memory for the new generation of Argentinians. This contribution aims to explore how Brodsky's artistic production represents what the Argentinian sociologist Elizabeth Jel´ın has described as art that wants to create a symbolic space to mediate traumatic experiences.