BGW. Traces of Violence. Marcelo Brodsky

This exhibition brings together the artist’s most recent work, composed of a series of historical photographs taken in the early 20th century that document the genocide that took place in Namibia, when it was still a German colony in Africa. From these documents, Brodsky creates a series of appropriations and insertions that invite reflection on the violent colonial past. As in his previous works, the artist enlarges the images and intervenes by hand with crayon and watercolor, also adding short phrases that give voice to victims or witnesses. However, in this particular series, the voice and perspective are those of the colonizers: “We enslaved your children.” There is a sense of discomfort in the face of images that depict violence explicitly. Brodsky not only presents the works as visual documents but turns them into vehicles of memory. The exhibition is completed with a piece created in collaboration between the artist and the research group Forensic Architecture.