Venice / 2003 / Report / Pavilions / Latin America

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Eugenia Vargas

Eugenia Vargas
* 1949 Chillán, Chile. Lives in Miami, USA.
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Action with photographer Luis Maldonado during the first 10 days of the biennial.

Eugenia Vargas transports a situation from Chile to Venice. With her she brought Luis Maldonado, an itinerant photographer from the Plaza de Armas in Santiago de Chile. He works, as he always has, with a German box camera his grandfather acquired from a Polish traveler in the 1920’s. The photos are developed immediately in a mini-darkroom inside the camera.

Visitors can have themselves photographed by Luis Maldonado on the same toy horse as the one on the Plaza der Armas in Santiago. They receive the photo as a gift, and in return, leave their image (on the negative) with the artist.

The background is a reproduction of a famous view of Venice, painted by the Chilean artist Ernesto Molina in 1857. Molina studied at the academy in Santiago de Chile, the first director of which was the Italian painter Juan Mochi.

The photo:
Eugenia Vargas (left) and Pat Binder, co-editor of Universes in Universe

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