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Mirta Kupferminc
Castillo 357 -Capital (c.p. 1414)
Buenos Aires - Argentina
Telephone: 5411 4773-2919
Fax: 5411 4821-6969
Email mirta@mirtakupferminc.net
Web: http://www.mirtakupferminc.net

Exhibition Statement: “Exiles and Identity”

“Our roots are diasporic”, writes the French Polish writer Henri Raczymow. “They do not go underground. They are not attached to any particular land or soil….)

The subjects of this exhibition are exiles and immigrations over the world. Many of us will never know where we come from. Our own history became a foreign country, and our cultural background is diluted. Nowadays we see again that the world turned to be very small, and people are moving from one place to another looking for a better place to live.

In my works, different characters pass by endlessly, carrying their own roots, their cities, their cultures and also their fantasies and fears. I live in Argentina, a country made from multiple ethnic and immigrant groups, and there are very few vestiges of the original population that was in this land at the very beginning. The globalization phenomenon and the increasing social inequalities have engendered a planet that has turned out inhospitable for its inhabitants, hence, the territories fade and the individuals keep on passing endlessly.

Each character in my works is a protagonist. They are the main characters of their own stories walking by the edges of the world. Each one is alone, stopped off in the story. Each one is unique and individual.

The exhibition is comprised of a series of large etchings, together with a video animation based on the same theme. The video is a collaboration with Mariana Sosnowski, an audiovisual designer. The challenge of working on a new generation language such as video, based on a traditional media such as metal engraving, proposes an interesting combination. 

MIRTA KUPFERMINC was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina as the daughter of parents who were Auschwitz survivors. She grew up neither with grandparents nor with close relatives, without photographs or belongings of other people before her parents and this deeply shaped her art and her concerns with her identity and cultural heritage. In 1971, before turning 16, she entered the National School of Fine Arts, Manuel Belgrando and graduated as a National Teacher of Drawing. From 1975-77 she studied at the National Fine Arts School, Piridiano Pueyrredón and was awarded the degree of National Printmaking and Drawing Professor. In 1978, she started working at the Superior School of Fine Arts, Ernesto de la Cárcova and was promoted in 1991 with the degree of Printmaking Professor. In 1997 Kupferminc received the National Printmaking Award. In 1998 she was invited by the Japanese Association PRINTSAURUS to mount some exhibitions at galleries and museums in Japan. She has represented  Argentina in various international biennials, and  worked on the “Honeymoon Project” with the Catalan artist Antoní Miralda in Los Angeles in 1992. Internationally, she has participated at exhibitions in Cadaqués, Madrid, Sevilla, (Spain); Museum of Fine Arts of Taipei, (Taiwan); galleries and museums in Tokyo and other Japanese cities, Germany, Israel, United States of America, Poland, France, Hungary and England, among others. Mirta Kupferminc has a strong commitment to human rights issues through her art and advocacy. She has been advising Huesped Foundation, an NGO that fights against AIDS, for more that 10 years, in prevention projects through art; and has collaborated with the International Aids Society (IAS) since 2001. Active within the Jewish community, Kupferminc is a consultant to the Jewish Museum of Buenos Aires, is often collaborating with the Simón Wiesenthal Foundation and Memoria Activa, among others. See ehr web site at: http://www.mirtakupferminc.net