Autogeografía (1976)

Marta Minujín’s work is defined by its ephemeral nature—actions living in the present, performances destined to disappear due to the absence of documentation. During her stay in New York, she added cinema to her art practice, and upon returning to Buenos Aires, she shot a number of short films. In Autogeografía, she puts her own body in front of the camera, articulating recording and representation in an early video-performance work. Derived from her action Comunicando con tierra (where she extracted soil from the Machu Picchu which she later exchanged with other Latin American Artists), a purification ritual takes place—Minujín covers herself up in “barbarity,” soil and grains that anonymous hands throw at her from out of field. A territory for exploration where the absurd embraces the real—“The only thing that is true is what we invent.”