Existing comment:
René Castro
born Viña del Mar, Chile 1943
September/October, from La Raza Graphic Center's 1983 Political Art Calendar
1982
screenprint on paper
Castro uses the calendar format to remember the solemn events surrounding another momentous September 11, in 1973, when Augusto Pinochet led a coup against democratically elected Socialist president Salvador Allende in Chile. Castro includes portraits of Allende and Orlando Letelier, Allende's exiled foreign minister who was assassinated in Washington, D.C., on September 21, 1976. The artist also references Pablo Neruda, Chile's most celebrated poet, who died days after the coup, on September 23, and the deaths of Mexican boxer Salvador Sánchez, and Che Guevara in the Bolivian jungles. The print stands as a personal testimony of sorts. Castro was arrested by Pinochet's forces and spent two years tortured in prison before being released to come to the United States. Pinochet ruled Chile until 1990.
Museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment, 2020.45.18 |