Historias Entre Lienzos is a digital platform dedicated to showcasing the works and legacy of Argentinian female artists from the 19th century to the present, who previously lacked an online presence. Established in 2019, the platform has since rescued from oblivion 44 female artists whose stories and artworks were not available on the web. In this conversation, we speak with Guadalupe Lobeto, the co-founder of Historias Entre Lienzos, about the platform’s history, mission, and challenges. Guadalupe is an Argentinian art historian based in New York City, with extensive experience working with Latin American female artists and working in museum and institutional consulting.
www.entrelienzos.org website launch
AM: When and why was Historias Entre Lienzos created?
GL: Historias Entre Lienzos was established in 2019 by Paloma Etenberg and me. We were taking a class on gender and art history at school and learned a lot about incredible Argentinian artists from the 19th century. In the beginning, we wanted to create an Instagram account to promote their work, but as soon as we started doing research, we realized that there wasn’t any available information online about them. Most of the time, when we searched their names on Google, no results would show up. The only reason we knew about these artists was because our professor had done her PhD on them. That’s when we realized that our project couldn’t just be about promoting artists; it should be about digitizing all the available sources of these artists and adding it on the web.
While researching catalogues and museum archives, we found out that most of the time these institutions have works of female artists in their collections, but these collections are not digitized. That’s the reason why we created Historias Entre Lienzos. We wanted to create an online archive so if you google these artists, you find results and information about them.
AM: What are the main values and goals of Historias Entre Lienzos?
GL: We believe that the world is becoming more and more digital, so having an online presence is important to not stay out of the system. We have to ensure that these female artists are online so they can be part of the art history narrative. In this sense, as a digital platform, the main values and goals of Historias Entre Lienzos are accessibility and collaboration. We want to democratize the information available in museums and archives, and make it easily available to everyone and create equality that way.
Historias Entre Lienzos is an accessible archive. The platform is easy to navigate, the language we use is simple so everyone can understand it, and we publish all the information that we find about these artists. Even if we don’t use all the sources available to create the profiles of the artists, we add extra bibliography as suggestions for other people who might want to continue the researchWe also include other types of information, like images of passports or documents, if we think that might be a clue for someone who wants to do research about a specific artist.
We are truly trying to be a community. As part of the research process, we usually try to get in contact with the artists’ family descendants. Sometimes they come to us, and sometimes we find them. They have a lot of information that is not available in archives, and it always feels like finding a treasure.
AM: In what period of time are you focused and how’s the research process? Do you prioritize a specific type of art?
GL: We mostly focus on Argentinian female artists from the 19th century, but we do not focus on a specific medium. Most of the artists at that time used to paint because that was the most accepted and accessible medium for women, but we also publish work from performance artists, ceramists, and photographers.
Nowadays, we have a database of over 500 names and 44 artists published on the website. When we see an artist that appears in diverse sources, one member of our team moves forward with that artist. We go through all the archives available in the country, visit museum libraries, and look into their family trees. As I said before, it’s great when we are able to find family descendants.
Some artists, especially the older ones, were not born in Argentina but emigrated to the country when they were young, so their names were translated into Spanish when they arrived, and we have to research both the Spanish name and the original name.
We also found out that a lot of the artists were married and used their husbands' names, but when they were applying for grants, awards, or open calls, they would use their maiden names. Maybe they didn’t have their husbands' permission, or it wasn’t well seen in society to be a woman artist. Artists using pseudonyms was also very common. This makes the research process more complex because there might be information available, but they appear under different names.
When we gather all the information together, we create a complete profile for each artist, which consists of a short biography, the sources, and images of artworks and documents.
AM: Is there an artist from the archive that you like the most?
GL: I found the work of Biyina Klappenbach very complex and rich. Biyina was born in Buenos Aires in 1904 and was mostly dedicated to the world of performing arts, fashion, and film although she also studied painting in Buenos Aires, Paris, and at the Royal Drawing Society in London. She is considered a pioneer in the Argentine avant-garde, as she was one of the first artists to introduce the concepts and elements of what would eventually be considered performance art.
Anatole Saderman, Untitled (Biyina Klappenbach by Anatole Saderman), c. 1930, silver gelatin print. Private collection
AM: How has Historias Entre Lienzos evolved since you first launched it?
GL: One of the reasons I believe the project and its mission are successful is that since we launched Historias Entre Lienzos, many people have created Wikipedia entries and written articles about the artists and their exhibitions, and they have linked our platform as their source. So, after publishing our online archive, these artists have started appearing on the web more and more frequently. At first, there weren’t any Google results for them, and now there are a few, not only from Historias Entre Lienzos but also from other people who started promoting the work of these artists.
At the end of 2022, Historias Entre Lienzos was recognized by the Argentinian National Congress as a project of National Interest. This recognition opened a lot of doors for us to reach out to more museum directors and artists. There are many descendants of these artists who really care about the memory of their grandmothers, and having governmental recognition helps us reassure those families that we are treating their legacy and the works of those artists with respect.
Our team has also grown. At the beginning, it was Paloma and me, and now there’s a team of five research assistants who work with us and carry on research.
I think this project will end when there’s gender equality in Argentinian art history. Unfortunately, I think we are far from this happening, but we are definitely getting closer
To learn more about Historias entre Lienzos mission and artists, visit https://www.entrelienzos.org/ or follow them on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/entrelienzos
Contributor: Montserrat Miranda Ayejes
July 7th, 2024