XXII History of the Human Face (Trueque): Airmail Painting No.123

Eugenio Dittborn began producing airmail paintings — collaged works that he folded and mailed through the postal system — in 1983 amid the “cultural blackout” brought about by Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship in Chile. The works simultaneously resisted censorship by circumventing regular forms of art production and circulation, and practiced a form of self-exile at a time when exile was imposed on a large number of Chilean citizens. The series Histories of the Human Face (1998-ongoing) compiles faces from disparate sources: mug shots from Chilean crime magazines, photographs from anthropological compendiums of South American ethnic groups, and drawings by people institutionalized for mental health reasons, as well as the artist’s daughter. The work is always shown alongside an envelope tracking its exhibition history. It points to photography’s use as a tool of police surveillance, but also as a tool for making visible the faces of the oppressed, for instance activists, criminals, and indigenous peoples.