La Química De La Memoria: A Benjaminean Approach

Abstract

Investigation on issues of cultural memory in the Latin-American context has increased exponentially in the past two decades. However, the work of visual artists of memory: architects, sculptors or ‘memorialists’ has not yet been systematically analyzed as a constitutive part of the field. In this article, I would like to introduce the German artist Horst Hoheisel and to explore the novel ways that this professional of memory and commemoration has developed when working in South America. In each of his works, Hoheisel's self-reflectiveness is a constant and a tool that allows him to produce memorials and countermonuments which defy the space of market commodification and state instrumentalization. This article is particularly concerned with his 2004 project ‘La Química de la Memoria’. First, I offer a descriptive overview of the project and later I advance a more theoretical reading using Walter Benjamin's historical materialism in comparison with other related projects.