Material Memories: Tradition and Amnesia in two Argentine Museums

ALVARO FERNÁNDEZ BRAVO

Images of Power: Iconography, Culture and the State in Latin America

Berghahn Books

Lugar: Nueva York y Oxford; Año: 2005; p. 78 - 95

Museums have been defined as instruments for the enforcement of social order. In Argentina, museums were established in significant numbers along with the organization of the State since 1880 and played a pedagogic role that forged images of the nation on the domestic population. Between the years 1880-1910 most important Argentine museums opened their doors. My purpose is to offer some reflections on the organization of museums in Argentina during the nineteenth century, as a contribution in the study of the construction of cultural patrimonies. I will try to question the assumption of museums as mere enforcers of hegemonic ideology, and rather study them as theatres of memory, that is, spaces where conflicting versions of identity compete, struggle, and intend to fix historical meaning on material culture. My central concern is the founding of two institutions, the National Historic Museum, inaugurated in 1889, and the National Museum of Fine Arts, of 1895, both located in Buenos Aires. When established, these museums raised public debates where intellectuals such as Rafael Obligado, Ernesto Quesada, Calixto Oyuela and Eduardo Schiaffino intervened and argued about national history and the nature of an ?Argentine? art. All of them belonged to a cultural coalition named ?Ateneo?, that functioned between 1892 and 1900 and where the politics of cultural representation was a matter of discussion.