Teaching and Political Activism: The case of Cecilia Marcovich (1940-1970)
Buenos Aires to Rio de Janeiro, where she settled temporarily. From that moment
on, the topics of her artistic practice begin to change, and the Afro-descendant
woman that she saw in that city became the main character of her work, right
through to the last stone sculptures she made during the 70s.
By that time, Marcovich had accumulated a long experience of migration. From
her first journey from Europe to Argentina, at the beginning of the 20th century,
until the foundation of her own art school, her history reveals a path interwoven by
strategies of resistance. Her passage through the Parisian ateliers of Antoine
Bourdelle and André Lothe followed the usual itineraries of male Latin American
artists. However, for Marcovich this in itself meant a radical shift, since it broke with
the social expectations of gender by challenging conventional roles and
designing a life project which did not conform tothe traditional places assigned to
a woman artist in pursuit of a professional career.
In Buenos Aires, she created aspace as an alternative to the official academies
through a teaching studio that remained active for thirty years. Besides regular
classes, it offered an exhibition space for artists scarcely represented in official
exhibition rooms. Simultaneously, during the first half of the 20th century, Marcovich
participated in feminist, political and cultural organizations that brought together a
broad segment of artists actively involved in anti-fascist militancy. The school also
served as a platform from which to disseminate their ideals and to steer the pupils
towards an inclusive and democratic stance on women's rights.