# Understanding artist's micro-level political behaviors of dissent in authoritarian regimes. The Argentinian Case
(1976-1983)

Maya Collombon, Lilian Mathieu

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Maya Collombon, Lilian Mathieu. Understanding artist's micro-level political behaviors of dissent in authoritarian regimes. The Argentinian Case (1976-1983). IPSA Seoul 2025, IPSA, Jul 2025, Seoul (Korea), South Korea. hal-05175477

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Understanding artist's micro-level political behaviors of dissent in authoritarian regimes.
The Argentinian Case (1976-1983)

The military coup of March 24, 1976, plunged Argentina into the darkest period of its recent political history, notably marked by an excessive use of political violence. The *Nunca Más* report<fnref n="1" />, published in 1983 shortly after the return of democracy, documented 30,000 disappearances, including many artists. Artists<fnref n="2" /> were among the first targets of censorship and repression, which focused on so-called "subversives"—a vaguely defined category that potentially included anyone who did not conform to the rules and norms set by the military regime. Stigmatized for the outward signs associated with their artistic practices, artists found themselves on the front line of an effort to impose a “new man.”

Repression was not entirely new, however, for Argentine artists, who had already been widely
targeted by previous military regimes, particularly following Onganía's coup in 1966. In fact,
by the late 1960s —especially in the years immediately following the 1969's *Cordobazo*— the
Argentine cultural scene had entered a period of intense left-wing politicization. There was an
abundance of activist artistic experimentations, such as the shift in visual arts toward politically
motivated performances (Longoni, Mestman, 2008), which significantly shaped the art world
around its close ties to politics and leftist movements, including armed struggle. This led to a
common overlap between political and artistic allegiances. However, while artists were
familiar with repression, it took on an entirely different dimension beginning in 1976. Artists,
accused of being “subversive” to the conservative, bourgeois, ultra-Catholic order promoted
by the military regime, were persecuted not only for their political affiliations, but also on
moral grounds (such as homosexuality, cohabitation, etc.). This repression profoundly
transformed the daily lives of artists, who were subjected to increasing censorship, placed on
blacklists, banned from working or performing, and faced disappearance or exile. As a result,
the Argentine cultural sphere underwent a significant reconfiguration during this dictatorship
(Avellaneda, 1986; Gociol, Invernizzi, 2007), and with it, the political behavior of artists also
evolved.

<footnote n="1">¹ Comisión Nacional sobre la Desaparición de Personas (1984). *Informe Nunca Más*. Buenos Aires: Editorial CELS.</footnote>

<footnote n="2">² The category is understood here in a broad acceptation and includes various figures from the world of art (cinema, visual arts, music, dance, literature, photography, etc.).</footnote>
As part of a collective research project<fnref n="3" />, we interviewed Argentine artists who remained in the country during the period of the last military regime. We sought to understand what their daily lives were like under the dictatorship, how they managed to continue creating and practicing their art while facing state repression and constraints, and what they did (or not) to survive and endure the authoritarian situation. While the repression resulting from the abuse of power under authoritarian regimes (Collombon, Mathieu, 2021) imposes a range of constraints and fears on the artists who endure it—often inhibiting their traditional political behaviors—it does not entirely prevent certain forms of adaptation to the context from emerging. Thus, contrary to analyses centered on cultural apathy, evidence from Argentina under the last dictatorship shows that artistic practices tended to persist, albeit in altered or underground forms, and often at the cost of much of their political dimension. However, research on artists under repression—particularly following the exponential development of reinterpretations of Scott’s work (2002)—has largely tended to interpret all artistic practices as political or resistant acts, especially when analyses are based on narratives reconstructed after the fact. Distinguishing between what stems from internal practices and norms within the art world and what constitutes acts of dissent becomes all the more complex given the often-ambivalent nature of everyday behavior under authoritarian rule.

The central aim of this communication is to analyze cultural and artistic practices and behaviors under an authoritarian regime, in order to reconsider the ambivalences, strategies of evasion, and adaptations that characterize them, and to place them back into context. First and foremost, we find it essential to reaffirm that artists do adapt and find ways to circumvent the constraints imposed by the regime—at an individual level, but also through connections with family, affinity groups, or local networks. The relationship between specific cultural sub-sectors and shifts within the political context (in our case, the internal conflicts within the regime and its weakening following the onset of the Falklands War in 1982) can enable the development—or, in some cases, the reemergence—of the more political dimension of artistic practices. This tends to happen first within more marginal or emerging cultural sectors, where taking the risk of testing the boundaries of both art and the regime becomes possible.

## Everyday Adaptations of Artists Under Repression

As repression intensifies, the tendency to retreat into oneself also increases among most individuals. This is especially true for artists, as they are particularly affected by authoritarian turns. Thus, the level of censorship and repression—whether mild or severe, depending on the space and time—provokes fear and reactions of withdrawal, acceptance, and superficial loyalty to the new situation. In many cases, survival becomes the primary concern. On an individual level, this is expressed through a series of micro-behaviors that occur during the autocratization process, allowing artists to contain themselves (through self-censorship) and maintain their self-esteem.

<footnote n="3">³ This communication is based on the ANR CALOT research project ("*The Consequences of Forced Loyalty*" ANR-19-CE41-0012), coordinated by Maya Collombon and Lilian Mathieu. The interviews with artists were conducted primarily in Buenos Aires, partly in Rosario, and in a few cases, in Mexico City.</footnote>
Creating for One's Own

For many of the artists interviewed, the 1976 coup marks the beginning of a period of retreat. Following the intense politicization of the 1960s and early 1970s, a phase of self-censorship emerges, directly resulting from the intensity of the repression that falls upon the arts worlds, one of primary target of the military regime. Belonging to the art world thus stigmatizes artists as "subversives," making them vulnerable to repression and censorship. After a show, the young actor Norberto Buabse and the other members of his troupe are arrested while having dinner at a restaurant. He explains to the police that he is still wearing his stage costume, but the revelation of his profession works against him. The policeman who questions him replies: "Oh, theater? So you want to be an artist, you fucking faggot?<fnref n="4" />" This is followed by a violent punch to the stomach and a night in a holding cell. And so, as in the case of Norberto Buabse and the theater world, all sectors of the art world seem to be affected. In response, a more polished form of artistic production develops, distancing itself from political engagement and acting as an artistic constraint. The Theater writer H. Grau experienced this firsthand when, in the aftermath of the coup, he presented a play that was both too timid in its message (out of fear of repression) and out of sync with the expectations of an audience that itself was in a state of terror: "What came out of it was a sort of lukewarm soup that had no taste. The stew hadn't finished boiling, and it had no flavor. But on the other hand, the audience wasn't ready to listen to anything related to ideology because that was also too frightening.<fnref n="5" />"

The worlds of art were thus marked by the avoidance of politics in its various forms: many
artists ended their previous commitments, and at the same time, there were numerous exits
from artistic organizations and most politicized groups. When Federico, a young Jewish
medical student and already an experienced pianist at the age of 18, learns in 1976 that a friend
of a close acquaintance has been arrested, and that his name has been mentioned, leading his
friend to go into exile, he decides to disengage from the Israeli club, a political reading group,
and several music groups, including a teenage rock band, in which he was involved. After this
series of disengagements, and now disconnected from his closest friendships, he decides to
follow, a few months later, his friends who had moved to live on a kibbutz in Israel. Here, it is
the arrest of his friend's friend that marks the end of his youthful political commitments, and
during his exile in Israel, the end of his musical activity, which he would resume in 1978 upon
his return to Buenos Aires. Disengagement can also be forced as decide by others, or have
direct implications on a collective group, as in the case of H. Grau when he decides to withdraw
from the theater world by dissolving his troupe, as he realizes after the coup and after deciding
not to go into exile that he had underestimated the dangers he faces.

This notable decline in the most visible political and artistic activities is often followed by a
retreat into oneself and one's inner circle. While this is certainly not limited to artists, it is

<footnote n="4">⁴ Interview with Norberto Buabse, actor and director, Rosario, May 17, 2023. All the names of the interviewees have been anonymized.</footnote>

<footnote n="5">⁵ Interview with H. Grau, theater writer, Buenos Aires, August 2, 2024.</footnote>
particularly striking in their case, as their work is inherently collective and financially dependent on a network of collective relationships, which must then be distanced.

Staying at home to develop one's own artistic activities, often in an individual form, becomes the credo for many artists: painting "for oneself," playing "for oneself," writing without thinking of publication, etc. For, engaging collectively can then put you in a life-threatening situation. Trusting others becomes a significant risk, and at the risk of being wrong, it seems more reasonable not to trust. This is exemplified by the "poisoned meeting", fortunately without consequence for him, in which O. Orengo falls victim. One evening, while dining with a colleague in a restaurant in the theater district in Buenos Aires, he spots an elderly actor at the back of the room and goes over to greet him, but the actor urges him to look away. Returning to his table, his colleague calls him an idiot for the risk he just took: the actor, missing for several weeks and almost certainly having been kidnapped and tortured, had probably been placed by the military as bait in one of his old social spots to identify and arrest any former comrades who might come to greet him<fnref n="6" />.

Many artists interviewed recount implementing daily self-protection measures to avoid being labeled as "subversives," a category all the more concerning because it is vague, and to ensure they left no traces of their artistic activities out of fear of reprisals. Like other Argentinians at the time, artists began to hide their books, burn their notebooks or sketchbooks, and even stop writing altogether, etc. Emiliano, at the time an aspiring writer, taught himself through long hours of reading at the bookstore where he worked. During the dictatorship, he recalls having written several books in his head without ever putting them on paper for fear of reprisals, as the military regularly visited his bookstore to seize and destroy books, they considered dangerous. Clearly, the creative dimension of writing was here affected by the authoritarian turn as the fear of leaving traces was too strong and had to be reconfigured around more pragmatic realities such as surviving or earning a living.

## Maintaining an Acceptable Artistic Self-Esteem

But creating for one's own can also develop an internal distortion as personal self-esteem (Goffman 1967) and artistic *illusio* (Bourdieu 1996) can be affected. For those who are not loyal to the regime and not truly convinced of the benefits of the regime change (which was the case for a relatively small number of Argentine artists at the time), continuing their artistic practice—which is also their livelihood—while preserving one's dignity and, preferably, consistent with their prior commitments, can be particularly difficult. Maintaining an acceptable and politically coherent artistic self can prove to be a real challenge. In this context, cases of artistic duality—or even contradictions between different kinds of behaviors within the same artist—are widespread. It can be even more complicated for artists who are already advanced in their careers and whose political commitments are well known, who must keep a low profile. Many actors are forced to accept subordinate roles in theater plays or films to continue their profession and earn a living, despite their disagreements with certain new

<footnote n="6">⁶ Interview with Octavio Orengo, theater technician, Buenos Aires province, May 24, 2023.</footnote>
practices that accompany censorship and repression (the sidelining of actors or directors considered "subversive," blacklists of artists, etc.).

Certainly, many artists lead a double life, having a livelihood job and an artistic profession, even in a democracy. But what changes in an authoritarian situation is that the artistic activity must be potentially hidden, whereas in a democracy it does not need to be. This is what photographer Martin describes regarding his two cameras: he works during the day for a pro-regime newspaper, and at the same time, he carries a second camera that he uses for his artistic and political photographic work. Thus, his dual activity is materialized in two separate cameras, each with its own specific use: the first allows him to work and feed his family, while the second enables him to continue his personal artistic activity and maintain self-esteem.

Sometimes it is the more committed, more political aspect of this other activity that is hidden. This is the case for Gabriel, a young architect from the capital. He has a professional career as a classical architect during the day, working for a large construction company and participating in traditional housing programs. The period of the last military regime is indeed characterized by large urban development programs and an ambition to modernize the capital under the leadership of Brigadier Cacciatore (Gorelik, Silvestri, 2000), and architects are primarily involved in these programs. His professional activity is very technical and allows him to support his family. However, in the evening, he develops a literary activity with a few close colleagues, focused on critical writings about the city and the same urban programs he actively participates in during the day. These writings circulate within a limited group of people, all close friends and architects of the same generation, who find in this underground and niche writing activity a compensation for their apparent loyalty.

For some artists already recognized before the authoritarian turn, the international artistic arena serves as an escape from the national situation, even becoming a space for artistic development and recognition. This is particularly the case for some contemporary artists who have found in major international art fairs a space to affirm their careers. Here, apparent loyal behaviors within the national space are often combined with possible expressions of indignation, with political overtones, in the international space. Artist tours abroad thus serve as moments of expressing dissent in a daily life mostly subjected to the regime. This is the case for the actor Federico, who takes advantage of his theater tours in neighboring countries to continue expressing his political preferences (as a communist activist), something he does not do during tours in the provinces of Argentina.

For those who do not have international recognition and/or the ability to travel, the international artistic arena also serves as a space of retreat, potentially protective, as long as it does not pose a danger in itself. For young photographer Martin, looking at photo books by major American photographers available at the agency he works for provides an escape from the social and political reality of his country and serves as a space of retreat. However, carrying a book by Stanislavski (with its Russian name) in his bag during a police checkpoint presents a potential risk for its owner, a young actor in training.
Artistic skills can sometimes be used directly to exit of a risky situation. This is the case, in particular, for amateur actress and future novelist, but also left-wing activist, Emilia Irarrázaval, who escapes the police by concocting a wild story and overplaying her role as if she were on stage. Indeed, she draws on her ability to improvise and perform when an act of imprudence—failing to follow traffic rules—exposes her to a police checkpoint. In a strategy of cover-up (Goffman, 1975 [1963], 123), she performs the role of a foolish bourgeois woman whose husband is an important man, politically harmless but able to use his connections to reprimand the officer who is scolding her. She then tells him "a totally delirious fiction, as if I wasn't afraid, [the policeman] was yelling at me, but as if I was used to being yelled at. [...] I know it works because it's the only way, to play the stupid one."<fnref n="7" />

## Ways to Express Dissent Through Cultural Consumption and Artistic Practices

Consuming culture or practicing art (especially in an amateur way) in an authoritarian regime does not necessarily mean opposing the regime. This is particularly true in Argentina in the late 1970s, marked by a previous period of high cultural consumption: going to the cinema or even reading novels were common practices across all social classes. In this context, cultural micro-behaviors are ambivalent and can signify different attitudes. They are not necessarily acts of dissent. In Buenos Aires, Rosario, and other cities across the country, various cultural activities continue, and others develop, according to the rules and norms of the military regime, which implements a whole set of cultural policies in line with the ideology and values it seeks to defend (Longoni, Gamarnik, 2022; Risler, 2018). The particularity of the cultural consumption discussed here is that it is not limited to "official" cultural consumption; it can extend and diversify into alternative cultural consumption, and it goes beyond the individual level, facilitating social interactions where individuals, and especially artists, identify those who share their views and practices, thus reducing feelings of fear and isolation.

While cultural consumption in fields like cinema, literature, or other arts does not stop completely—far from it—it even, in some ways, diversifies: official consumption may be supplemented or, in some cases, replaced by more underground consumption, even artistic contraband. One form of cultural practice and consumption does not necessarily exclude the other. Thus, different ways of operating, using the tools and practices of the artistic worlds, allow individuals and artists to create social connections, despite the repression.

### *Cultural Practices as Hidden Signs of Defiance Against the Regime*

Cultural practices are potentially a privileged space for the implementation of micro-behaviors of dissent in an authoritarian regime. The codes are numerous and allow individuals to recognize each other as belonging to the same cultural group: identifying a shared way of dressing or letting one's hair grow long (non-compliant with the gendered norms imposed by the military regime, a sign of closeness to rock circles or to the hippie movement, for example).

<footnote n="7">⁷ Interview with Emilia Irarrázaval, writer, Buenos Aires, June 2023.</footnote>
Certain daily practices also serve as markers of identification, such as regularly visiting the same music store or market, bookstore, or concert hall... While this frequenting in itself is not a resistance act but rather a cultural practice, it may carry a subtle mark of rejection of the regime when it involves attending a music venue where police raids occur regularly, or a bookstore where certain books have been banned and removed from the shelves, but where the bookseller continues to engage in the sale of politically engaged literature. This is what the future writer and former bookseller Federico recalls when he talks about the police raids in his bookstore in Mar del Plata: "They searched my stock. They took all the books on Marx, on... a bit of everything, they took a bit of everything. Everything that was on the list. But they left plenty of things, well, for example, the milicos [military] didn't know that there were, for example, the Russians. Did they take the Russian books? No. The Solzhenitsyn books? No. They didn't even know they existed.<fnref n="8" />" Thus, despite a blacklist of banned books that were regularly confiscated from his stock, many books were not known or perceived as "subversive" by the military and continued to circulate and be regularly sold.

Thus, under the dictatorship, cultural practices develop where individuals, and even more so artists, identify messages of dissent, or even seek in cultural practice to be reassured by a shared analysis of the social and political reality around them. Therefore, going to the cinema to watch a film that one knows is not entirely "conformist" is not in itself an act of resistance but is part of an individual attitude of subtle rejection.

## *The Daily Life as Indignation*

Cultural practices in Argentina under military rule served as a privileged space for bringing people together, without necessarily having a political dimension. Gathering as a family to play music or spending time with friends around an *asado* [barbecue] that ends with a *peña* [an acoustic music concert, often featuring guitar] were common social practices before the coup and continued throughout the military regime. What changed, however, was the level of trust between those present. In such a repressive environment, meeting with friends or family meant that the bonds of trust were strengthened. Cultural practices then served as an escape from political pressure, potentially taking on a more overtly political dimension when friends or family members began to sing Peronist songs, for example. Yet, the political aspect was not the core of the practice. According to the interviewees' stories, the more overtly political nature of these gatherings emerged gradually over time, as the intimate space seemed no longer sufficient. The group began to look for ways to perform for others outside their original circle of trusted companions.

This is the case of Victoria Lamberti's family. She is a singer, and her brother is a pianist, both musicians since their childhood. They were coming out of their adolescence when the military coup occurred. They grew up in a family of amateur musicians, with their father being a worker and music teacher, and their mother being highly skilled in organizing musical events.

<footnote n="8">⁸ Interview with Federico, writer, former bookseller, Buenos Aires, June 2024.</footnote>
Together, they formed a band at home to satisfy their children's collective desire to play music and to gather with close friends. Victoria describes the particular energy that led her family, in 1976, to form at home a neighborhood music group, which later became a full-fledged band that gave public concerts: "It was crazy because it was a time when gathering was prohibited because of the dictatorship. More than 10 people in a house, that wasn't possible. It was in the *conurbano* [the suburban areas of the capital], where daily life continued despite everything, you know. Daily life that ultimately gives you breath, oxygen. Well, I imagine my parents were very careful. How can I put it? Not letting any political affinity show<fnref n="9" />" The period is conducive to the development of clandestine artistic workshops: visual arts workshops emerge, bringing together a small group of artists and those they will train, as well as dance or music learning sessions. The group been here formed on pre-established trust bonds.

*Better to laugh about it*

Often described as a weapon of the oppressed, laughter and humor were clearly among the instruments of discreet dissent that brought together cultural producers and consumers. The most famous example in Argentina during this period is the magazine *Humor*, which continued to circulate under the military dictatorship despite increasingly absurd and mocking stories, and without necessarily being censored. Wordplay and jokes also played a significant role for individuals—artists and non-artists alike—in overcoming situations considered terrifying or oppressive, whether alone or with others. Other artistic sectors also used humor, mockery, and the absurd to distance themselves from the political and social situation. For instance, the photographer Guillermo Loiácono covered military events, or events involving the military, by taking pictures with the clear intention of mocking them (such as the famous photo of the Minister of the Economy, Martinez de Hoz, with his finger up his nose, or of military personnel conspiring with the church). He clearly took advantage of the military's blindness, unaware that the photographic language could be used to ridicule them or even to express opposition (Gamarnik, 2013b). Sandro Zamora also takes photos for fun and to gently mock his immediate surroundings, while documenting the time: “If you want to see, I have some photographs that I call ‘Humor.’ I can show them to you on the computer.” “Gladly.” “Being backstage is, for me, the most enjoyable thing I can do and present in photography. [...] I photographed the poses—sometimes very ridiculous, very humorous—or the encounters from a certain angle with someone, or even the photographer in the middle of their professional activity.<fnref n="10" />” Here is the way and angle of photography that creates the humoristic distance. The photographer knew that these images, taken during the dictatorship, would probably not be published (and were not) by the magazine he worked for, but he says he found joy in capturing these offbeat moments; the act of taking the photo became both a playful activity and a liberating performative gesture.

Likewise, some artistic performances played a liberating role, despite their minimal—or nonexistent—political content. This was the case, for example, with Gabriel, architect, but also

<footnote n="9">⁹ Interview with Victoria Lamberti, musician, singer, Buenos Aires, June 2024.</footnote>

<footnote n="10">¹⁰ Interview with Sandro Zamora, photographer, Buenos Aires, March 2023.</footnote>
musician, who regularly organized experimental music concerts in the street with his band. In this violent context, the musical performance had no political aim, but it brought young people together randomly in public spaces around a style of music that defied the expectations of the military regime. It was also the case for the dancer Liz Vommaro, who recalls beginning to choreograph very abstract pieces during that time, driven by a need to express herself, to “free her body” as a way of escaping the oppressive feelings she experienced in daily life. These kinds of artistic performances thus helped to rebuild social bonds, especially for the generation most persecuted by the regime.

## Collective Acts of Cultural Micro-Resistance

It is often difficult to distinguish the degrees of engagement in certain practices and the intentions behind them. As discussed in the previous section, many cultural practices were simply aimed at escaping the social and political realities of the time. However, some of these artistic practices eventually transformed or revealed, in retrospect, underlying political intentions that were not clearly identified at the outset. In a way, what encouraged and facilitated the return of political intentionality in cultural practices was the very evolution of the military regime, whose repressive dimension gradually diminished over the years—most notably starting in 1979—and the growing visibility of internal conflicts within the regime from 1980 onward. Artists were among the first to perceive these internal fractures and the increasingly tangible possibility of expressing political discourse within the cultural sphere. However, this shift happened progressively: from the collectivization of individual practices to the rise of clandestine cultural activities, and eventually to the organization of cultural actions explicitly imbued with political meaning—pushing the regime’s red lines and testing the limits of fear.

### Towards a Convergence of Artistic Micro-Behaviors

As the military regime maintained in power, the accumulation of artistic micro-behaviors and underground practices began to multiply, becoming increasingly visible and recognizable. Writers, working independently, began exploring similar themes; painters, too, started addressing common subjects. At the same time, small cultural affinity groups—dedicated to reading, music, writing, theater, and so on—began to form and gather in personalized spaces such as houses, apartments, or garages. These were not necessarily groups focused on reading banned texts (like Marxist literature, which was the most common example at the time), but rather simple affinity-based gatherings that played an important role in nurturing and encouraging artistic vocations.

Victoria Lamberti’s family home, for instance, became a special and protective space—not only for the adolescents in her own family but also for close friends who found comfort and breathing room in these local musical activities. Among them was her friend Lola, with whom she sang in a duo. Lola’s father had disappeared in 1977 (a fact never mentioned during their gatherings), and from that time on, she went to Victoria’s house every day to rehearse. Other
musicians were also there daily. Often, their musical influences were very different. However, during that particular period, what brought them together was less a shared musical direction than the space itself—the home, the family, and the conditions of protection it offered.

The case of the photographers and the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo is particularly representative of this kind of aggregation of practices that characterizes a significant part of the cultural activity during this period. In 1977, when the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo began circling the square to express concern for their missing children, there were no press photographers present to cover the demonstration. Yet the mothers gathered there every Thursday at the same time, for years. Among the first to photograph there was Leonardo. The mothers were deeply grateful to him, and a relationship of trust and friendship developed between them. As the months went by, however, more and more photographers began showing up at the Plaza de Mayo to take the same sort of images of the mothers, who had by then become symbols of peaceful resistance against the military regime. This growing photographic presence had a double effect: it helped consolidate an individual photographic practice around the resistance of the mothers—imbuing it with a political dimension—and it also offered protection to the photographers themselves, who, by becoming more numerous, were less exposed individually and could begin to recognize and support one another.

## Testing the Limits

"Fed up" is another common feeling found among artists of the time, who were constrained by the context and seemed ready to return to cultural practices that were politically engaged, practices they had engaged in before the military coup. Driven by this frustration, they aimed to test the limits of the regime and continue creating despite the risks involved. For example, some artists continued to teach the arts in a certain way, and writers maintained their literary practices by including banned authors, despite censorship. In this context, it was about pushing the boundaries in face-to-face situations, or even in collective settings, while respecting one's own artistic values, even when they contradicted the norms established by the regime. The photographer Sandro Zamora recalls that at the time, he was too young and "border," meaning that his risk-taking was both unconscious and driven by a deep-seated anger.

Another typical behavior of artists subjected to repression is subversion and contraband, widely discussed by authors who have worked on arts under authoritarian rule (e.g., in the Cuban case, Geoffray, 2011, and, for Vichy France, Sapiro, 2014). Unique to inventiveness and artistic creation, artists have at their disposal many artistic tools or methods that they can cleverly subvert to hide messages or simply express discreet dissent: coded song lyrics become messages understood by a generation of young Argentinians, as in the songs of rock musician Charly Garcia (in songs such as "Los Dinosaurios" or "Alicia en el país"); illustrated children's books, even adult comics, tell stories through a distant imaginary that can be transposed to the Argentine reality. *Humor* cartoonist Meiji, for example, did not attack frontally the dictatorship but invented an overly greedy physician, Doctor Cureta, who ran his private clinic to make it profitable in disregard of its medical vocation and was a denunciation of the regime's neoliberal approach to economics.
In general, inventing or imagining parallel realities serves as useful and discreet tools for expressing dissent. The example of the film *Tiempo de revancha* is particularly illustrative in this regard. Directed by Adolfo Aristarain and released in Argentine cinemas in July 1981, this crime drama tells the story of Pedro Bengoa, who works for a mining company. A colleague tells him about a plan to pull off an insurance scam. After an explosion in the mine where his friend loses his life, Bengoa decides to take over the project, convincing his company that he has lost his ability to speak due to the accident. The metaphor of the loss of speech and the allusion to the political context of the dictatorship—with killers driving a Ford car ordinarily used by, and symbolically associated to, the Argentine armed forces, for example—were widely perceived by the audience when the film was released. It became a highly successful example of indirect condemnation, yet unmistakably recognizable, of the terror regime under the military dictatorship in Argentina (Mathieu, *to be published*).

Finally, another way of testing the limits is to seek to transcend the limits of art itself. Here, the break is internal to the art world, but it is perceived by the one who carries it out as having a political significance. It is perhaps easier for young artists to find themselves in this position of breaking away from the established artistic order. In this context, the authoritarian regime can present an "opportunity" as it places these younger artists in a position of less risk compared to their elders, while at the same time offering them a greater capacity to test the limits.

## Organizing a Low-Intensity Sedition

By organizing underground or clandestine cultural meetings and events, artists seek a space where their artistic and political ideals converge. The challenges here are manifold, and the organizing artists must anticipate the dangers, implementing security procedures to ensure their own protection as well as that of the audience. Organizing such events is accompanied by a whole range of resistant practices that, in effect, politicize cultural activity, even when it does not have a strictly political scope. For involving others in a cultural activity in an underground, protected space can be seen as a low-intensity collective action in the eyes of coercive powers.

Gradually, and more evidently after 1980 when the regime begins to weaken, behaviors which lead to cultural actions with an obvious political connotation of protest develop, testing both the limits of repression and the boundaries of fear. This is notably the case with the actor and cultural promoter Luis, when he organizes *peñas*, inviting artists, musicians, and actors banned by the regime. At that time, Luis is seeking to raise funds to organize a tour in the provinces and neighboring countries with his newly formed theater troupe. He asks one of his friends, a former communist militant like him, who has just opened a small theater space, to lend it to him to organize a *peña*. The theater is a small room built inside his house, a house at the back of a courtyard, with communist companions as neighbors on both sides. "Why don't you lend me the space? In that room, we could organize a *peña*. But I don't know, *the dictatorship is tough*. The coup had just happened. So, we went to try it out. We saw that from the outside you couldn't hear anything. Because of the walls, since everything was at the back, we shouted loudly, and nothing could be heard. So, we decided to organize a *peña*. [...] That's how we
organized the first *peña*, then several more, inviting a banned artist, taking precautions. Banned
musicians came, banned actors...<fnref n="11" />" They organized clandestine *peñas* regularly for almost a
year, until they had raised enough money for the theater troupe's tour, and they were able to hit
the road to perform in the provinces.

Other examples, in their respective fields, have strong implications and increasing visibility, especially starting in 1981. The most well-known case is, of course, the series of performances organized by *Teatro Abierto* in the theater world (e.g., Saura Clares 2018; Manduca, 2024). But it is also the case, for example, of the first exhibition organized by ARGRA, the Argentine association of photojournalists, which held the first documentary photography exhibition in 1981 (Gamarnik, 2013). These were images that had not been published in previous years because they were deemed too politically explicit and banned by the dictatorship. When the exhibition was presented, the reception from the public exceeded all the expectations of the organizing photographers and achieved significant success.

This is also the meaning of the “Siluetazo”, that showed that, at the end of the dictatorship, one
could test the red lines and cross them. This collective performance in a public space directly
addresses a subject that was highly political at the time: the issue of the disappeared-.

***

It is particularly noteworthy in the Argentine case that the early 1980s differ from the late
1970s, which were the darkest and most violent years of the military regime. Thus, throughout
the dictatorship, temporality played an important role in how cultural activities and practices
developed, heavily constrained in the years following the coup and progressively becoming
more diversified as the regime weakened and internal conflicts increased. Depending on the
period of the regime, repression, and censorship were not exercised in the same way throughout
the regime or for all artists. Furthermore, not all sectors were affected in the same way, and
within the arts world, newcomers were relatively more protected by artistic censorship, but not
necessarily by repression, which primarily targeted the youth. In contrast, already recognized
artists with strong international reputations were more protected from repression, especially
when they had the option of exile. Their artistic behaviors were largely dependent on this
situation within the field. The evolution of positions is significant for many artists for whom
the period either constituted, more commonly, a time of constraints and fear, or for some, an
opportunity and an entry point into the field. This position within the field has notable effects
on micro-behaviors, which must therefore be contextualized.

Finally, it seems important to emphasize the ambivalence of the micro-behaviors of artists,
highlighting the significance of their variation, their dependence on contexts, and the
opportunities available to them, in order to avoid seeing resistance everywhere. This is the
purpose of the CALOT research: we hope that the comparison with other cases will allow us
to generalize, particularly to avoid the search for resistance at any cost, while also taking into

<footnote n="11">¹¹ Interview with Luis, actor, director, and cultural promoter, Mexico, April 2024.</footnote>
account a situated analysis that places artists within their social and political environment, repositioning them within the art worlds they inhabit—worlds that, in turn, evolve under an authoritarian regime according to a dynamic influenced by these same regimes.

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