German-born experimental Argentine filmmaker Narcisa Hirsch died today at the age of 96 in San Carlos de Bariloche. Née Narcisa Heuser in Berlin on January 16, 1928, she moved to Argentina in 1937, before the outbreak of World War II, where she became a pioneer of experimental cinema in the South American country and a pivotal figure in Latin American avant-garde cinema. Throughout her career, Hirsch produced over sixty Super 8 and 16mm short films exploring themes such as female identity, eroticism, the human body, mortality, and motion, and her artistic endeavors addressed the prevailing political concerns of her era, intertwining individual stories with broader societal contexts.
Initially pursuing painting, she exhibited her work at the prestigious Galería Lirolay in Buenos Aires. In 1967, Hirsch transitioned to organizing art happening, notably La marabunta (Swarm), a striking happening featuring a larger-than-life skeleton of a woman adorned with food and live pigeons painted in neon hues. Collaborating with Marie Louise Alemann and Walter Mejía, this event coincided with the Argentine premiere of Michelangelo Antonioni's film Blow-Up (1966) at El Coliseo theater, where the happening unfolded.
Spontaneously, Hirsch engaged Raymundo Gleyzer, a young cinematographer, to document the event, a decision resonating with historical significance given Gleyzer's subsequent fate under military rule. During the late seventies, she focused on collaborative installation projects with individuals like Enrique Banfi and Jorge Caterbetti. Amidst the dictatorship, she ventured into the streets of San Telmo to spray graffiti, a practice she documented herself. This occurred prior to street art taking on political and cynical undertones.
Post-1967, Hirsch delved into 16mm and 8mm filmmaking, joining forces with fellow experimental filmmakers such as Marie Louise Alemann, Claudio Caldini, and Horacio Vallereggio. Their works found a home in alternative venues like the Instituto Goethe, as traditional theaters and museums proved unreceptive. The group disbanded in the early eighties due to the shift from film to video.
Hirsch's diverse oeuvre includes notable pieces like Apples / Manzanas (1969), Come Out (1971), Patagonian Diaries 1 / Diarios patagónicos 1 (1972–73), A-Dios (1984), Orpheus and Eurydice / Orfeo y Euridice (1976), La noche bengali. 1980. (co-directed by Werner Nekes, 1980), and Aleph (2005). Influenced by Canadian filmmaker Michael Snow, Hirsch's artistic journey intersected with other creative avenues, such as public activism and literary pursuits.
In the nineties and aughts, she authored several books, including La pasión según San Juan: Poema a partir de un guión cinematográfico (1992). Her contributions to experimental film were celebrated in retrospectives and festivals, including a comprehensive tribute at the Buenos Aires International Independent Film Festival (BAFICI), retrospectives at the Vienna International Film Festival, the Goethe Institute in Toronto, Documenta in Athens, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía and Documenta Madrid, Centro Cultural Kichner. Early this year, the Museum of the Modern Art in New York City featured the program “Narcisa Hirsch, A Famous Unknown Filmmaker” with select shorts of the trailblazing filmmaker.
