Collecting and allegory in the theater by Mauricio Kartun and Ricardo Bartís

Abstract

Taking as a starting point the Benjaminian figures of the collector and the allegorist, this article comparatively analyzes the modes of production of two leading figures in current Argentine theater: Mauricio Kartun and Ricardo Bartís. This analysis focuses on the way each of these artists relates to the history of Argentine culture through the incorporation of disused objects, obsolete machinery, and outdated images. We maintain that while Kartun works as the collector in the rescue of treasures of our culture, especially of popular culture, Bartís operates as the allegorist who exhibits the objects in which these have transitory and failed objects, because that is where his expressive power resides, its transfiguration into language.