The attack on the Moneda Palace on September 11, 1973 (image 03), created a fracture in the nation's democratic life and opened a wound even deeper than the material damage suffered by the building. The scenes of the Hawker Hunter airplanes, the bombing of the facade and balconies, as well as the destruction and exit of the body of President Salvador Allende through the Morandé 80 door, were added to the collective imagination of our country. Despite the attempts of Augusto Pinochet's dicta- torship to erase the traces of the attack on the Moneda Palace with a restoration that lasted until 1981, the power of the image of the palace engulfed in flames was already ingrained in those who resisted and fought day after day to recover democracy. There have been many artists who have reflected on the symbolic tension of La Moneda Palace. Photographer Luis Poirot (1940), who worked recording Salvador Allende's last presidential campaign, is the author of the series La Moneda, composed of four photographs, which is part of the Contempo- rary Art Collection of the Ministry of Cultures, Arts and Heritage. The photograph that opens the exhibition dates from 1970 and portrays former President Allende and his wife Hortensia Bussi greeting the crowd gathered in Plaza de la Constitución after the inauguration ceremony. The second is perhaps one of Poirot's most famous and was taken a few days after September 11 using a camera hidden in the photographer's clothes. It shows the same balcony, but this time completely destroyed by one of the twenty bombs that the Armed Forces dropped on the palace in a span of 16 minutes. The third image is a general shot of the bombed building, and the fourth, called La Moneda de mourning, captures a new stage in the reconstruction of the palace during the 2000s. Luis Poirot has stated that he was not able to face the negatives of the photographs of the destroyed building until 1989, after the referendum that allowed the return of democracy, due to the pain the images caused him. On the commemoration of the fortieth anniversary of the coup d'état, on September 11, 2013, visual artist and architect Alfredo Jaar (1956), installed a fixed camera filming the facade of the Palacio de La Moneda from 10 : 30 in the morning, thirty minutes before the beginning of the bombing in 1973, and until thirty minutes after the end of the siege of the building. The objective of this art production, which was commissioned and transmitted by German channel IkonoTV and simultaneously broadcast in the Miró Hall of the Salvador Allende Solidarity Museum, was to create a new memory and, as stated in the exhibition, to carry out a symbolic purification of an image that has marked the collective conscience of the country. The exhibition Alfredo Jaar. El Lado Oscuro de la Luna, on view through February 2024 in the Sala Matta of the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, the exhibition explores how the image of the bombing, which has been so often transmitted and reproduced in Chile and abroad, is also a reflection of the country's frag-
Q Fachada norponiente del Palacio La Moneda posterior al 11.09.1973. Q North-west facade of La Moneda Palace after September 11, 1973.
El ataque al Palacio de La Moneda el 11 de septiembre de 1973, generó una fractura en la vida democrática de la nación y abrió una herida aún más profunda que la de los daños materiales sufridos por el edificio. Se sumaron al imaginario colectivo de nuestro país, las escenas de los aviones Hawker Hunter, del bombardeo del frontis y los balcones, así como la destrucción y la salida del cuerpo del Presidente Salvador Allende por la puerta de Morandé 80. Y, a pesar de los intentos de la dictadura de Augusto Pinochet de borrar las huellas del atentado al Palacio de La Moneda con una restauración que se extendió hasta 1981, la potencia de la imagen del palacio envuelto en llamas ya se encontraba arraigada en quienes resistían y luchaban día a día por recuperar la democracia. Han sido muchos los artistas que han reflexionado en torno a la tensión simbólica del Palacio de La Moneda. El fotógrafo Luis Poirot (1940), quien trabajó realizando el registro de la última campaña presidencial de Salvador Allende, es el autor de la serie La Moneda, compuesta por cuatro fotografías y que es parte de la Colección de Arte Contemporáneo del Ministerio de las Culturas, las Artes y el Patrimonio. La fotografía con la que se inicia la muestra, data de 1970 y retrata al expresiden- te Allende junto a su esposa Hortensia Bussi saludando a la multitud congregada en la Plaza de la Constitución luego de la ceremonia de toma del mando. La segunda es, quizás, una de las más célebres de Poirot, y fue tomada pocos días después del 11 de septiembre utilizando una cámara oculta en la ropa del fotógrafo. En ella se ve el mismo balcón, pero esta vez completamente destruido por una de las veinte bombas que las Fuerzas Armadas lanzaron hacia el palacio en un lapso de 16 minutos. La tercera imagen es un plano general del edificio
El ataque al Palacio de La Moneda el 11 de septiembre de 1973, generó una fractura en la vida democrática de la nación y abrió una herida aún más profunda que la de los daños materiales sufridos por el edificio.
The attack on the Moneda Palace on September 11, 1973 (image 03), created a fracture in the nation's democratic life and opened a wound even deeper than the material damage suffered by the building.
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AOA / n°49
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