PATRICIA BENTANCUR

Activism or artivism [2] as a movement within the art system is perhaps the term that allows to place with greater precision the multifaceted career of Clemente Padín (Uruguay, 1939).

This artist has developed a constant and consistent work that focuses on criticism and reflexive denunciation, from formal propositions that fluctuate indistinctly between performance, visual poetry, mail art, video or net art and a series of publications and editions of different entity.

Padín graduated in Hispanic Literature at the Faculty of Humanities and Education Sciences in 1963, and all his work is marked by that vocation and formation. He directed the magazine Los Huevos del Plata between 1965 and 1969, OVUM 10 and OVUM between 1969 and 1975, Participation, between 1984 and 1986, and Correo del Sur, between 2000 and 2003. He is the author of twenty books of poetry and literary criticism , edited in France, Germany, Venezuela, Holland, Italy, Spain, the United States and Uruguay.

These notes aspire to configure a space that allows the reflection on the critical potential of the work of art from a review of the extensive work and the multiple artistic actions practiced during almost forty years by Clemente Padín.

[1] Image used by Ernesto Vila, Uruguayan artist who was imprisoned for thirteen years during the military dictatorship (1973-1984), in his text "Art, Prison and Exile", published on July 17, 2003 by the weekly Gap in the special supplement "30 years after the coup d'état; VII / FRONTERAS ", with the general coordination of Ana Inés Larre Borges.

[2] Artivism: neologism that arises from the fusion of the words art and activism, and is used to refer to works that articulate both interests.

Artistic artists can be defined as alternative artistic projects with a socializing intention, and critical spaces that question different social and cultural aspects from an eminently artistic position. In principle, this term was only used to describe the work of net art classics, Heath Bunting, Olia Lialina, Vuk Cosik, the JODI. Term disseminated by the Spanish artist and theorist Laura Baigorri.

CONTEXT

"It's not about preserving the past, but about realizing your hopes [3]." Horkheimer and Adorno

One of the courts to choose to think Padín's career may be the revision of his production in the periods of pre and post dictatorship in Uruguay. A dictatorship that hit society hard and that installed a system of fear, jail and exile.

Taking into account the before and after, in the stage prior to the military coup of June 1973, it can be considered that Clemente Padín set the bases for a search. The beginning of the same, in the university period, would allow him to generate the sense of a visual production that is established from experimentations and approximations from the field of letters.

Following the aforementioned criteria, a second stage of its production occurs in parallel to social and political events. In this period Padín assumes a very clear commitment regarding the social function of the artistic task, elaborating some strategies that allow him, intermittently, to accompany the adversity of those years of dictatorship, between 1973 and 1984.

A third stage can already be analyzed as the development of its activity within the framework of a regime of constitutional normality, but at the same time marked by the sediment and the ballast of the previous stage.

[3] Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno (1987), Dialectic of Enlightenment. Buenos Aires: South American.

In the present review, I will focus on the last two stages. What I call the first stage, prior to the military dictatorship, will be seen here from some brief notes related to the regional and local context, as a way to locate the background that facilitates a reading of sociocultural behavior in the field of art from the socio-political conditions.

In the evolution of the national and regional socio-cultural system, the significance of these practices, which have been developed in a sustained manner despite the circumstantial brackets, is confirmed, which formed a dense and multiple work that adds to a collective and transnational task.

The work of Clemente Padín allows to formulate some questions about contemporary culture and its strategies and weaknesses. Perhaps this is the reason that leads me to maintain that although the materialization, formalization and formulation of some of its proposals, are subject to an aesthetic determined by the language itself and constrained by it, Padín's proposals entail, in their genesis and in its structure, a revision -not necessarily conscious- that coexists with some of the most interesting and complex problems of today, with respect to which there is a greater diversity of opinions in contemporary societies and in the analysis of symbolic production that these societies generate.

Are not these artists those who, from their praxis, put into tension concepts such as territoriality, originality, identity, frontier and communication, long before we thought theoretically and intellectually in those terms? This aspect, of a praxis very structured in its purpose that in turn today can illuminate other vectors of cultural practices - perhaps from intuition rather than rationality - is one of the points to be highlighted at the time of this brief tour of the work of Padín.

The second point to stop, will focus on deepening a question that has to do with philosophical concepts and questions about the "functionality of art" and its ability to promote thought, reflection and change actions.

Thirdly, I am interested in considering the relationship art-text-word that is present in much of the production of meanings within the field of art in recent decades. The journey through these three axes will be transversal and non-linear. On the contrary, I have decided to make an approach to Padín's work from the different formalizations and understanding that all situations and creative limits are mixed and superimposed. It is important to situate ourselves in the regional and international historical moment to understand in what way, bearing in mind the social conjuncture, we can understand some of these political-cultural syntheses.

The 60s were a time of convulsion that reflects, in a different way but with reactions in the same sense, the problematic and evolution of societies that, although they differ, share some utopias. Recall, once again, the significance of May 68, the Vietnam War and its consequences, the Cuban revolution and the death of Che Guevara, and countless social and political events that shape a very particular international panorama, a density substantial and of enormous complexity. In that decade in Latin America coincide events and tensions common to the region, and it enters a progressive process of confrontation. The "cold war" will further exacerbate the situation, establishing axes of influence that will potentiate significant repercussions.

In those years, from the 60s to the 70s, diverse organizations of artists, intellectuals and theoreticians consolidated themselves with a certain "precariousness". In Santiago de Chile, for example, the Latin American Art Institute was created in 1970 [4], which was proposed as a research center and visual and written documentation, and which emphasized publications. This space brought together artists and intellectuals with the clear conviction of the social and historical destiny of the artists, who should contribute to create the conditions to overcome the postponement and underdevelopment of these countries. Within this framework, exhibitions and discussion forums took place.

From the sample "America, I do not invoke your name in vain" an important meeting was held at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Santiago, Chile, which caused the publication of local press headlines such as: "Art and politics can not break away". To these exhibitions were added "Arte brigadista" and "Homage to the triumph of the people", which counted with the participation of the society of plastic artists from Argentina and Uruguay. In that same period, Argentina experienced a similar situation between aesthetic vanguard and political action, with proposals from artists such as Alberto Greco, Margarita Paksa, Oscar Boni, Victor Grippo, León Ferrari and Tucumán Arde, together with the creation of organizations such as Instituto Di Tella (ITD) and the Visual Arts Center, which together constituted a foundational and constitutional scope that enabled important changes in the production and reception of artistic practices.

[4] On December 29, 1970, the Institute of Latin American Art was created, dependent on the Faculty of Arts of the University of Chile, and the Extension Institute of Plastic Arts and the Latin American Art Center were annexed.

As Andrea Giunta recalls [5] "Their conditions of possibility interconnected the international and local scenes, making each circumstance act as a trigger for situations and experiences that exceeded the scope in which they were generated". Philosophy, politics, culture and economics mark interacting rhythms that allow us to characterize this decade as a period of extraordinary density ... Like shining crystallizations of coexistent stories, at the same time perceptual and conceptual packages, artistic images are places among which they intertwine social and individual expectations, and that constitute a way of access to different moments of a past whose brands and footprints are permanently reconfigured from the expectations of the present. Brands that are offered, at the same time, as sites from which we can access the "structures of feeling" [6] of a period that, in its radiations, also structures our current experiences. "

[5] Andrea Guinta (2001), Vanguard, Internationalism and Politics: Argentine Art in the Sixties. Madrid: Paidós.

[6] Carlos Altamirano and Beatriz Sarlo (1990), Concepts of literary sociology. Buenos Aires: CEAL.

Brazil went through something similar, with some years of "advantage" and a somewhat different idiosyncrasy. As Ivo Mesquita maintains, the experience of the concrete neo art of the 60 marks a turning point in the focus of the production of art in Brazil: "the artists began to worry about involving the viewer in the world, raised by the artistic work and at the same time to promote a conceptual elaboration of that experience ".

This change of objectives involves a shift towards a political commitment. Without pretending to approach an analysis of the situation of each country in Latin America, it is necessary to situate ourselves in a regional time that has political, social and artistic implications, and overlap in its causes and consequences. In Montevideo, and with Clemente Padín as one of the leaders of several of these changes developed in the field of art, some groups were formed and many of the activities were developed in various areas of artistic action that found protagonists such as Haroldo González, Luis Camnitzer, Hilda Lopez, Ernesto Vila, Mario Sagradini, Eduardo Acosta Bentos, Ana Tiscornia, Fernando Álvarez Cozzi a little later with José Claudio and Julia Gadea, Nelbia Romero, Alcides Martínez Portillo, Carlos Barea and many others who, with more or less visibility, formed an axis of controversy and intellectual resistance. This type of groups or movements was generated in all fields of the artistic and cultural field; without mentioning other activities developed in parallel, of great importance and significance, we only remember the persistent task of theater groups, musicians, radio stations and some publications, small publishers, the Uruguayan Cinematheque and others that from their respective fields and with greater or lesser consciousness exercised some form of resistance.

This type of groups or movements was generated in all fields of the artistic and cultural field; without mentioning other activities developed in parallel, of great importance and significance, we only remember the persistent task of theater groups, musicians, radio stations and some publications, small publishers, the Uruguayan Cinematheque and others that from their respective fields and with greater or lesser consciousness exercised some form of resistance.

In the visual arts, several artists grouped themselves within the mythical Club de Grabado, which was formed as a space for reflection and teaching, and which mysteriously remained open throughout the dictatorial period in Uruguay. Recall that the National School of Fine Arts self-closed prior to installing the dictatorship, generating a very important gap that has been impossible to recover to date.

In that environment, so decimated for the development of strategies and critical and operational reflections, private workshops such as Hugo Longa, Nelson Ramos, Guillermo Fernandez, Dumas Oroño, to remember only a few names, acquired a preponderant role. These artists decided to teach and built fundamental areas for the elaboration and reflection necessary for artistic production. It is necessary to take into account some concepts that necessarily imply the redefinition of artistic practices from non-traditional media and that use textuality or printed circulation as a work proposal. Reflect on the various publications that in themselves constituted a tool for the exercise of these practices and an extension of the political.

Circumstances enabled a space for groups to form where artists joined together, as León Ferrari [7] says, because of their ideological coincidences, which were above aesthetic divergences. They joined, in addition, to believe that art and its actions constituted itself a purpose and, whatever the formalization adopted, the "result" of that practice was measured by the effectiveness of the work.

"The process that an artist fulfills touches the same conceptual and methodological attitude of the prisoner and the exile. The artist bound to inherited conventions must break them; reformulating the language to exceed it later with the work, will go beyond theory, concepts and method. Literature always comes out of words that exceed ideas. If we fail to pass the assigned limits, the result of our symbolic production will be a short center that does not reach the area because in that millimeter that exceeds the system is the secret. "[8]

In this area of ideological confrontation first and repression and violence afterwards, is that many of the artistic practices were developed, among which the one we are analyzing in this opportunity is inscribed. [9] It is possible that, from the current perspective, some of these actions are naive, but at the same time we can think that their objective and field of exercise was concentrated in an audience outside the art system, and these practices in themselves meant a space for the analysis of the processes of reception of the artistic proposals. Another of the objectives was to remain alien to the institutionalized spaces, which were assimilated to the marketing system and that protected only objects or images unreflectively integrated in the symbolic system of power, property or belonging, but which, in no case, questioned that system [10].

Any of these practices share the will to remain eccentric and move away from legitimized and legitimating spaces in the field of art. The areas that complete this type of work are, in all cases, always spaces of transit, circumstantial and possible, and are formed as an unavoidable strategy to complete the meaning of practices that summon the unsuspecting spectator. These actions have a place at a certain moment and in their precarious condition of punctual, temporary and unique action.

The production of Padín is - in all cases - a response, a strategy of action against a specific problem. Sometimes this action is the product of personal reflections, and sometimes it responds to a slogan promoted by other artists from this or other countries that share the same objective. Padín does not work for museums or galleries: he proposes to go out and mix resources with the public and turn that "spectator" into a "creative-builder" [11], according to his friend and colleague, Edgardo Antonio Vigo. For many of the artists who were part of these movements or who later became theoretically associated with them, art was a tool for the revolutionary struggle and its objective was to modify the economic and social structures, becoming from its practice a tool for reflection and a mechanism of action with that specificity [12].

[7] León Ferrari, "Culture", work read on December 27, 1968 at the First Encounter of Buenos Aires: Culture 1968, organized by Margarita Paksa at the Argentine Society of Plastic Artists (SAAP). Compilation of texts by León Ferrari. Political Prose. Ed. Siglo XXI, Argentina, 2005. [8] "Art, Prison and Exile" published by the weekly Brecha in the special supplement "A 30 años del Golpe de estado; VII / FRONTERAS ", with the general coordination of Ana Inés Larre Borges, July 17, 2003.

[9] See Mari Carmen Ramírez "Tactics for thriving on adversity: Conceptualism in Latin America, 1960-1980" in Mari Carmen Ramírez et al. (2004), Inverted Utopias: Avant-Garde Art in Latin America. New Haven: Yale University Press.

[10] It is interesting to analyze that these same questions are verified, for example, in the productions of some of the artists belonging to countries considered as the actors of cultural hegemony. See, for example, the work of Marta Roesler, which puts into crisis scenes of the American consumer society with images of the press that show the horrors of the Vietnam War, to name one of the most widespread examples.

[11] Text homage to Edgardo Antonio Vigo: Libertarian Aspiration, Clemente Padín. In number 11 of the magazine "Los Huevos del Plata", 1968, Padín published "New poetic avant-garde in Argentina" and experimental poems by Jorge de Luxan, Carlos Ginzburg, Luis Pazos and Vigo himself, in what became known as the Second break in the lyrical tradition of Argentina (the first was in the 30s, under the sign of Ultraism).

[12] Clemente Padín wrote a tribute text to Ulises Carrión, where he recalls some of his most significant texts. In reference to the quality of art as a guerrilla tool, I select this paragraph: "... Every convocation we receive to participate in a Postal Art project is part of a guerrilla war against the great monster. All work of Postal Art is a weapon against the monster owner of the castle that separates us from each other, which separates us all. Who is the monster I'm talking about? The General Director of the Post Office? The officials of the postal agencies? The Minister of Communications? Is it the technology they use and control? Or will it be the colorful bits of gummed paper that we have to buy every time we send something? To tell the truth, I do not know what or who I'm talking about. All I know is that there is a monster. And that, when sending any Postal Art work, we are knocking on your door. "

Publications

Along with a group of friends, Padín decides to counter what for them was, at that time, a "publishing monopoly", led by what we know as the "generation of 45"

[13], beyond which many of the representatives from that group they were responsible for very important, critical and thoughtful editions and publications such as Cuadernos de Marcha or Número. Thus, this group resolves to edit the magazine Los huevos del Plata, which reached the realization of 16 issues over three years and where not only the poetic production with all its variants and meanings was disseminated, but also theoretical aspects related to those productions such as 'structuralism' or some writings by Popper

[14], theoretical considerations that had no place in other publishing fields. There they found the so-called creators of the 30 ', of the Centennial generation, as Alfredo Mario Ferreiro. The eggs of the silver, Nro. 0, left in December of 1965 and reached edition no. 17. In September 1969 Padín published The Open Horizons there and in 1966, La Calle. This publication, from its programmatic bases, was proposed as a tool to answer the expressions of the bourgeoisie [15].

[13]Denominada por Ángel Rama como la “generación critica” en su libro homónimo  editado en 1971, y aun manteniéndose, al hacer referencia la misma,  la denominación “del 45”, se la sitúa a lo largo de tres décadas (1939 – 1969). Con ella, se instauro una nueva perspectiva en la que, junto al predominio de una conciencia de pertenencia generacional,  se promovió una actitud rigurosa, exigente y objetiva, la cual, -dado el contexto sociocultural que favoreció su emergencia- logro un importante grado de identificación y adhesión, rescatando la tradición literaria y habilitando una sistematización de la literatura, hasta ese momento inexistente en Uruguay. (Fuente: Diccionario de la literatura uruguaya, Tomo III, Arca, Montevideo).

[14] Entrevista de Clemente Padin con la Revista Cafealaturca en 1998, disponible en línea en: http://www.cafealaturca.8m.com/EntrevPADIN.htm

[15] Ibídem.

POSTAL ART

Another way of thinking about globalization through "communicative functionality" [16] Clemente Padín starts working on mail art in 1967 and continues, with variations, until today. At the time, he was one of the pioneers and quickly joined the network of international artcorreists. With a clear vocation to denounce the functioning of communication, permeating state postal systems and subverting unwritten laws, as a tool for exchange between colleagues and friends in Latin America and the rest of the world. At that time, the artists Edgardo Antonio Vigo, Guillermo Deisler and Dámaso Ogaz were responsible for the publications: Diagonal Cero, Mimbre and La Pata de Palo respectively, while Padín edited Los Huevos de Plata and OVUM 10.

Between 1970 and 2006, Padín has participated in more than 1,800 documented exhibitions of mail art around the world and, according to the artist himself, this network originated in parallel in the hegemonic centers and in the peripheral areas. In Latin America, the first manifestations of this genre date from 1969 and were in charge of Liliana Porter and Luis Camnitzer in Argentina, with the exhibition, in the Di Tella Institute, of postcards intervened in the Correspondence Art and Clemente Padín lines, in Montevideo (edition of creative postcards, by the magazine OVUM 10, number 10, May, 1972, Montevideo, Uruguay). In Brazil, the activity of Pedro Lyra was important, and in 1970 he published a Postal Art manifesto. In October 1974, the "Festival de la Postal Creativa" [17] was held at Galería U de Montevideo, directed by Enrique Gómez.

This certain marginality in which the art-correctors developed lasted very little and those works, in a different way, began to be analyzed and rewarded by the art system. The unexpected "attention" that they found in some sectors of the artistic field did not necessarily have a purpose of absorption or dilution, but was a way and a way to recognize their importance in the continuity of collective and international initiatives. Although these practices were alien to the "official art system", it was inevitable that, almost fifteen years after its creation, and counting on the adhesion and participation of artists who proposed other types of formalizations within the traditional system, an "Space" within that system. Thus, in 1981 the International Biennial of San Pablo, in its edition number XVI, decided to include mail art in one of its sections; this marks a turning point in the analysis and revision of the movement.

From there, groups such as "Solidarte" in Mexico or "Colectivo 3" emerged, which fostered reflections on critical aspects of the Latin American reality. In Uruguay, already in the year 83, it takes place in AEBU - headquarters of the Bank Employees Union of Uruguay - and with the support of the United Nations, the exhibition "1º. de Mayo "organized by the incipient" Uruguayan Association of Artists Correo ". In 1984, in the first edition of the Havana Biennial, it was decided to grant a special mention to the exhibition organized by the group "Solidarity" that had the massive participation of artists from around the world to perform the installation and action that they titled: "Disappeared Politicians of our America." In 1986, a group of artists in which Padin proposed the Decentralized Congress of Mail Art, organized by the artists Gunther Ruch and Friecker in Switzerland, the creation of the World Federation of Mail Artists [1]. Likewise, there were many magazines and publications applied to the dissemination of mail art, among others Diagonal Cero, Hexagon 70, Our International Book of Stamps and Postmarks, Hoje-Hoja-Hoy, Vortex Project, Acid in Argentina; Art Mailbox, c (art) a, Cisoria Arte, La Pata de Palo and Arte (f) events in Venezuela; Multipostais, Projeto, Totem, Virgula, A Margen, Contracorriente, Corpo Extranho, Karimbada, Wellcomet Boletim, Or Fetus, Cataguases, ComunicARTE, Think Here in Brazil; Collective 3, Posttextual, Post Arte and Março in Mexico; Ediciones Mimbre y Cero in Chile and Ovum 10, Integration, Participation, O Dos and Correo del Sur in Uruguay. To this we must add the activity of websites, virtual spaces applied to mail art that began to appear in the 90s, accompanying technological development, spreading mail art calls and, above all, instances of Net Art in its area Interactive.

[16] Arte Correo: Utopia or transgression, by Clemente Padín. As Géza Perneczky points out in his book "A Hálo" (Ed. Konyvklado, Budapest, Hungary): "The purpose of the network was not to establish a system of contacts through the postal service (as a superficial view might suggest) but to create a homogeneous communication chain in which all the components are equal and exempt from the rules of the market and also from the traditional "artist / public" dichotomy. With this in mind, Ray Johnson of New York (who was the "creator" of mail art) can be considered the precursor of the network with reservations only. His activity could be taken as an example of conceptual art put into practice and, also, as an example of the inventiveness of the individual artist. "

[17] Fragment of the prologue of the "Festival of the Creative Postcard", held in the U Gallery, in October of 1974 in Montevideo: "Art often takes its revenge from the cultural entropism generated by official art and those artistic forms that have been overcome. the order of the systems by virtue of reaffirming things already known or "already given in art", altering the function of the mass media, either by using the properties of the channel for the transmission of their own messages: this is the case the postcards (and of all postal work, we would say today) that of commercial object has become today, in principal means of artistic diffusion thanks to the rapidity and amplitude of its communication at any point, to the ease of its production, storage and consumption and, above all, to the unprecedented expressive possibilities either by using it as a simple support of verbal or iconic communications, etc., either as an artistic object in itself, creating his own language. "

[18] See MA-Congress 1986, edited by G. Ruch, p. 50. cited in the interview of Ruud Janssen to Clemente Padín that begins by normal postal mail, in the year 1994 and classified in 1996, both incorporated into computer use and electronic mail.

In 1998, Spanish judge Rafael Garzón requested the extradition of former Chilean dictator and life senator Augusto Pinochet, while he was in the city of London. On the occasion of this news, and almost spontaneously, the Spanish collective BOEK861 decided to summon ten artcorreists to start a new work of solidarity and denunciation. That group was made up of Clemente Padín from Uruguay, Fernando García Delgado and Vortice from Argentina, Hans Braumueller from Germany, Tartarugo, Carla Sala, Montse Fornos and César Regledo from Spain, Elías Aasme from Puerto Rico and Humberto Nilo from Chile. Thereafter, the AUMA / URGENT ACTION MAIL ART was created. The slogan was: "Act urgently in those cases in which the collective decides that the humanitarian, social, ecological or defense of Human Rights requires our solidarity [19]". The way of action consisted in the realization of own or foreign projects that had a direct relationship with the marked objective. The detonator varied from country to country and according to the emergency situation that was established. The second urgent action referred to the conflict in Yugoslavia and Kosovo; the slogan was: "Stop Bombing Yugoslavia, Peace in Kosovo."

On other occasions, actions would be called for environmental issues such as "postcards for Vieques", a Puerto Rican island that since 1940 is a zone of military practices in the middle of an inhabited area, besides being a space for experimentation and military organizations with multiple consequences. AUMA continues working to date and incorporates various slogans referring to specific problems or concerns of a "global" nature.

Artistamps / apocryphal postage stamps It is interesting to note that an "official" structure, such as the various national postal addresses, is used to put the mail art circulation machinery into operation. This "entrism" which means the use of stable circulation systems, is a tool that has been used, with multiple forms throughout the world.

Many artists [20] subvert the space with interventions, actions or appropriations that made effective from the established systems, and thus promote a reflection based on the staging of elements that acquire a double reading level or a double quality. There are multiple examples of these appropriations; some of the most interesting, such as the "insertions in ideological circuits / Coca Cola Project" by the Brazilian artist Cildo Meireles, in the 70s or even earlier in time, the actions of Alberto Greco that, with a greater degree of abstraction , they appropriate intangible elements such as the definitions of the art field and invent an "invisible" and very witty system. This strategy is still very valid, and finds cultists in the whole world, who are tightening the limits based on the rules of the system itself. To cite only some recent examples, the work of the French artist, the Uruguayan Javier Abreu, or the Logo group.

[20] Although there are many examples, I would like to recall in particular the series that was developed by the Brazilian artist Cildo Meireles at the beginning of the 70s and titled Interventions in Ideological Circuits, which was followed by Interventions in Anthropological Circuits.

The body politic / Actions

Actions or performances carry in their genealogy a diversity and complexity that we will not discuss here. We will only place some reference areas to review the extensive work in this field that Clemente Padín has developed to date. These practices go back to the 50s, and some of the terms used for their definition are extremely suitable to quickly approach certain concepts present in the work of Padín. For example, some artists and theoreticians of that time preferred to call their actions "live and destructing art", something like "live art and its destruction". These parameters can serve to guide us in a trend that has more complex objectives where, in all cases, the psychological, political, phenomenological body and its being is the only possible tool. The classifications, necessary to the theory, are alien, or at least up to a point, to the production of the artists. In this timeless framework, the so-called "situationism" is closer to the goals of Padin than the so-called "body art", although both can be circumscribed in historical terms in the great chapter of performances or actions. Situationists carried out interventions in urban spaces, as a way to discuss some social issues and their consequences. The use of the body as an active tool, exercises the idea of experience and consequence, and leaves in evidence the idea that any human activity carries a meaning. The subject as object is, in this practice, the clearest concept in which we can focus this chapter of Padin's work. Beyond a certain naive character impossible to avoid from a present perspective, the effectiveness of these actions can not be evaluated in artistic-cultural terms, if any action is measurable in any sense. The truth is that these practices promote, in the measure of their visibility, consequences of a different order.

Padín locates as antecedent of the performances that he realized, Poesía inobjetual (towards an art of action). In these practices, he proposed the realization of actions that compromised the spectator in the realization of the performance. By this means, it guaranteed a direct relationship with the "consumer", without the mediation of media or para-artistic interference, such as the space of the gallery or the museum. These first experiences that Padín locates in 1970 [21], originate from the experimentation with the forms of poetic expression and behave, in almost all cases, political and social elements that try not to prevail over the aesthetic or artistic. In this sense, Padín makes some statements where he establishes differences between political art and the "pamphlet". "... if in the work of art the non-artistic elements prevailed, we would be facing the" pamphlet ", that hybrid that disguises itself as art. At the level of discussions about art, there is still confusion or false dichotomy between art and communication. The artistic product is, above all, a product of communication and therefore an indissoluble part of social production. Like the rest of the products that man creates, he becomes an auxiliary to that same production (by favoring or hindering his processes). In some contexts its artistic nature will prevail (museums, galleries, chairs, etc.); in others, its nature as a communication tool. But, both facets are inseparable ... "[22]

At the beginning of the 70s Padín was already in contact with interesting artists from the region, such as Edgardo Antonio Vigo, who also worked in the organization of multiple performance events and visual poetry. In this context, the so-called "International Exhibition of Proposals to be made" was organized at the CAYC Center for Art and Communication in Buenos Aires, Argentina, curated by Vigo himself and in which Padín participated with the project: "Support your hand" . This exhibition received proposals from almost all over the world, and artists such as Wlademir Dias-Pino (creator of the Brazilian Process Poem), Guillermo Deisler (Chilean visual poet) and - in addition to Padín - the Uruguayan musician and poet Francisco Accame met.

[21] Clemente Padin's interview with the Cafealaturca Magazine in 1998, available online at: http://www.cafealaturca.8m.com/EntrevPADIN.htm

[22] Clemente Padín (2004), Arte Correo: The Utopia of Eternal Communication. Santiago de Chile: Virtual Magazine (Year 6).

Padín focuses his work on two major concepts: human rights and justice. With these objectives as a transversal axis, it proposes, over the last 35 years, works and reflections based on a sustained concern for peace, the environment, the right of minorities and of the discriminated against of any kind.

I adhere, to think his work, to the idea of the artist as "creator of politics of representation in art" [23] that is, in the case of Padín is verified, create discursive strategies that constitute themselves a political problem. In such circumstances, art finds a favorable ground for the crossing of different languages, for the use of the real space and time of the spectator, seeking a narrative support of an allegorical nature. The first performance made by Padín in Montevideo was in 1970, in the Hall of the University of the Republic, under the title: "Poetry Must Be Made by Everyone". This very early date, in relation to international production of this type, signaba a democratizing objective in which was implicit the conviction on the need of art understood not as an adjective element of elites and for the elites, but as an inherent component to the task and the thinking of an entire society. This concept is reaffirmed a few years later with the proposal: "The Artist is at the Service of the Community" (1975), which he presented at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and which was selected some years later for the XVI Biennial of San Pablo, Brazil, 1981. Recall that Padin was imprisoned for two and a half years, and after his release, he remained in what was called "conditioned freedom" for seven more years. That is why the project for the 81 Biennial was made by his colleague Francisco Inarra. During that period Padín could not leave the country, nor receive nor send correspondence.

[23] Gabriel Peluffo Linari, "Post-dictatorship Uruguay: poetics and politics in contemporary art" in Gerardo Caetano (ed) (2006), "Twenty years of Democracy". Montevideo: Taurus.

Like Padín, many artists, both in Uruguay and in the region, suffered the consequences of the dictatorial regime that had the artistic and intellectual groups as frontal adversaries and that, beyond political parties, meant an enormous force of resistance that was felt throughout the dictatorship with demonstrations and actions beyond borders. Many artists from all areas suffered censorship, ideological persecution, imprisonment and torture. In "Art, Prison and Exile" Ernesto Vila writes: "The dictatorship hits hard in the personal and collective geography, and imposes its prisoners, who were many more of those who were detained, a circuit where the person frightened herself and it is coded not to do, to think, to suggest, to insinuate, what it can not and should not. If he makes a mistake, his family, his friends and even his cat and his dog will be punished. "[24] From 1984, the first year of transition to effective democracy in Uruguay, Padín is free to move, initiating a tireless participation in the activities that take place abroad. Participates in seminars, performance festivals, readings and actions of multiple order. Among others, he participated in the fast organized by a group of Argentinean artists within the framework of the First Contemporary Art Seminar of the city of Rosario. The slogan that united them was "For the Freedoms in Latin America" and was established as an unprecedented social artistic event.

At the end of the dictatorship, Padín receives a scholarship from the Academy of Arts and Letters of Germany, for which he spent three months in the city of Berlin. It was then that he reinserted himself in the international art scene without ever leaving behind the dozens of actions and protests that had to do with Latin America, and especially with Uruguay. During his stay in Germany, participates in the tribute to John Heartfield, and performs an urban intervention, along with Volker Hamman. That is also an opportunity to perform his performance For Art and for Peace. Padín promoted and participated in the organization of the Latin American mail art exhibition at the DAAD Gallery in Berlin. A succession of activities that helped to spread and promote the Latin American problematic from its production and, at the same time, starting from that direct sensitization, meant a sum of efforts to achieve to revert dramatic situations that still lived countries of the continent. In Uruguay, Padín actively participated with the Foundation of the Artists Guild in the pro-referendum campaign to repeal the Expiry Law [25] in a demonstration called "For Life and for Peace" and repeated between 1987 and 1988 .

[24] "Art, Prison and Exile", published by the weekly Brecha in the special supplement "A 30 years of the coup d'état, VII / FRONTERAS", with the general coordination of Ana Inés Larre Borges, July 17, 2003.

[25] Law 15,848 of Expiration of the State's Punitive Claim (popularly known as the "Expiry Law"), issued on December 22, 1986. In 1985, already in full democracy, Padín starts a project that continues with multiple formalizations until today: "Paz-Pan", performance in which the artist uses this simple game of words to connote the significance that both concepts have in any society . Terms in relation that summarize the position of Clemente Padín against the problems of poverty, social inequalities and the violence they generate. His performance work has been added, with various slogans, to protests and demonstrations of a political nature, such as Espantaolvidos Latinoamericano, installation and performance that took place in 1989 in "Ciudad del Arte", organized by Grupo Escombros in La Plata, Argentina, or Move to Panama in 1990, an artistic-social event that denounced the thousands of civilian deaths caused by the invasion of that country. On that occasion Padín, "planted" a thousand Panamanian flags in the Plaza Libertad in Montevideo.

In the same year, he made another performance of profound political significance, which he called Repatriar, and which he subsequently prepared as an installation for the 38th Municipal Exhibition of Plastic Expression and which was, in addition, the Acquisition Prize of the Senate of the Republic. There are other performances that he reiterated several times as No Muertos ..., from 1996, based on a poem by Puerto Rican Francisco Gonzalo Marín and that Padín originally presented at the Blanes Museum in Montevideo, and then in the J. Egenau Room, Dept. Plastic Arts of the University of Santiago, Chile, in the AEBU Gallery, and the Ricardo Rojas Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina. A few years later he did Where are they ?, action that he prepared for the 2nd. Performances Cycle of the City of Montevideo. More recently, Punto Final, from the year 2003, was held within the framework of the exhibition "... Silent Words", held at the School of Arts of Montevideo, which was then presented at the National Museum of Fine Arts of Buenos Aires, in La Casona Municipal de Córdoba and, last year, in the space of the Foyer of the Solís Theater, within the framework of the "For Memory" Project curated by Annabella Balduvino and Elbio Ferrario.

Padin calls these activities "artistic-social events" but the meaning is given to art based on its "phatic" function, that is, to function that favors the transmission of content. According to Padín [26], in mail art, where communication is fundamental, each postal item is a: "Hello, here I am ... there is no exchange of information." This concept is studied by Jakobson, who in his well- known formulation of language functions, speaks to us of the function that favors the exchange of the others since when you want to tell something, or when you want to send something you are favoring the later communication, Friendship, love, etc. It is like a flock of ducks that are saying "cua - cua" what is that "cua -cua" but a fatuous warning of the position that each duck occupies in the flock? "

[26] Clemente Padín (2004), Arte Correo: The Utopia of Eternal Communication. Santiago de Chile: Virtual Magazine (Year 6).

The poetics of the political / Ambiguity and Self-reflection

For Padín, ambiguity and self-reflection are the terms and the marks of poetry.

[27] One of the characteristics of this area of work is Padín's affinity with "Lettrism".

Padín uses the letters of the Roman alphabet as signs and graphic rhythms.

In the period prior to the constitutional rupture and the establishment of the dictatorial regime, many artists fulfilled a role of denunciation before the multiple social problems of the moment. In the same way, their work served to disseminate regionally and internationally what was happening and tried to communicate. In those years prior to the dictatorship, and even more so when the repressive regime took place, the spaces for the realization of cultural activities were closed or diminished in their possibilities. That is why, then, the cultural spaces enabled by international representations, such as the Alliances, French, Uruguay-United States, the Italian Institute of Culture, the Göethe or some private spaces of great significance such as the U Gallery directed by Enrique Gómez, or training spaces such as the Engraving Club and the Books and Engravings Fair directed by Nancy Bacelo, among others, were the areas where the most committed and critical practices were developed.

Thus, in 1969 the "1st. Audition of Phonic Poetry ", at the Milligton Drake Theater, and then continued on the 10th. Edition of the Book and Print Fair and the International Exhibition of New Poetry in the U Gallery, where the so-called "Exhaustive Exhibition of the New Poetry" was also inaugurated in 1972. Padín had started with the so-called "verbal poems" while studying letters [28]. The University also met, until a certain moment, with the maintenance of a necessary porosity for the inclusion of proposals such as the Exhibition of Vanguard Editions, organized by the magazine "Ovum 10", which was developed in 1970 [29] at the University of the Republic and where the friend of Padín, Edgardo Antonio Vigo, participated in one of his first visits to Uruguay. On that occasion the Argentine artist proposed a parody to the election act that he called "Demagogic Poem" [30].

Padín started his first Visual Poetry archive in 1967 and, from there, the circulation and conservation of the material went through various difficulties. When I was about to present the collection in Chile, the Pinochet coup took place. Under the circumstances, that first file was lost. The following year and with the collaboration of the Image Bank Postal Card of Vancouver, Canada, and the Omhaha Flow Systems, directed by Ken Friedman, Padín reconstructed his archives, but was later imprisoned by the Uruguayan dictatorship, in 1977, and thus lost twenty boxes with invaluable material that included letters, postcards, and works of artists from around the world such as Joseph Beuys, Ulrichs, Higgins, Friedman, Blaine, Ulises Carrión, Vigo, Deisler, Davi Hompson, Varney and many others. In spite of this, Padín has been recovering part of this material, and has a valuable cataloged archive that aspires to become a "Latin American public networking space", which allows preserving the memory of these rich and dynamic years [31] .

Padín was always working in an intermediate zone between literature and visual arts, using graphic elements as signs, pictures made with pieces of letters, words, verbal text or poetic text. For some critics it was not possible to speak of poetry if the text lacked significance, while others argued that it is enough for the text to include linguistic elements, be they letters or fragments of words in poetic function, so that it can be cataloged as poetry. Wlademir Dias-Pino spoke of "Semiotic Poem" and later of Poem / Process. All this had its origin in the idea of looking for new, different systems that question the codes and the established rules and from that destabilization and break, enable the recomposition of a new model. This concern was shared by dozens of artists and writers from around the world, who assumed that responsibility for change together with the responsibility of enabling the ideal spaces to disseminate those changes, and thus promote a new production based on new concepts.

[27] Clemente Padín (2004), prologue to "Poetry is poetry". Montevideo: Imaginary Editions. [28] Clemente Padín's interview with the Virtual Magazine in 2004, available online at: http://www.escaner.cl/escaner67/acorreo.html

[29] Exhibition of Vanguardia Editions, took place on September 30, 1970 in the hall of the University of the Republic.

[30] Text homage to Edgardo Antonio Vigo: Libertarian Aspiration, Clemente Padín.

[31] Clemente Padin interview with TAM Project in 1994, available online at: http://www.merzmail.net/tampadin.htm The Mexican artist, Ulises Carrión, publishes a sui generis magazine, called EPHEMERA, which was dedicated to the dissemination of calls for exhibitions and theoretical aspects of art "other", that is, that production that for various reasons was kept out of the lanes of the art market. In 1976, Carrión, aware of the imprisonment of Padín and Carballo in Uruguay, decided to dedicate the cover of the magazine to spread this news to the artistic and cultural community and to promote at the same time a chain of solidarity to demand the freedom of these artists.

This system of production, communication and circulation enabled the operation of a network of artists from around the world, and was made possible thanks to the organization and methodology promoted and continued by artists such as Joseph Beuys, Luther Bliset or León Ferrari, Vigo and Yoko Ono, Ulises Carrión and the other thousands that made up this network in which some, like Padín, continue to this day and renew it with constant participation and calls. In this way, it was impossible to deploy any type of absorption or neutralization device that would like to challenge the objective set by these artists. All control instruments were canceled in the presence of the network, which functioned as a "universal" operation. Their actions also involved the theme to work, discuss, discuss, and the necessary strategy to effect their dissemination and effectiveness. This operation made the idea of decentralization effective and generated and reinforced an idea of 'globalization'.

A few years ago, Antoni Muntadas circulated, through various media ranging from the installation to the sticker, the phrase: "ATTENTION: PERCEPTION REQUIRES PARTICIPATION". This slogan was presented in several countries and in its various languages and calls to be located on the site of the action and not in the space of expectation. The action that can be understood also as thought and as a tool of communication. Padín defines himself as a member of a specific community and culture; taking into account this "identity", he assumes that participation quota to reflect, with his work, on the contents of the society in which he lives. Historically, the diversity of its proposals acquire the claiming character of analysis and reflection as the only tools to promote critical thinking that allows the construction of a better and more just society. "In the performances, which I made since 1970, I hope to express my being, my worries and my hopes. As a member of a community and a specific culture, I can not help expressing, even if the opposite is true, the contents of that seamless unit. In my works I intend to glorify our being and our world by highlighting the best of our existence but, for that, I must highlight everything that makes that aspiration impossible. That is, to express not only the good and wonderful of life but also to denounce everything that goes against it: injustice, arbitrariness, outrage, infamy and all those iniquities that hatred and death assume. For this reason, my work, not only the performances, assume a character of vindication, of reclamation, of politics in the good sense, trying to influence, as much as possible, in the restitution of justice and dignity. "[32].

The Argentine artist Robert Jacoby [33], in 1967, questioned whether perhaps art is nothing more than a way of thinking and in this sense should also be understood as a way to promote thought in others and facilitate reflection to generate sense. With this slogan and this objective has been developed the vast work and the various proposals in the field of the arts of Clemente Padín and, to the extent that they have been and are promoted, find resonances in other areas and cultures that enable a shared space with the objective of questioning and permanently renewing the representation policies. Then, we can say that, with greater or lesser consequence, it is indisputable that Padín does not understand another way of living that is not making art, and that he does not understand art but as an instrument of criticism. And that does not understand the criticism but as a practical exercise.

[32] Interview by Clemente Padín with Heterogenesis in 2004, available online at: http://performancelogia.blogspot.pt/2006/11/arte-de-la-accion-clemente-padn.html

[33] Mari Carmen Ramírez, "Tactics for Thriving on Adversity: Conceptualism in Latin America, 1960-1980", by Luis Camnitzer et al (ed.), Global Conceptualism: Points of Origin, 1950s-1980s. New York: Queens Museum of Art.