Diamela Eltit writes about Lotty Rosenfeld’s intervention, which consisted of altering the intermittent lines painted on streets to create traffic lanes. The text is arranged in a non-traditional layout that testifies to its poetic, reflective nature. Eltit begins with a reference to the act of crossing, an everyday event, and to the agreement to respect the traffic codes that regulate urban space. She then refers to three kinds of disobedience that arise in a dictatorial society—barricades, commemorative candles, and attacks on the electricity supply—which she considers analogous to Rosenfeld’s project, explaining that the artist’s work is far-reaching and can be understood to apply beyond its strictly Chilean context. Eltit ends by discussing how Rosenfeld’s work relates to art, laying down a challenge to painting and to art institutions.     

In her text “Desacatos” (1986) the writer Diamela Eltit (b. 1949) discusses the project undertaken by the artist Lotty Rosenfeld (1943–2020), which consisted of pasting strips of white cloth across the intermittent traffic lines on roads to create plus signs or crosses.This text appeared in Desacato [Disobedience] (1986), which reviews—from various theoretical perspectives—the work Rosenfeld produced from 1979 to 1986. The book was edited by Francisco Zegers (1953–2012). Other contributors included the cultural critic Nelly Richard (b. 1948), the poet Raúl Zurita (b. 1950), the writer María Eugenia Brito (b. 1950), the poet  Gonzalo Múñoz (b. 1956), and Eltit. The book also included the artist’s comments on her works, an excerpt from a conversation between Rosenfeld and Severo Sarduy (1937–1993), a chronological timeline of her art actions, and a videography. [For more information about this book see "Introducción" (doc. 744924) by Francisco Zegers.]   

Lotty Rosenfeld and Diamela Eltit were members of the Colectivo Acciones de Arte (C.A.D.A.) but did more together than they did with the art action group. They both worked with Mujeres por la vida (1983), the group that staged ephemeral protest performances in public spaces, producing feminist actions in resistance against the dictatorship. In the art realm, they produced the video Traspaso cordillerano [Crossing the Cordillera] (1981), for which they were awarded the Premio Salón at the seventh Concurso de la Colocadora Nacional de Valores, held at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de Chile. In 1991 they premiered the documentary Chile: Historia del Sufragio femenino (1889-1949) [Chile: History of Women’s Suffrage (1889-1949)] (1991), directed by Rosenfeld from a script written by Eltit. They collaborated again, in the same roles, on ¿Quién viene con Nelson Torres? [Who Is Coming with Nelson Torres?] (2001), which was first screened at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de la Universidad de Chile. Eltit has described their work together as a constant exercise in creativity in which nothing belongs to either of them. [To read the text they jointly wrote about an intervention, see “Un filme subterráneo” (doc. no. 731801).]

In addition to the work they did together, Diamela Eltit wrote texts for some of Rosenfeld’s works and Rosenfeld photographed or videoed some of Eltit’s interventions. In other words, they supported each other’s individual works. For example, Eltit wrote this text, in which she pluralized the title of the book (Desacato) to underscore the myriad ways in which Rosenfeld’s work can be interpreted, none of which can be pigeonholed or limited to Chilean society or to the field of art. [To read another of Eltit’s texts on this subject, see “Congestionamientos” (doc. no. 744653), co-authored with María Eugenia Brito.]