Tucumán Arde [Tucumán Is Burning] is the most famous collective production of emerging vanguard art in Argentina, both in Buenos Aires and Rosario, and it took place at the turning point of the artists’ political and artistic radicalization in 1968. Its design implied a complex process of research and counter-information as well as a mass-media campaign. Given the fact that they were an integral part of the investigation, many artists (mostly from Rosario) traveled to Tucumán for a second time in October 1968. It was in that province that, with the support of trade-union members, journalists, and other collaborators, the artists developed an underground registry of work pertaining to the social situation of sugar mills (closed by then), schools, hospitals, and so forth, seeking information that would evidence the official campaign’s deception respecting the so-called Operativo Tucumán. A variety of media was used, including recordings, photographs, and films.
One of the core points of their complaint was the police’s bloody repression of the workers. The figure of Hilda Guerrero de Molinas became emblematic in this sense: the wife of a worker who had been fired from the Santa Lucía Refinery was killed a few months before the arrival of the artists, during a union meeting. This interview of the son of the deceased was performed by the vanguard artists who traveled to Tucumán in October 1968. Mimeographed copies of the interview were handed out to the public attending the exhibitions at the Confederación General del Trabajo (CGT) headquarters, both in Rosario and Buenos Aires.
The testimonial value of this document reinforced the denunciation of the province’s reigning repression of workers.