Artist, Luis Camnitzer: My name is Luis Camnitzer. I am an Uruguayan artist living in New York. And the piece is called Memorial. It is an homage to those that disappeared during the dictatorship in Uruguay which was from 1973 'til 1984.
About 300 people literally disappeared – that is, nobody knows where they are, where they are buried, or what happened to them. That's why the slogans always were, "We want them back" – because they are disappeared. If we know they're dead, then we know we cannot claim them back.
Director, Glenn Lowry: Camnitzer added the names of these missing people into the pages of a phone book from the city of Montevideo.
Luis Camnitzer: Each name was built borrowing letters from other names because I could not find the font that would be perfect for this. And each time I inserted a name, I would move down the other names to make the space.
In the phone book, there's really no hidden agenda that would make you disbelieve what's presented. If I would have scribbled in or used medieval calligraphy, I would be editorializing in an obvious way. When I use a content that is political, I try not to deal with my opinions my hand is withdrawn after what I do.
The piece was actually done for the Uruguayan public, which meant that people would go and look for specific names they knew that were disappeared, and would check if they are there or not. So you have to actually read every page to find those names that don't have an address in the phone book – which means that you cannot call them anymore. But somehow they keep calling us … and we cannot really answer.