Eugenio Dittborn

Living in Chile during the harsh military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, Dittborn made his artworks look like letters or correspondence to circumvent official scrutiny and potential censorship. Among the earliest of Dittborn's Airmail Paintings, 8 Survivors, like the other works in the series, is meant to travel. This large sheet of butcher paper, printed with images from found photographs and texts from criminology magazines, anthropology textbooks, newspapers, and other sources, can be folded for easy transport from one exhibition venue to the next via international post. The envelope listing title, date, final destination, and postage is always displayed alongside the unfurled "painting" (actually a screenprint), indicating that it has been on the road. Dittborn, indifferent to the creases, tears, and other marks of wear the work accumulates while in transit, has explained, "The traveling is . . . the political element of my paintings."

Dittborn's subterfuge has facilitated the passage of his artwork around the world; it allowed the "eight survivors" pictured in this work to slip through national borders as surrogates for the many less fortunate victims of Pinochet's regime. Discussing this work, Dittborn has described it as a "Noah's Ark — a place of connection, reunion, and transport that gives the possibility of survival."