Lives and Afterlives Of José María Silva's Gardel Portraits

Bibliographic Data

ID2170164
AuthorsMarilyn G Miller (0000-0001-5615-9828), Marilyn Miller (corresponding author)
Year2013
Volume22
Issue4
Pages417-435
Publication date2013-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Latin American Cultural Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1356-9325 • E-ISSN: 1469-9575
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13569325.2013.840275
OpenAlexW2011591504
LanguageCA
References cited9

Uruguayan photographer José María Silva's studio portraits of Carlos Gardel immortalized the early 20th-century tango singer as the first Latin American superstar, and consecrated the cameraman as el fotógrafo de Gardel. His 'stock' photos of Gardel from 1917 to 1933 coincided with the evolution of tango from a dance and music form based on payador and other oral traditions, to a polished and urbane performance genre exploited by the mass media. Armed with the Silva photos, the singer presided over tango's move from working class porteño settings to top billing as a vocal genre on the world's stages and on the silver screen. I argue that the mass circulation and resulting ubiquity of the 1933 Silva shots contributed to the domestication and canonization of Argentine tango for a global public, and, like the famous Korda photos of Ernesto Che Guevara, have been crucial to the promotion and continuation of their subject's popular sainthood since his death. For nearly a century, the Silva portraits have continued to exert a powerful pull for later photographers and visual artists negotiating the visual evocation of tango and its most famous interpreter

Art · Art history · Cartography · Dance · Geography · Humanities · Performance art · Portrait · Studio · Visual arts · Architecture, Art, Education · Argentine historical studies · Sport and Mega-Event Impacts

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