Graciela Sacco

Graciela Sacco (b. 1956–d. 2017) was an Argentine contemporary artist known for her powerful photographic and installation-based practice, which often addressed themes of absence, displacement, social tension, and collective memory. Her work frequently engages public space and uses stark imagery to explore the emotional and political dimensions of everyday life, particularly within Latin American contexts.

Sacco represented Argentina at several Biennials including Venice 2001, Havana 2000, Mercosur 1997 and Sao Paulo 1996, Shanghai 2004, and The End of the World Biennale at Ushuaia, 2009. Sacco was a Professor of 20th Century Latin American Art at the University of Rosario in Argentina.

Cure me from the Emptiness (2010), part of the Point of Contact collection, was featured in the 2010 Point of Contact edition on Alejandra Pizarnik, and in the Alejandra exhibit that same year.

The piece consists of a large-format black-and-white photographic print, emphasizing scale and tonal intensity. Through its restrained palette and monumental size (30 × 43 inches), the work draws attention to subtle textures and visual fragments.

As with much of Sacco’s practice, the photograph operates within a conceptual framework that merges poetic imagery with critical reflection on human experience.

Artist Statement about the work: When I approached the work of Alejandra Pizarnik, I discovered that this phrase, conceptually, one way or another, surrounds most of her writing. It had a strong impact on me. I could not but relate it to my latest work on square meter, precisely those pieces that referred to the infinite square meter. M2 infinito began as a trilogy of installations. The first is one destined the end of the world’s prison. How long is an infinite square meter? It is a play of illuminated mirrors and floor that could advance a possible answer. The lock-up, the other installation, is also a play of mirrors and video projection (shadows of people seen from below as they walk on a bridge, in an airport.) How long is a square meter of exile? The third one is a work in progress. It’s for an open space. How long is a square meter of confinement? When I saw myself with these three projects, I felt I had worked a trilogy about anguish. Then came an invitation from Alejandra Pizarnik and her phrase… Cure me from the emptiness. With this inside me I decided to make this photographic essay about one of the installations and that infinite M2 is the point of departure.

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