Colla Market or Andean Mountain Market

This mural is from a key period in Berni’s production that dates from Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros’s visit to Buenos Aires in 1933. This period witnessed a strengthening of Berni’s vision of an art fully committed to social reality. As such, it partakes of Berni’s “Nuevo Realismo”; it is also clear evidence of his Americanist and Indianist concerns. Though those concerns may not have informed the themes of many of his works, they were central to Berni’s intellectual engagement in lectures, conferences, and symposia through the early 1950s. During those years, Berni used the still photo camera in a cinematographic manner as a tool for composition; by means of close-ups and details, the characters are rendered as if in individual portraits. While traveling in northern Argentina, he not only made sketches and jotted down notes, but also took photographs, as that medium became one of his key recourses. In the mural, Berni exalts native American peoples as archetypes of northern Argentina and northern Chile, as well as Peru and Bolivia, placing emphasis on their culture, way of life, colorful clothing, work and commerce.