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On the Sixth Day

The Art Institute of Boston presents Alessandra Sanguinetti's On the Sixth Day, a powerful series of photographs of animals on a farm in Argentina. Literal and metaphoric, the images explore the relationship - both tender and brutal - between man and beast. Sanguinetti will give a free guest lecture Tuesday, April 20.

Sanguinetti, a photographer working across both traditional and digital color, makes dramatic prints that use the full expressive potential of the digital palette. Her work has affinities with the Latin American traditions of Magic Realism and the realm of the fantastic.

On the Sixth Day’s vivid photographs depicting the coexistence of people and animals might at first sight seem brutal, images to be viewed quickly and erased from the memory. That would be not only impossible but also a great loss, for this is an arrestingly honest portrayal of the relationship between species as the one raises the other for the ultimate sacrifice. These are not animals endowed with human qualities; they are someone’s livelihood, their means of survival. Sanguinetti took these pictures in a province of Buenos Aires. Here, by roadsides, in fields and in woods, she observes the rituals and traditions of the local farmers whose lives interweave with a host of animals - rabbits, horses, pigs, geese, lambs, cows, chickens - caught in the cycle of life and death. The work in On the Sixth Day goes beyond straight documentary practice and evokes an intimacy that, confounding our sensibilities, is a privilege to share.

Born in New York City in 1968 and currently living and working in both New York and Buenos Aires, Sanguinetti’s work has been exhibited extensively abroad, including a solo show at the Museum of Modern Art, Buenos Aires. Her photographs are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the International Center of Photography, New York. She has been awarded numerous grants and prizes, including the Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, Hasselblad Foundation Grant, and Rencontres d’Arles Discovery Award.

Opening Reception
5 pm - 7 pm, Thursday, March 25

Artist Lecture
6:30 pm, Tuesday, April 20. Room 101, Boston University Kenmore Classroom Building, 565 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston

All events are free and open to the public. For more information, call 617.585.6600 or E-mail Andrew Mroczek at amroczek@aiboston.edu.