There are no firm estimates of how many people were "disappeared" during this period. In Argentina, an official report by the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons puts the figure at 9,000. But human rights organizations believe that more than 30,000 people were killed in that country. A number were political exiles from Uruguay and Chile. The euphemism disappeared might sound like an evasion of sorts—these people didn't just vanish; mostly, they were murdered—but it also is an implicit accusation, conveying agency. These individuals were made to disappear, as Weschler puts it. Most were kidnapped in blacked-out Ford Falcons and subjected to torture before being flown in military planes over the Rio de la Plata or Atlantic Ocean and dumped out—sometimes while still alive. Though it's now clear that the disappeared are dead, it is difficult to assign blame or entirely give up hope when there are no bodies. No wonder a number of artists in the show deal in the crude facts of biology. This Chilean flag, created by Arturo Duclos, is made out of 75 human femurs.


Arturo Duclos, Sin título (Untitled), 1995. Image courtesy Collection of Roberto Edwards, Santiago de Chile, and El Museo del Barrio, New York.


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