Narcisa Hirsch

Narcisa Hirsch (née Heuser, 16 February 1928 – 4 May 2024) was an Argentine experimental filmmaker of German birth. Her work centered on themes of the body, love, sex, death, movement and the female gaze. Despite this focus on women, she resisted being labeled as a feminist.

Latterly, her work was honored through several retrospectives at international film festivals, though it was relatively unknown outside of exclusive circles when it first premiered. She won the Platinum Konex Award from Argentina in 2022.

Biography

Childhood Hirsch was born Narcisa Heuser in Berlin, Germany, in 1928, to Heinrich Heuser and a German-Argentinian mother. Her father left her and her mother when Hirsch was five. Heuser was an Expressionist painter, and Hirsch would explore this medium first when she began making art. She grew up in Tyrol, but was sent to a school in Vienna at the age of 8 with no prior education. At 9 she and her mother visited Argentina, which turned into a much longer stay than intended when World War II broke out. They officially emigrated in 1937. Because of the highly experimental nature of their work, traditional gallery spaces shied away from the group, all except the Goethe Institute, who gave them a formal place to screen their work. Though she was well educated, she did not receive any formal training in film.

Performance La Marabunta was performed in 1967 by both she and the other members of the group she was a part of. Consisting of a giant female skeleton covered in fruit and stuffed with live pigeons,

She worked in 16mm and on Super 8 film because their inexpensive prices allowed her to make non-commercial film.

Hirsch has an extended body of work beyond these pieces, including Diarios Patagónicos (1972–73), Taller (1975), Testamento y Vida Interior (1977), Homecoming (1978), Ama-zona (1983), A-Dios (1989), Rumi (1999), Aleph (2005), and El Mito de Narciso (2011). She has been screened all over the world, including in Los Angeles at The Hammer Museum. Her work is also part of the traveling exhibit started at The Hammer called "Radical Women: Latin American Art 1960 - 1985".

Exhibitions Galoria Lirolay (for painting) 2012: Viennale (Vienna International Film Festival)