Antonio Berni’s 1924 Manifestación, one of the main art pieces in the Buenos Aires Museum of Latin American Art’s (MALBA) permanent collection, is being honored by the contemporary art duo Mondongo in a new exhibition that opened on June 14 and will be on display until September 23. An iconic painting of the new realism Berni promoted in the 1930s to denounce inequality, exclusion and poverty, Manifestation was originally conceived as a movable mural that could be displayed at strikes and political rallies. The Mondongo Manifestación exhibit includes a three-dimensional clay-made version of Berni’s painting featuring contemporary artists, activists, and acquaintances of the artists in place of the original faces of low-income workers.

According to the artists, the choices of the people in the piece were a way of stating a genealogical review of how Argentine art represented excluded communities and social protest. The piece was purchased by MALBA’s owner, art collector and real-estate mogul Eduardo Costantini. The exhibit also includes a two-meter tondo piece called Villa II , which depicts scenes from slums in Buenos Aires, Dharavi, and Río de Janeiro.

The show also features a large site-specific installation that recreates a non-urbanized community inside the museum, focusing on the precarious housing settlements ( villas miseria ) that emerged in Argentina in the second half of the 20th century. Born in 1905 in Rosario, Santa Fe, Berni advocated for an artist.