Chronicle of a Disappeared Artwork
In 2009, as part of our project Video Ediciones Inserciones, we edited a video about the Venezuelan film Crónica de un Subversivo Latinoamericano (1975). This work aimed to provide a satirical reinterpretation of the film, which tells the story of the kidnapping of American Air Force officer and CIA agent Michael Smolen by members of the FLN, a Venezuelan Marxist-Leninist guerrilla group.
The kidnapping of Smolen, which occurred in 1964, was orchestrated to generate publicity and thereby prevent the execution of Nguyen Van Troi, a Vietnamese revolutionary who had planted a bomb under a bridge that then U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara was set to cross during a visit to Vietnam. The group involved in the kidnapping was led by Luis Correa, co-writer of the aforementioned film.
After four days of captivity, Smolen was released from the home of Venezuelan artist and FLN militant Ángel Luque, where he had been hiding. Following his release, Van Troi was executed in Saigon, and more than 100 people suspected of belonging to urban guerrilla groups in Venezuela were arrested, including Ángel Luque, who, after being released in 1967, moved to Paris and worked alongside kinetic artist Jesús Soto. In 1999, Luis Correa was appointed Head of Security for Venezuela’s state-owned oil and natural gas company by then-President Hugo Chávez. In 2009, Correa received the Medal of Peace and Friendship Among Peoples from the Vietnamese government.
Two months after Correa received his medal, our comedic version was screened in Caracas and was stolen from the same exhibition hall, along with all other copies that were in other institutions across the country.
