Federico Manuel Peralta Ramos · 31.10.2017 - 29.12.2017

Federico Manuel Peralta Ramos

curatorial text

Federico Manuel Peralta Ramos

Del infinito presents an exhibition that brings together emblematic works by Federico Manuel Peralta Ramos from the 1960s to 1990s. This solo show aims tribute this disruptive and provocative artist by presenting a series of works on paper and canvas that attest to his most ironic and suggestive side, the one that transformed him into a cult artist, a “psychodifferent”, as he liked to call himself. These artworks bring us closer to his deep sensitivity and reveal the acute perception of this artist who, building his path, left the world of art turned upside down. He knew how to be a standard-bearer of Dadaist and Duchampian formulas claiming the idea that “Life is art”. He embarked on the most extraordinary adventures, from the presentation and destruction of his famous egg at the Insitituto Di Tella or the failed purchase of a bull in a La Rural auction and the consequences of these actions.

Federico Manuel could be both the most exquisite and intellectual as the most rampant or popular artist, as well as being extremely sensitive and subtle. This project aims to reveal that is the facet with which he knew how to make art, where theater, politics, and sociology prevails.

He was an advocate of his ideologies and never forced his work to fit in, even though he was desperate to be relevant. Not for nothing every time he could he went to the cafe on Uruguay street, in the heart of the city of Buenos Aires, looking for his friend, then director of the Museum of Modern Art of Buenos Aires, Rafael Squirru, and approached him anxiously to ask him always the same question: “Do you think I still have validity?” to which Squirru always replied affirmatively. He was not wrong since today, twenty-five years after his death, Peralta Ramos continues to be one of the most contemporary and avant-garde artists on our scene.

He was a channeler of collective thoughts, a quality that changed his life despite his origins, family name, and strong family mandates. Even though he was born in Mar del Plata, he considered himself an urban eing and was in love with the City of Buenos Aires, especially cafés, where he spent long hours debating, creating, thinking and arguing. His devotion was such that once in the workshop of his friend Marta Minujin he made a work that announced: “How nice it is to walk through the streets of Buenos Aires, to enter a bar and drink a coffee.” In conclusion we can affirm that a lot -and very little- is known is about Federico Manuel. We know that his family and friends protected his legacy with zeal and respect; That for some he was eccentric and for others a genius, but that he never went unnoticed; That he was an anti-academic creator and a revolutionary; And that talking about him is the same as talking abour his. From Del Infinito we are honored to continue sharing his work.

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