Utopia of Form
UTOPIA OF FORM ARGENTINE CONCRETE ART
Exposición organiza por Del Infinito en Alejandra Von Hartz Fine Arts, en Miami, USA.
In Buenos Aires, during the mid forties, a group of Argentine and Uruguayan painters and sculptors threw themselves enthusiastically into the unknown experience of non-representational art. From the beginning, they opted for an abstraction based on the ideas and practices set on systematic, constructivist projects. They intended to surpass the subjective and humanistic character of the avant-garde of those years [...]. The first nucleus gathered around the magazine Arturo, where they shared their programme, whose only issue appeared in summer of 1944.
Shortly thereafter, the group Arturo was divided in two sectors, on one hand was Madí (Rhod Rothfuss, Gyula Kosice, Carmelo Arden Quin), and on the other hand the Asociación de Arte Concreto Invención, which discarded the impurities and anything hybrid. In 1945, under that motto, the following artists began to work together: Edgar Bayley, Antonio Caraduje, Simón Contreras, Manuel Espinosa, Claudio Girola, Alfredo Hlito, Enio Iommi, Obdulio Landi, Raúl Lozza, R.V.D. Lozza, Tomás Maldonado, Alberto Molemberg, Primaldo Mónaco, Oscar Núñez, Lidy Prati, Jorge Souza and Matilde Werbin. Juan Melé, Virgilio Villalba and Gregorio Vardánega joined them later.
[...] They opted for the constructivist motto: “art must configure and organize everyday life, not decorate it”. [...] On March 18th. 1946, the Asociación de Arte Concreto Invención openend their first public show, in the Peuser Salon, a gallery on Florida Street, with the participation of almost all the founding members of the group. In the catalogue, the Associaction revealed the Inventionist Manifesto, one of the most important documents of Argentine avant-garde: [...] NOR TO SEARCH, NOT TO FIND: TO INVENT.”
[...] Towards 1948, the first stage of concrete art was about to end. In 1949, Iommi, Hlito, Girola, Maldonado and Prati began to use the name Group of Concrete Artists. Raúl Lozza had created another version of concrete art with the name Perceptism. [...] The impression left by the Asociación de Arte Concreto Invención, in Argentine art, as in architecture and designe, was inventive. In Art, the concepts of simplicity, clarity and harmony were fundamental, as well as the theories of “Good form”, Gute Form. In 1967, Aldo Pellegrini writes about the influence of concrete art still “persisting and developing”.
By Jorge López Anaya
Enio Iommi
Enio Iommi is a paradigmatic figure of Argentine sculpture, having started his work with the avant-garde of the forties, which meant a turning point in our country´s art.
more about Enio Iommi