Beneath the Surface by Museo Moderno

COLECCIÓN DESPIERTA DEL MODERNO

PINO MONKES

JUST AS NO ONE BATHES IN THE SAME RIVER TWICE, NO ONE SEES THE SAME PAINTING TWICE. BENEATH THE SURFACE

SEVEN CONVERSATIONS ON MATERIALITY IN ARGENTINIAN ABSTRACTION

MARTÍN BLASZKO MANUEL ESPINOSA RAÚL LOZZA JUAN MELÉ ALBERTO MOLENBERG CÉSAR PATERNOSTO ALEJANDRO PUENTE TRANSLATED BY LESLIE ROBERTSON

M U S E O D E A R T E M O D E R N O D E B U E N O S A I R E S

PINO MONKES

BENEATH THE SURFACE

COLECCIÓN DESPIERTA DEL MODERNO

PINO MONKES

BENEATH THE SURFACE

SEVEN CONVERSATIONS ON MATERIALITY IN ARGENTINIAN ABSTRACTION

MARTÍN BLASZKO MANUEL ESPINOSA RAÚL LOZZA JUAN MELÉ ALBERTO MOLENBERG CÉSAR PATERNOSTO ALEJANDRO PUENTE TRANSLATED BY LESLIE ROBERTSON

Monkes, Pino Beneath the surface : Seven Conversations on Materiality in Argentinian Abstraction / Pino Monkes ; dirigido por Victoria Noorthoorn ; editado por Martín Lojo ; Soledad Sobrino.- 1a ed.- Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires : Ministerio de Cultura del Gobierno de la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires. Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires, 2023. 324 p. ; 21 x 14 cm. - (Despierta / Gabriela Comte ; 2) Traducción de: Leslie Robertson. ISBN 978-987-1358-97-7 1. Arte. 2. Conservación de Obras de Arte. 3. Restauración. I. Noorthoorn, Victoria, dir. II. Lojo, Martín, ed. III. Sobrino, Soledad, ed. IV. Robertson, Leslie, trad. V. Título. CDD 702.88

Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires Av. San Juan 350 (1147), Buenos Aires Printed in Argentina Design and identity of the logo and covers of the collection: Max Rompo / estudio Acorde & Co. / General edition: Gabriela Comte / Graphic design: Pablo Alarcón and Eduardo Rey / Editing: Martín Lojo and Soledad Sobrino / Translation: Leslie Robertson (Foreword by Ian Barnett) / Proofreading: Julia Benseñor / Digital photochromy: Guillermo Miguens Photo credits Viviana Gil: 109-112,114-119, 122, 240-243, 245-246, 248, 249, 252 Otilio Moralejo: 113 Courtesy Tarea- IIPC, Universidad de San Martín: 117 (stratigraphy), 119 (reverse) MAMAN Fine Art: 120-121 Pino Monkes: 122-124, 237, 238, 250 (restoration) Otilio Moralejo: 239 Gustavo Sosa Pinilla: 244 Christian Rodríguez: 247 Fabián Cañás: 251 p. 109: © Georges Vantongerloo Estate, Pro Litteris, Zurich / SAVA, Buenos Aires At the closing time of this publication, the Museum of Modern Art has made all efforts to secure the rights of reproduction of the works. Should there be any omission, the institution will contact whoever is necessary.

INDEX

FOREWORD VICTORIA NOORTHOORN

INTRODUCTION 15 MARÍA AMALIA GARCÍA

ON THE WORK 21 PINO MONKES

INTERVIEWS Raúl Lozza 127 Martín Blaszko 151 Juan Melé 197 Manuel Espinoza 227 Alberto Molenberg 253 César Paternosto 265 Alejandro Puente 287 BIBLIOGRAPHY 311 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 317

The publication of Beneath the Surface: Seven Conversations on Materiality in Argentinian Abstraction is an institutional milestone in the history of the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires. This book – number sixty in our publishing project begun in 2014 – launches a new collection exclusively devoted to disseminating the research and academic knowledge produced by the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires. Ever since its foundation in 1956, the Museo Moderno has accompanied and supported the experimental approaches of Argentinian artists. This brand-new collection brings to light the research of this immense powerhouse of knowledge that is the Museo Moderno among its widely diverse audiences as it carries the life and value of art to future generations, students, researchers and lovers of art. There is no one more fitting than the eminent conservator of modern and contemporary art, Pino Monkes, the Head of Conservation at the Museo Moderno for the last thirty years, to launch a new publishing project in honour of the knowledge created by our Museum over the course of its history. In this volume, Pino Monkes discusses the materiality, technical and creative processes and possibilities of conservation and restoration of the works of eight major Argentinian artists from the Museo Moderno’s Collection: Carmelo Arden Quin, Raúl Lozza, Martín Blaszko, Juan Melé, Manuel Espinosa, Alberto

Molenberg, César Paternosto and Alejandro Puente. Through analyses of their works and interviews with seven of them (Arden Quin asked for meetings not to be recorded), Monkes offers a unique wealth of insight into the first exclusively River Plate avant-garde of the twentieth century, the circumstances of creation experienced by each of the artists and the procedures and ethical considerations to be taken into account when trying to preserve works of art consistent with their authors’ intentions. This he achieves with enormous humility and generosity. The book also affords us a more complete understanding of the importance of River Plate Concrete Art in the field of art history. It is, moreover, performative in its ambition to intervene in the world of conservation: it disrupts historiographical narratives, attacks prejudices around conservation procedures and prioritises the role of the art conservator in the museum environment. Seasoned readers of the history of River Plate Concrete Art can prepare themself for a historiographical revolution. Finally, I would like to draw to attention an aspect of Pino Monkes’s professional ethics not necessarily reflected in his interviews. During the almost ten years I have had the privilege of directing this Museum, I have found in Pino a close ally when it comes to honouring the figure of the artist in a society that does not in general set much store by it. Whether in dealing with works created by deceased artists, seeking to respect their material and visual integrity or in his intense dialogue with highly active artists in our contemporary art scene, Pino has always sought to understand in depth the artists' intention when creating: their convictions, stances, creative processes and aesthetic ambitions. Pino becomes, in the process, the artist’s accomplice: friend, interlocutor, guide and advisor when it comes to providing the necessary knowledge about materials and technical procedures to help the imagined works come into being and enjoy longer lives. He has also extended this generosity of knowledge

to the Moderno’s staff, its conservation, collections and curatorial teams and his university students on professional internships at the Museum. Every step of the way, he seeks to honour the creative intentions of both artists and curators by trying to translate each idea into reality, however challenging. Pino embraces the experimental attitude of contemporary art and, when faced with a fork in the road, you will always find him taking the side of the artist, offering his knowledge on the fascinating path of artistic production, embracing curiosity, understanding risk and encouraging exploration of the as yet unknown. For making this major publishing project a reality, I would first and foremost like to thank Pino Monkes and the Museo Moderno’s Collections and Conservation teams past and present. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the Museum’s Associate Curator María Amalia García until 2021, and the ambitious editorial team of this great Argentinian public museum: General Editor Gabriela Comte, editor of the texts published here Martín Lojo, our proofreader Julia Benseñor, our translators Leslie Robertson and Ian Barnett, and Eduardo Rey, designer of the first issue of the Museo Moderno’s Colección despierta. To all the teams of this great Museum of the present, past and future, thank you all very much!

Victoria Noorthoorn, Director, Museo de Arte Moderno in Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, May 2023

INTRODUCTION María Amalia García

Since the 1990s, abstraction has been revisited as a prime trend in modern Latin American art, and in Argentinian art in particular. In the last decade of the 20th century, the legitimisation of this snippet of history was linked to a new perspective on art in the region, driven by different institutions, curators, collectors and gallery owners in both the United States and Latin America. This interest finds precedents in some of the academic investigations by local and regional institutes that took place toward the end of the 1970s: it is worth remembering the pioneering work of Nelly Perazzo, Aracy Amaral and Ronaldo Brito for their organisation and study of post-war constructivist groups in Argentina and Brazil. As a result of these processes, the Latin American visual perspective was gradually reconceptualised from a rational and modern perspective. By the late 20th century, post-war constructivist art had received remarkable attention from cultural institutions in Latin America and North America, which, in addition to holding exhibitions dedicated to these works, have acquired many of them for their collections. As such, over the past thirty years, the works have been extensively reproduced in exhibition catalogues and large-format books. The reproductions of the pieces show clean planes, radiant colours and perfect finishes. However, not everything is as it seems, and there is much to be said about the difference between 17

the reproduced image and the original. This, precisely, is at the core of this investigation by Pino Monkes, head conservator of the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires. Since the 1980s, he has dedicated himself to understanding the materiality of these objects that appear so clean and shiny in print, and yet, when viewed directly, the evolution of the materials is evident. Although skilfully executed, the works exhibit issues that are due not only to the passage of time, but are also the consequence of having been made in a certain way. Although the artists admired industry and industrial finishes, the productions they have left behind are more closely related to handcrafted rather than hightech finishes. In his analysis of the works, Monkes shows us lines made with ribbon, cardboard and plywood supports, and household synthetic paints; in short, everyday materials which, by means of different processes, were presented as prototypes of a new world undergoing a process of transformation. For the past several decades, Monkes has undertaken a twofold task. First, he has set out to interview an important group of Argentinian abstract artists about their working methods, techniques and materials. While many of us are dedicated to understanding the avant-garde programmes and methods of intervention, Monkes has sought to understand how the theoretical and visual approach of the concrete artists was put into practice from the perspective of the materials used. The interviews published in this book are invaluable not only because of the information that is shared, but also because almost all of the artists interviewed have now passed away. Naturally, the conversations focus on the materials used and the processes followed for the execution of the pieces, and they include the perspectives of the artists on their own output, the ageing of the works, the creation of reconstructions, and more. For example, thanks to Monkes, we learn about Raúl Lozza’s technique as he reveals the conceptual complexities of his qualimetric theory of the planar

form, and we learn that the artist worked by overlapping successive layers of paint, sanding them in between. This is how he achieved his matte finish and prevented the paint (enamel mixed with oil) from giving his wood works a gloss, which would have contradicted his theoretical programme. The interviews also show how this moment in Argentinian art took place in the heat of the youth action that recognised itself in the avant-garde. Alberto Molenberg recounts that he carried the first cardboard version of his piece Función blanca [White Function] (a work that was central to the concrete programme outlined by Tomás Maldonado, Edgar Bayley and Lidy Prati, among others) under his arm from Lanús, where he lived, to the centre of the city of Buenos Aires, where an exhibition was being held. These are memories that reveal both the domesticity and the fleetingness of these pieces, far from being the works of art exalted by institutions and their publications. Second, as head of conservation at the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires, Monkes has gained rare access to these works, given that the museum’s collection includes an exceptional set of abstract artworks from Argentina, including: key works of Inventionism (Carmelo Arden Quin, Martín Blaszko), concrete art (Tomás Maldonado, Alfredo Hlito, Manuel Espinosa), generative art (Miguel Ángel Vidal and Eduardo Mac Entyre), op art (María Martorell and Carlos Silva) and the elementarist investigations of the 1960s and 1970s by Alejandro Puente and César Paternosto, among others. Furthermore, in his study of shared solutions, Monkes touches on the works of European abstract art (Georges Vantongerloo and Josef Albers, for example) that belong to the museum’s collection thanks to the donation of Ignacio Pirovano. Monkes uses his own observations, technical analyses, X-rays and photographs used specifically in conservation, along with historical archives, to determine the structure of these objects.

With this research using multiple resources, conservator’s gain deserved prominence in the debate on art objects and their history. With their crucial knowledge of the “guts” of the works, they are key figures when it comes to considering artworks from a holistic perspective. In this regard, interdisciplinary cooperation between conservators, chemists and art historians is now the preferred method for a scientific approach to works. In this sense, Pino Monkes, with his extensive experience in projects and interventions, plays a central role in helping circulate this knowledge. The Museum of Modern Art is pleased to recognise the important work of one of its most outstanding collaborators with this publication, which represents a major contribution to the study of Argentine abstract art.

ON THE WORK Pino Monkes

Note from the editor: The texts in this book are accompanied by a large number of notes that provide not only contextual information but also technical explanations of the different restoration processes, as well as the materials used in these practices and by the artists during the creation process. In order to facilitate reading, these notes have been divided into footnotes, indicated by Arabic numerals and reserved for comments related to historical context and bibliographical references; and endnotes, which are indicated by Roman numerals and can be found at the end of each section of text, which have been reserved for technical information regarding processes and materials.

This book is the result of a series of interviews I held with some outstanding local visual artists between 1998 and 2001. The idea was to ask them to reflect on their definitions of artistic subject matter and their own intentions during the chapter in history in which they played leading roles; that is, during the origins of abstraction in Argentina beginning in the 1940s. This was a period in which there was a rupture in painting practices as its own essence and function began to be questioned through the use of new instruments and stylistic devices, and based on the autonomy of the visual elements and new categories of objectivity and functionality. It is very important that the conservator or restorer understand the complex structure of a work of art in all its uniqueness – even if it can only be done in narrow terms – as it allows for the proper interpretation of the deterioration that is either inherent to its materiality and structure or a result of environmental stimuli, and for the appropriate conservation and restoration criteria to be established. It was the absence of research into the procedural aspects of Argentine art that provided me with the necessary stimulus to formalize this project, inspired by the European precedent of the first programs to build the relationship between the restorer and the artist, which first began in 1977.1 1

In 1977, Heinz Althöfer and Hiltrud Schinzel of the Restaurierungszentrum Düsseldorf launched an interdisciplinary project between artists and restorers to document specific problems found in works of contemporary art. In 1987, Emilio

The idea of conversing with Argentine abstract artists about these issues began to gestate following my initial encounter with Raúl Lozza, in the summer of 1997. We met as a result of the restoration of his work Pintura Nº 310 [Painting No. 310] (1953, oil and enamel on plywood, 136 × 110 cm), one of the three pieces by the artist that are part of the Museo Moderno collection and which were to be included in the retrospective exhibition the museum presented in August and September of that year. The deterioration of the portable background that supports the three planes of colour had noticeably altered the tonality of the original chalk white, changing the chromatic relationships of the entire piece. I remember the words of dear Raúl when he saw the piece: “It cannot be … it upsets the entire work”. So we scheduled a second meeting at the museum’s conservation/restoration studio with the aim of establishing the best intervention criteria in order to restore the effectiveness of the background. This was my first time coming into contact with the details of his very particular technique of colour treatment, which he had continued to apply since his beginnings with the Asociación Arte Concreto-Invención [Concrete-Invention Art Association, AACI]. The following year I began to visit him at his home-studio in Fragata

Ruiz de Arcaute, encouraged by the experiences of Althöfer and Schinzel, designed a template for a survey that included the legal aspects (see: Boletín Informativo del Instituto Andaluz del Patrimonio Histórico, nº 3, Junta de Andalucía, Consejería de Cultura y Medio Ambiente, Dirección General de Bienes Culturales, Seville, pp. 6-7, ISSN: 1134 - 6744,: <http://www.iaph.es/revistaph/index.php/revistaph/article/ view/21>). In 1997, the symposium Modern Art: Who Cares? was held in Amsterdam, organised by the Foundation for the Conservation of Modern Art/Netherlands, Institute for Cultural Heritage. In 1999, a group of 23 people from 11 organisations created INCCA, the International Network for the Conservation of Contemporary Art. The founding project received support from the European Commission’s Raphael Programme. The INCCA website and databases were first developed during this project and a wealth of artist information was collected. See: <https://www.incca.org/network>.

Sarmiento Street, in the Paternal neighbourhood of Buenos Aires, to learn more about all aspects of his work. My conversations with Lozza were the first in a series of encounters that would come to include, at a later date, those I had with Martín Blaszko, Juan Melé, Manuel Espinosa, Alberto Molenberg, Camilo Arden Quin, César Paternosto and Alejandro Puente. This selection of artists was intended to cover two periods in the development of abstract art in Argentina. The first corresponded to Lozza, Blaszko, Melé, Espinosa, Molenberg and Arden Quin, leading figures of the abstract avant-garde that emerged in the mid-1940s with the development of the magazine Arturo. Based on a new discourse of form, line and colour as absolute and autonomous values and a shift in concept from that of creation to that of invention, these artists made use of an irregular support to circumvent the idea represented by the traditional orthogonal format of a painting as a fragment of reality. Puente and Paternosto, artists of a later generation, would respond to this approach and its mechanised derivations with a more humanised geometry that reveals the activity of the artist and the natural qualities of the colour media in all their expressiveness on a support that always contributes to the visual and tactile properties of the whole. While the main purpose of the interviews was to review in detail the chronology of the materials and methods of execution adopted by the artists, other questions sought to spur them to reflect on their experiences in an area in which they are often not consulted and to which they have much to contribute: museographical strategies. On the other hand, as a conservator at a public institution, I was also interested to hear their points of view on the different criteria that a professional can adopt for a restoration, which range from the most traditional and interventionist to the so-called minimalist or conservationist approaches, which seek to limit any additions to the body of the work.

Along the same line, it should be made clear that, in general, the subject of restoration in this book is approached from a conceptual point of view, and thus the examples of restorations presented are not intended to privilege one criterion over another a priori, but to present some of the solutions that were considered most appropriate to the specificity of each case.

FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF CONSERVATION

The material structure of a work of art, the way its layered system is manufactured, and its ageing processes are a regular source of reflection and research among conservators and restorers. From the moment a work is executed, its structure undergoes imperceptible yet incessant modifications and natural degradation. The alteration of the hue and original finish of the final layer of the system, which is readily visible for the viewer, appears to be the most disruptive to our perception; this is particularly true for those works of art based on planimetry and colour precision. Just as no one bathes in the same river twice, no one sees the same painting twice. In our environment, we are surrounded by sepia-coloured elements (doors, windows, frames) that, until a few years ago, were white. The conservator intervenes in this slow process that affects artworks with the intention of prolonging their lifespan in the least invasive way. When artists say things like, “it is just like when I painted it”, “it has remained the same as it was then”, or “[it looks the same] as on the first day”, it does nothing more than reveal to us how the eye adapts to these changes which, though perhaps imperceptible in the day-to-day, affect the materials on an ongoing basis. All materials degrade in accordance with the mechanisms inherent to their physical-chemical structure and application method. Although the production technologies of art-specific

materials have an increased resistance to degradation, the household products that may be part of an artist’s studio resources are subject to more accelerated deterioration processes because of their manufacturing processes. The continued survival of an image with its expressive content and the acceptance of natural deterioration as an inherent part of a continuous process is the starting point of the conservator’s or restorer’s strategy for works like those from the period addressed here, which can be considered within the traditional framework of painting. That is, they are comprised of a pictorial layer that extends over a primed support, even if they include some innovations in terms of the support and colour media. However, it should be made clear that in terms of art conservation and restoration practices, ‘traditional’, ‘modern’ and ‘contemporary art’ are rather vague categories, since not all restylings of the visual language have involved new materials, nor has the use of new materials always necessarily led to new restylings of the visual language. In the case of concrete abstraction, some of the procedural mechanisms that can be mentioned as exceptions include the cutting mechanics used by the artists to create irregular frames and coplanars, and the surface polishing used by Lozza, Molenberg (in Función blanca [White Function]), and Gregorio Vardánega to achieve a perfect final finish. Another exception is the decision taken by Puente and Paternosto to work on raw or almost completely unprimed canvasses in the mid-1970s, with the aim of achieving a matte finish that they felt was part of their own aesthetic. This technique means the conservator must be extremely careful when working with their pieces, as the surfaces are highly permeable and the colours are sensitised by the lack of cohesion. These differences emerge when we compare the experimental character of the first offerings by the constructive avant-garde, made with the heady exhilaration of renewing the visual language, with the level of technical refinement seen in Western art up to that point. The patient and skilled processes of

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selecting materials, preparing the supports and colours, and methods of execution allow us to enjoy those works of art centuries later; though they may have lost some of their original effectiveness, their symbolic or figurative messages remain intact. On the other hand, when it comes to the first supports of the Inventionists, their use of everyday materials such as cardboard and other wood fibre derivatives – previously only used for preliminary studies – and their incorporation of colour to media and additives unsuitable for the craft have accelerated the processes of deterioration and, consequently, affected the original visual qualities. The very early cases in which works were repainted and reconstructed using more solid materials are testaments to this structural fragility. However, it should be clarified that, after these first Inventionist productions, the artists gradually channelled their work into procedural formats more closely linked to good pictorial workmanship and formal precision. With time they would find the technical tools and procedures and the ideal media with which they could develop their purist practice of using a colour and always extending it in continuous layers. In turn, Informalism, to which Puente and Paternosto subscribed during its earliest manifestations on the local scene, would react to this model by adhering to an opposite one, the mechanics of which was to accentuate all of the expressive possibilities of a manifold materiality that, like the prevailing existentialist ideology, would be resistant to saturations of colour. The resources of the period included mixed or overlapped oil paints and household enamels, the persistent use of temperature-sensitive materials (asphalt and bitumen paints)I, varnishes that were used as an expressive medium to contrast with matte areas, discarded materials, sheets undergoing corrosion or combustion, wood, wax, paper, fillers such as sand or sawdust, and cuts, burns and perforations of materials. These would result in an uneven topography, in which areas of great expressive intensity

and material load interact with others in which the support – canvas or rigid – contributes its natural texture and colour. My initiation in the mid-1980s as a conservator/restorer at the museums of the former Municipality of the City of Buenos Aires took place in a setting that was still marked by a lack of credentials to overcome the empiricism that prevailed in many art institutions and collections. With the exception of a small number of highly trained professionals, restoration was focused on the immediacy of achieving purely visual results, without carrying out a proper analysis of the long-term consequences of such actions. Radical and invasive restorations have resulted in the near adulteration of many important works. Even in important collections, it is common to find magnificent works of art that have lost subtleties or where the marks of the brush have been flattened as a result of drastic restoration procedures (cleanings, the removal of varnish, fixing of colours and canvasses). Colour retouching is frequently seen, in areas whose original qualities have been altered by the natural ageing process or in missing areas which were reinterpreted, thus creating a historical fake. In those days, it was common to call on visual artists to perform restoration work because of their sensitive training in terms of materials and colours and their perceptive skills. However, this explains part of the problem, as they carried out their work with a stubborn optimism that often led to irreversible damage. The prerequisite required by the former Municipality of the City of Buenos Aires to carry out restoration work for the municipal museums was nothing more than a regular Fine Arts degree. In fact, the title of the position was “Professor of Drawing and Painting with Restoration Duties”. Because of this, my first involvements in restoration work at public museums focused on the removal of a large amount of unjustified oil overpainting; unjustified both in terms of the choice of material as well as its extent, given that untrained workers tended to invade areas that were in a good state

of conservation using a spiral motion of the brush, in an attempt to match it with a particular shade in the reintegrated area. Locally, conservation/restoration would gradually undergo a process of professional renovation that addresses the duality of appearance/structure that a work of art involves, understood as a product of a particular period of history that must be interpreted and valued over the course of different historical periods. The growing role that scientific tools and criteria play in the physical study of a work and the progression of tasks is undoubtedly responsible for the increasingly frequent relegation of trial-and-error practices that had been guided only by a utopian desire to return a work to its original state, already inaccessible because it belongs to another era. On the other hand, the refinement of the intervention methods and their reduced interference in the object places limits on a practice which, though sometimes unavoidable, was not on the horizon when the artist created the work. While there are no unified standards, most operations at the major art centres of today are based on the greatest conceptual contribution to the history of the discipline at the time of its publication in 1963, Cèsare Brandi’s Theory of Restoration.2 In it, Brandi set out a series of methodological criteria and guidelines for action that would form the basis of the modern concept of restoration, which he says is “critical” to enhance the value of a work of art for the future, without succumbing to alterations or a historical fake in the intervention process. He had an undeniable influence on the evolution of the discipline in the final decades of the 20th century. Beginning with the international conference in Rome in 1972, whose programme was defined by Brandi and other historians, for the first time, painting and sculpture were addressed in the international charters on the preservation of heritage.3 A series of regulations and 2

Cèsare Brandi, Teoría de la restauración, Madrid, Alianza Forma, 2007.

The charters and standards governing heritage conservation worldwide are named

methodological criteria – already outlined in Brandi’s theory – were agreed upon that sought to protect the aesthetic qualities of a work without eliminating the traces it had acquired over time. It placed special emphasis on reintegrating lacuna (areas with loss of original material), stating that interventions must be visible and easily reversible. Somewhat radically, imitative and mimetic inpaintings were included under the category of historical fake. Although these sought to respect the boundaries of the loss of original material and remain reversible, the reintegration was executed through a process of “historical and creative substitution, pretending to be included at a moment in the process of the work of art that has been finished by the author and which is irreversible.”4 Through the Istituto Centrale de Restauro in Rome, Brandi proposed a type of chromatic reintegration known as tratteggio (hatching),5 which was reduced to the limits of the lacuna, regardless of its dimensions. It is carried out by painting small juxtaposed strokes of primary colours, executed in watercolour, that allow them to be easily recognised as “non-original”.6 Framed within the concept of critical restoration, this proposal to make restoration interventions visible led according to the different cities in which they were signed and are promoted through conventions organised by different international bodies, including the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS). Since the 1931 adoption of the Athens Charter, a large number of documents have been produced with the aim of establishing a common agreement for the preservation and protection of the world’s historic heritage. The non-legislative Carta del restauro [Restoration Charter] (1972), signed in Rome, expresses Brandi’s ideas and is also the first time the subject of antiquities and fine arts are addressed together in an attempt to reach uniform criteria for the specific activity of the conservation of artistic heritage and for restoration standards. 4

Cèsare Brandi, op. cit. p. 72.

The term tratteggio, like many other restoration terms, is not translated but instead is maintained in the original Italian, though perhaps the term that is more widely-used is rigatino.

See Cèsare Brandi, op. cit., Annex 2: “Apostilla teórica al tratamiento de las lagunas”, p. 71.

Professor Umberto Baldini,7 a follower of Brandi, and Ornella Casazza8 to develop the concepts of astrazione chromatica (chromatic abstraction) and selezione chromatica (chromatic selection)II at the Opificio delle Pietre Dure9 in Florence. Turning to the artists considered in this book, it should be noted that while the Italian concepts continue to provide the frame of reference for the restoration of artworks deemed as traditional, the system of chromatic reintegration that is limited to primary and secondary colours is inapplicable to an aesthetic that deals with the abstract and/or concrete and based on the homogeneity of the plane cannot accept any interruption of continuity. In such cases, a mimetic system of applicationIII, adjusted to the missing material, is the most coherent and widespread approach. It should also be made clear that the few cases mentioned in which accessories have been rebuilt or the pictorial layer has undergone a 7

Umberto Baldini (1921-2006) was an art historian and specialist in the theory of restoration and author of Teoría de la restauración y unidad metodológica, Vol. 1 y 2, Madrid, Nardini-Nerea, 1997. He became director of the Gabinetto di Restauro in Florence and founded the Florentine school of restoration. In 1970, he was appointed director of the Opificio delle Pietre Dure. From 1983 to 1987, he was the director of the Istituto Centrale per il Restauro (now the Istituto Superiore per la Conservazione ed il Restauro) in Rome.

Ornella Casazza is the author of Il restauro pittorico, Florence, Nardini, 1981. She is an art historian with the Superintendence for Artistic and Historical Heritage of Florence, where she heads the Department for the Study and Application of Advanced Technologies. She directed the restorations of the frescoes by Masaccio, Masolino and Filippo Lippi in the Brancacci Chapel of the Carmine Church in Florence. She is the author of several studies, with a particular interest in conservation and iconography. She directs the restoration courses at the Florence University of the Arts and is a professor of Restoration Theory and Techniques at the University of Pisa.

The Opificio delle pietre dure (OPD) is an Italian public body under the authority of the Direzione Generale Educazione e Ricerca del Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Cultural e per il Turismo, based in Florence. It is a global leader in the field of research and intervention for the conservation and restoration of cultural assets. Together with the Istituto Superiore per la Conservazione e dil Restauro in Rome, it is a nationally and internationally-renowned training centre for restoration, offering postgraduate qualifications at the Master’s level.

complete inpainting respond to considerations regarding the mechanical or visual functionality of each specific case and emerge from contact with the artists. They thus go beyond the Brandian conceptual framework but are widely accepted in the context of contemporary art conservation.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF PAINTING MATERIALS

Though its history dates back thousands of years, in Western culture, temperaI became the most widely-used painting technique during the Middle Ages through the early 15th century, when its use began to decline in favour of new oil-based paints with improved drying properties, which led to great technical and visually advances in the craft.II Siccative oils were initially used as additives to tempera because of the ductility they brought to the ancient technique, though eventually they were adopted as a unique binding agent in the production of paints. Their slow drying time and other properties allow colours to be spread in very thin layers, thus permitting overlaps and translucency and smooth transitions of values and tones. In addition, they provide time for correction, restarting, and for weton-wet painting. Furthermore, the introduction of oils allowed the use of the impasto technique, in which layers are built up to highlight or reflect luminous areas of figurative paintings. In addition, their ability to retain the imprint of the brushstrokes provided oil paints with an expressiveness other materials were incapable of achieving. It was the Impressionism movement in the final decades of the 19th century that would begin to give colour a more objective visibility, reducing the use of both mixes that desaturate the hues of the pigments and of the thinners that had been crucial to the academic style of extending the paint in layers. In doing

so, surfaces were created in which brushstrokes of juxtaposed colours alternate and blend together optically, on backgrounds that have barely been touched or are devoid of colour. Both Impressionism, with its more direct and less finished technique, and the different European schools of en plein air painting that emerged in the 19th century were favoured by the introduction of a new series of pigmentsIII produced for the painter’s palette. These were products that were improved or artist-quality versions of the new dyes being produced to meet the increasing demands of the textile industry. Their popularity was facilitated, first, by the invention of modern roller mills that could achieve extra-fine grinds, thus replacing a time-consuming manual task. Second, the innovative tin tubes in which they were packagedIV guaranteed the paints were preserved and speeded up many of the processes of carrying out a work in the open air. Thus, the traditional method of having to sketch onsite and then finish in the studio under different light conditions could be avoided. It became possible to capture and transfer onto the canvas all of the sensations of the light and colourv that bathe nature and are in constant flux. In terms of the domestic environment, the industry was in the midst of developing paints that would meet the demands of a modern society that had learned to redirect natural energy to machinery as the basis of industry. The same drying oilsVI used in the production of artists’ oil paints – such as linseed, walnut, and poppyseed oil – were the raw material for the oleoresinous varnishes and binders used in the first formulations of industrial household paints. In order to obtain a fast-drying product, these filmogens were subjected to different treatments, such as cooking at high temperature, oxygenation by mechanical shaker, and the addition of metal oxides and tree resins to accelerate oxygenation and add structural strength.10 The result was a product that 10

L. Naudín, Manual de la fabricación de barnices, colas y engrudos, París, Bouret, 1908.

is very similar to the double boiled linseed oil that can still be purchased at hardware stores. In this regard, Carmelo Arden Quin told me that Composición [Composition] (1946), a small marco recortado (cutout frame) on cardboard owned by the Museo Moderno, was painted using common earth pigments that were bound with double boiled linseed oil from the hardware store, using an execution method that was unheard of at the time: stencilling. The same oil was also used as a binder for an industrial paint known as “painting paste”,11 which was used by some of the Argentinian Informalists, as corroborated in interviews with Puente and Paternosto. It was an economic alternative to oil paint, since the paste was of a similar consistency and needed to be thinned with turpentine in order to achieve the fluidity necessary for domestic use. Its use declined towards the 1960s in favour of synthetic resin paints, alkyd in particular.VII Its use can be detected with the naked eye in the not very luminous whites of the Informalist paintings, particularly those produced by the Grupo Sí, from La Plata. This is because, due to costs, some brands used fillers that offered little cover and reflective power, such as lithopone (barium sulphate and zinc sulphide) instead of the usual white pigments12 like lead whiteVIII and zinc white (zinc oxide, ZnO), and the more modern titanium white (titanium dioxide, TiO2), which is both whiter and more opaque.

See: Fernando Marte and Pino Monkes, “El uso de la pintura en pasta en tres obras pictóricas del Informalismo argentino”, in 16ª Jornadas de Conservación de Arte Contemporáneo, Madrid, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, February, 2015. https://www.museoreinasofia.es/sites/default/files/publicaciones/textos-endescarga/restauracion_media_definitivo_27-4-16.pdf

See: María Florencia Castellá, Fernando Marte, Noemí Mastrángelo, Pino Monkes and Marta Pérez Estebanéz, “Estudio de los pigmentos blancos utilizados en la pintura concreta en Argentina”, in 18ª Jornadas de Conservación de arte Contemporáneo, Madrid, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, February 2017. https://www. museoreinasofia.es/sites/default/files/18_jornada_conservacion.pdf

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Precedents of this pre-oxidation treatment include condensed, polymerised or stand oil, used by artists of the Dutch School in the 17th century and subjected to temperatures of almost 300o C to be used to thin oil colours, though it was not suitable for use as a binder for pigments. One of the most important characteristics of polymerised oil is its levelling property, i.e. its tendency to dry in a smooth film free of brush marks, similar to a glaze, as well as its ability to impart the same tendency to paints and other mediums to which it is added. These levelling properties were considered ideal for use in the research that led to the development of oleoresins and synthetic resins, such as nitrocellulose (cellulose nitrate, celluloid), epoxy and alkyd resins, over the course of the first half of the 20th century.13 Alkyd continues to dominate production today because it has been developed into a product that has consistently good flow, adhesion, and levelling properties, and is fast drying, resistant to abrasion, and low cost. These paints were available in different sizes and had the correct fluidity to allow the brushstrokes to blend together after application. In its first outings, South American concrete abstraction would consider these characteristics, particularly the levelling capabilities, as the ideal properties to enable an escape from the sensual materiality of oil painting to achieve flat, opaque applications. Tomás Maldonado would examine these characteristics in an article he wrote for the bulletin announcing the second publication of the AACI in 1946, titled “Torres García contra el arte moderno” (“Torres García vs. modern art”) in which he attacked the work of the Uruguayan artist and his work as a teacher: “What is actually happening is that Torres García, with his mouldy, narrow colonial mindset and the dusty relics 13

See: M.R. Schilling, J. Keeney, T. Leamer, “Characterization of alkyd paint media by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry”, Stud. Conserv. 49, 2004, pp. 197–201. Available at: <https:// doi.org/10.1179/sic.2004.49.s2.043>.

of American curiosities and indigenist ‘pastiche’, is incapable of appreciating the depth and emotional meaning that pulsates in a white, washable, surface that is painted with Duco.”IX Several analytical studies have shown that drying oils were the principal binder used in their works. Traces of alkyd and tree resins were found in the works,14 but no nitrocellulose, so Maldonado’s judgement may have been more in response to the idea of a new aesthetic canon for the painted surface than about the concrete abstraction he wanted to impose. However, the presence of alkyd and tree resins suggest that Manuel Espinosa’s remarks in my interview with him are correct, as he claims Maldonado mixed additives into his thinners to make the paint layer dry more quickly. In addition to the pure finishes that were possible with industrial enamels, they also provided sufficient hardness to be able to cope with a procedure that was unprecedented, at least in the world of art: the polishing of the pictorial layer, a practice Raúl Lozza introduced as of his first works in mid-1945. It is yet another example of the change in visual interests that originated with the abandonment of representation in favour of presentation. In my interview with Juan Melé, he reveals that he did not turn to synthetic resins because of his academic training at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes, and suggests the same applied to all of the AACI artists, as they had the same formal training. It is likely that his statements stem from his late entry into the AACI and his closer ties to Maldonado and Alfredo Hlito, who, after their initial Inventionist experiments, returned to a standard format and the almost exclusive use of oil paint.X

Pia Gottschaller and Aleca Le Blanc, Making Art Concrete: Works from Argentina and Brazil in the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, The Getty Conservation Institute, 2017. p. 38.

ABSTRACTION IN THE RIO DE LA PLATA Supports

The irregular perimeter of the visual field that Inventionism imposed by cutting the borders of their supports accentuated the fixed nature of the work, in order to consider it as a self-referential unit or, as Rhod Rothfuss stated, as a “complete unit”15 and not a fragment of a theme. In the 1946 edition of the AACI magazine, it can be seen that a wide variety of formats were being used at the time, arising from the modification of the traditional orthogonal plane, such as coplanar and hybrid variants of both models.16 These proposals were innovative alternatives, even in the international context of abstraction. As for the blurry, untitled images that appeared in the magazine, and according to what the artists said in their interviews, it is logical to assume that cardboard, wood, plywoodI and hardboardII were the materials used as supports. The cutout frame has some precedents in the United States and Europe,17 as well as in Uruguayan painter Joaquín Torres García who, in the late 1920s, working within a primitivist and symbolistic spirit of orthogonal organisation, had produced some pieces with a 15

Rhod Rothfuss, “A propósito del marco”, in Arte Madí Universal, No. 4, Buenos Aires, 1950.

“...We firmly resolved that if we expanded beyond the space, it would always be as solution, not as a detour when faced with a two-dimensional stumbling block. We once again delved into studying the issue of the frame or marco recortado [cutout frame]. We began by giving more importance to the penetrating space than to the painting itself (Molenberg, Raúl Lozza, Núñez). And it was along this path that we arrived at the ultimate breakthrough of our movement: the separation in space of the constituent elements of a painting, without abandoning the coplanar arrangement (Molenberg, Raúl Lozza). In this way, the painting as a continental institution was abolished,” Tomás Maldonado, Arte Concreto Invención, No. 1, Buenos Aires, August 1946, p. 7. See also María Amalia García, exhibition catalogue, Yente / Prati, 2009, p. 89.

Including Làszlo Peri, from Hungary; Hans Arp, of French and German ancestry; El Lissitzky, from Russia; Eric Buchholz, from Germany, and Charles Green Shaw and Balcomb Green, from the United States.

composition adjusted to an irregular format. Rothfuss and Arden Quin visited Torres García in 1943 and 1944, so this format can perhaps be considered in the context of the Río de la Plata as a possible offshoot of the works of the Uruguayan master; “[…] certainly, Rothfuss may have seen these works.”18 Torres García turned to solid supports for the production of his works, often using rustic wood, which was in line with the usual material texture of his paintings in earth tones and greys. Carmelo Arden Quin told me that, during his visit to Torres García’s house and studio, he was very emphatic in preaching about working only “within the palette that binds us to the earth”. Arden Quin would apply this palette when creating his own paintings of the period, as can be seen in the already-mentioned cutout frame on cardboard work that is owned by the Museo Moderno. It is painted with the low value, desaturated colours that are characteristic of the Grupo Madí, as pointed out by Melé in his own book on the period,19 when he stated, “Especially in the early years, they used low value or muted colours.” From canvas to cardboard

While there are few reliable original works from the 1944-1946 period of Concrete Art in the Río de la Plata region, even fewer remain that used a traditional canvas support mounted on a stretcher; this is likely due to the material’s inadequacy for the purposes of the Inventionists. Their aims of formal and linear purity perhaps considered the romantic surface texture of the canvas, with the loss of its original flatness due to how it responds to its climatic environment and the unevenness of the 18

César Paternosto, “Marco irregular/shaped canvas: anticipaciones, herencias, préstamos”, in América fría. La abstracción geométrica en Latinoamérica (Catalogue), Madrid, Fundación Juan March, 2011.

Juan N. Melé, La vanguardia del 40. Memorias de un artista concreto, Buenos Aires, Ediciones Cinco, 1999, p. 107.

fabric in the lateral folds, to create visual noise that was unfit for their purpose. Textile supports undergo expansion and contraction in response to climatic fluctuations that cause their initial biaxial orthogonality to be lost; straight lines are transformed into zigzags, a phenomenon which is accentuated from the edges working towards the centre of the piece, where the fabric is able to move more freely. This is also the origin of warping, where the fabric contracts between the points at which it is attached to the stretcher, which causes arching between each point. The earliest example of a cutout frame on canvas produced in South American Inventionism is Rhod Rothfuss’s mythic Sin título, or Arlequín [Untitled, or Harlequin] (1944). It is an exceptional work within the movement’s output because of its sheer dimensions (175.9 × 83.8 cm). P. 113

I had the opportunity to intervene in a piece by Carmelo Arden Quin that had the same format. It was a canvas mounted on a stretcher and, at the time of my interview with the artist, was owned by his good friend Martín Blaszko. It presented planar deformations, especially apparent on the sides, and the incipient lifting of the pictorial layer. These were able to be solved according to the accepted procedures for easel painting restoration.I Speaking of the work, Blazko said, “I saw these paintings and Carmelo’s work that you restored for us at that exhibition.”20 While it is a small-format work, the inadequacies of the materials as mentioned above – seen in particular in the external angles that have been rounded due to the tension of the canvas and in the overall planar deformation of the work – could be understood as the causes that led him to consider a rigid material, as a means of eliminating this lack of formal definition. Although Martín Blaszko continued to use canvas as the support for his 20

The exhibition he refers to is the December 1945 exhibition of the Movimiento Arte Concreto Invención, held at the home of Grete Stern, in Ramos Mejía, Buenos Aires Province.

paintings, he somewhat timidly adapted his works to the irregular format devised by the Inventionists by attaching the already finished painting on its typical stretcher to a cardboard backing, in a technique known as marouflage.II To improve the stability of the fragile cardboard, Blaszko then placed the whole thing into a frame that followed the shape of the perimeter and to which he applied different treatments. It was Arden Quin who patiently enlightened him about Concrete Art and gave him some lessons that Blaszko would treasure for the rest of his life, as he would continue to apply them even after the Grupo Madí. Arden Quin taught him to use a compass, a drawing pen, a ruler, and everything that constitutes the golden ratio. Speaking of his work El plano azul [The Blue Plane] (oil on canvas mounted on cardboard, 1946, Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires), he said, “I applied those teachings in this work.” Blaszko joined the Madí after his encounter with Arden Quin and took part in the group show at the Instituto Francés de Estudios Superiores, at the Van Riel gallery (3 - 6 August 1946), held five months after the AACI exhibition at the Salón Peuser (18 March - 3 April 1946). He had a distinctly self-taught, figurative background and, with his refined treatment of colour, was kind of a Sisley to the group. His palette has always been far removed from the vibrant colours and vivid saturations of the group. He worked each plane with a variety of subtle hues, contradicting the original proposals of the Madí, which he took up with his own compositional conceptions, taking a bipolar approach which presented the viewer with a circular dynamic within a plane, which he defined as the Perpetuum Mobile. Oil is the only colour medium he has ever used in his paintings. He is fascinated by its ductility in application, its chromatic persistence in the face of successive layering of the material, and by the infinite tones it can achieve. The marouflage technique that Blazko adopted for his first Madí productions would lead to a series of problems inherent

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in the configuration. Blaszko’s method resulted in something similar to the cheap canvas boards produced as more affordable supports for painters. Although they initially eliminate any possibility of the canvas moving, after successive exchanges of humidity with the environment, the canvas, auxiliary support and adhesive all begin to respond to these stimuli, each according to its own nature, leading to detachments. P. 123

In 1999, at Blaszko’s request, I had the opportunity to intervene in a piece he owned and created, El plano azul. It is a cutout frame from 1946 of identical size and compositional structure as the work of the same name that is part of the Museo Moderno collection, though it features a different colour register and frame treatment. In this case, it was made of raw, seasoned wood that was barely protected with a natural wax. The canvas had lost its adhesion to the support in two small sections of the lower area, which caused the detached fabric to blister. Because the canvas had shrunk, the perforations from the tacks that held it to the stretcher were exposed on the sides. The repeated expansions and contractions of the canvas, initially neutralised due to its adhesion to a solid support, were eventually able to overcome those forces in areas where there was reduced adhesion, which allowed the canvas to respond to the fluctuations freely. As this fragment of canvas detached, it relaxed due to the humidity in the environment, and blisters were created that, measured by surface area, were larger than the original ones and made it necessary to release the entire canvas from its support for treatment.III At the end of the 1940s, perhaps motivated by these same issues, Blaszko opted to switch to hardboard, preparing the textured face with satin finish industrial enamel. Towards solid supports

The choice of a solid support for the production of the first cutout and coplanar frames led to a reconsideration of the mechanics of the studio work and, consequently, to a willingness to adopt a se42

ries of new practices (cutting, protective seals, stencilling, tracing with drawing pens, straight edges and polishes) that required a horizontal plane as a work surface. Espinosa and Molenberg suggest in their interviews that one entered the Inventionist space as if it were a recruitment organisation with its already established conceptual and material premises. The support no longer acted as a passive receptacle for colour and form; its visual strength was essential for the irregular format with which the internal composition of the work was meant to engage. Although what the artists refer to as ‘cardboard’ could be a similar material to the one with which we are familiar today, I dare venture, after listening to Manuel Espinosa’s description (“it was a thick cardboard that cut perfectly and without issue […]”) that, at least in his case, the material may have been Celotex.I Furthermore, when speaking about an exhibition of works by Eugenia Crenovich (Yente) that took place in 1945 at the Müller Gallery, Adriana Lauria wrote, “[...] she presented reliefs in which she used an agglomerate, light and soft, easy to carve, called Celotex, which, being as it did not present an obstacle to her limited manual strength, allowed her to fit pieces together in a manner similar to sculpture, a discipline that had always attracted her.”21 Even today it is difficult to cut thick cardboard without the appropriate tools, and if we think about its use in coplanar works, its dimensional stability seems almost ephemeral. Along these same lines, Ralph Mayer,22 the painter, conservator, teacher and author of one of the most complete works on art materials and techniques, places Celotex in the category of porous and insulating cardboards and boards for construction, saying that “it is not recommended for painting, as its structure is not nearly dense or rigid enough for durability; furthermore,

Adriana Lauria, Yente / Prati, catalogue, Buenos Aires, Malba, 2009, p. 21.

Ralph Mayer, New York (1895/1979).

the material tends to become discoloured and brittle with age.”23 Celotex for domestic use was produced in sheets of different thicknesses and had a greater structural rigidity than simple cardboard. In this environment, it was used as a possible support for paintings until the early 1960s. Today’s fibreboardII can be considered to be the technological evolution of Celotex. The notable sensitivity of these materials to traditional aqueous media used for the primer layer, such as animal glues, explains why household oil-based paints and primers came to be used for the direct treatment of the supports. On this subject, Lozza remarked, “The first works were executed on cardboard, the vast majority of which did not survive … Yes, it was terrible. The only ones that survived were those that used the cardboard as a backing. Framed. But the first works where cardboard was used for the small planes didn’t survive at all. Maldonado made many works on cardboard and nothing remains.” What Lozza says is true, the only works on cardboard that have survived are those that were framed or reinforced with a supporting frame, as seems to be the case of Tomás Maldonado’s Sin título [Untitled] (1945),24 Carmelo Arden Quin’s Los indios o Sin título [The Indians or Untitled] (1948, Malba Collection), and Composición [Composition] (1946, Museo Moderno), by the same artist.25 The latter has a cutout frame and was part of the exhibition, 150 años de Arte Argentino [150 Years of Argentinian Art], held in 1960 at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires. Its cardboard is only 350 µm thick and is somewhat protected by a large frame. The work was executed at Blaszko’s own home, and he says it was 23

Ralph Mayer, Materiales- técnicas del arte, Madrid, Herman Blume, 1983, pp. 235236.

The work, executed on thick cardboard glued to a supporting frame, measures 79 x 60 cm in its frame and current orientation, as it has been rotated more than 40° to the left from its original position as it appears in the AACI magazine.

On the upper edge of the back of the work, “Carmelo Arden Quin” is written in pencil, and in the lower left-hand corner, “Arden Quin – 46”, written in pen and ink.

Arden Quin who built and lacquered the frame. It presented a substantial loss of material due to an accident that predated my own entry into the museum; despite the damage, it was exhibited regularly. I discussed the problem with the artist at one of our encounters, and solved the issue using layers of Japanese paper fibres adhered with animal glue until the original surface level was achieved. The original colour and brightness were then reintegrated and the finish perfected. The cardboard remains in good condition today, only a slight overall convexity can be observed. The artist himself told me that the colour was applied using what he called a muñeca (“wrist”) technique,III in which the layers are applied using a thin cloth pad filled with cotton. The paint is prepared on a palette, the pad is dipped in the paint, which is then applied with pressure to the chosen support, which is covered with paper, thin cardboard, or poster board, thus creating a window that defines the planes. The technique is also known as stencilling, and is widely used in urban graffiti. Because the work contains so little coloured material and is so transparent, the pencil lines that created the original design can be seen. However, X-rays taken at Tarea-IIPC (the Institute for Research on Cultural Heritage) show the initial plan was modified during execution, as occurs in most of the cases studied. Arden Quin told me that for this piece, in an attempt to come close to the views of the Uruguayan artist Torres García – for whom he professed a great deal of admiration during our encounters – he used very simple black, earth and green pigments with double boiled linseed oil as a binder, which in those days was easily found at the hardware store. He prepared his cardboards according to a recipe given to him by Torres Garcia, which they called “Goya’s”. It was made with ground chalk, animal glue, and milk; the back of the cardboard was protected with kerosene, which he called nafta [petrol or naphta].

Arden Quin was almost self-taught, so the use of the pad to apply colour may have represented a shift at a particular moment in time, as the cutout frame on the canvas stretcher owned by Blaszko that I had the opportunity to intervene in is clearly painted with a brush. The muñeca technique of those early years is related to his general approach to his works, that is, he applies a great economy of use of material in the painted layer. When we chatted, he was very emphatic about how he works, stating, “I don’t use brushes.” He has always been interested in everything industrial, and commented about the use of the French industrial paint, Ripolin, which was especially common in the whites of the Madí sculptures of the 1950s. He also remarked that in his last decades of work, he turned to Peugeot’s industrial automotive spray paints. In Los indios o Sin título (1948, Malba Collection), the highly crafted, wide blue/light blue frame, likely made by the artist himself, shows imperfections in the construction of the parallelogram, as its vertical sides are, in fact, not perfectly parallel. The finish, both of the work and of the frame, display the very good levelling characteristics of industrial enamel.IV X-ray images of this work show that it underwent innumerable modifications during execution. Another small-format piece by the artist that is found in the same collection, Sin título (1945), is executed on a support which the museum describes as hardboard and appears to be resolved in a similar manner as the cutout frame owned by the Museo Moderno. Once again, there is a very thin layer of colour that contrasts with the heaviness of the material observed on the frame,V which in turn plays an important role in the composition, as it seems to project itself onto the work due to the wide interior areas in a low grey being very similar to that of the frame. In this work, we can see the early use of the drawing pen, an instrument that would be used with a high degree of perfection by Alfredo Hlito at the beginning of the following decade.

Melé and his friend and studio partner Gregorio Vardánega began to adhere to Inventionist practices after the cutout and coplanar frames had already been developed.26 This perhaps explains why their works from the period turned directly to substitutes for cardboard, such as plywood and hardboard, and is also an indicator of the short period of time during which the use of cardboard as a regular support was widespread among the Inventionists. From cardboard to plywood and hardboard

Perhaps due to the urgency of positioning themselves on the Buenos Aires scene, the experimental nature of those first Inventionist experiences led to the artists using materials that were more solid than cardboard, given its fragile stability and lack of resistance, particularly to handling. We must recall that these were young people in their twenties and thirties, so it is possible they were taking their works from one exhibition space to another on public transport, as was the case of Molenberg, who made long trips into the city centre. Plywood was mostly used for the small planes that constitute the coplanars, with the exception of works such as Mele’s N° 13 (1946, Malba collection), which was executed with hardboard.27 Of the artists, it was Lozza who made the greatest use of it for his cutout frames; however, generally speaking these pieces are also framed in a small format, as is the case of Pintura N° 15 (1945, Museo Moderno, oil and enamel on plywood, 56 × 38.5 cm). While all materials respond with some level of stress to 26

Melé, Vardánega and Villalba first exhibited their works as members of the AACI at the Sociedad Argentina de Artistas Plásticos exhibition, held from 11-20 October 1946.

Melé stated that, in general, he mounted his coplanars to white portable walls. When I interviewed him, he had a coplanar in his studio that had the same format but in different colours, N° 31 (1947), and it was mounted on a white portable wall.

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fluctuations in relative humidity, among the materials used as supports, canvas has a higher degree of reversibility. By contrast, the same process of moisture uptake and return in rigid materials, such as cardboard, plywood, or hardboard, lead to general planar deformations and swelling, which is accentuated at the edges of the sheets as the moisture is able to enter here more quickly due to the production method of processing the boards under pressure. At the same time, plywood has the added risk of the veneers that make up the multi-layered structure of the boards detaching, particularly those on the faces of the boards, as they are more exposed to direct exchanges with the environment.28 Lozza told me that he often had to replace the coplanar planes due to these kinds of problems as well as deformations of the panels. It led him to becoming more attentive when he saw people discarding pieces of seasoned wood from old furniture in the streets. Lozza

During this period, the most commonly used plywood was 5 mm thick. According to his own account, Lozza cut each plane with a handsaw,29 sealed them with a wood sealer and hid the grain with spackling paste, sanding between coats. The final aesthetic of the planes would require this prior treatment since his colour, for which he used a mix of Rembrandt oil, enamel and industrial varnish, was applied in several layers that he polished with a pumice stone in water between coats to achieve a smooth, semimatte finish. 28

The planes of Raúl Lozza’s coplanar work, N° 30 (1946, Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection, donated to MoMA via the Latin American and Caribbean Fund) present the issue of cracks in the grains of the wood on the outside face, as well as significant lifting.

Although Lozza has shown me the handsaw he uses and which appears in some press pictures, it is hard to believe that he could have used such a rustic tool to make the highly precise cuts needed to define the perimeters of his works.

The first of his polished enamels date back to 1945. In his search for an ideal surface, he came to this technique after experimenting with acids, which he immediately discarded as an alternative because of their corrosive effect on the colour. The totally neutral finish that he sought through this procedure was part of the conceptual musings with which he approached the issues involving colour in his works, and which he mentions repeatedly in his interview. While one might think that Lozza’s rigorousness in the gestation of his work and his management of colour would have allowed him to avoid pentimenti,I however, significant colour changes can be seen in many cross sections of his works, which could perhaps be due to reusing leftover planes to which colour had already been applied. Going forward, he would only use cardboard to design the final shapes, which he would then transfer to plywood for cutting. As is the case with many of the cutout frames from the 19451946 period that feature a grid dividing the colour planes, in Pintura N° 15, the grid line is made with a faced satin ribbon that is attached directly to the plane. X-ray imaging allow us to see the small wooden pegs that have been placed on the back of the work to separate it from the first portable support, with which it arrived at the museum; the design was undoubtedly strategic, so that the nails inserted from the front side would be hidden under the cotton ribbon. As an aside, I should point out that the practice of inserting nails from the front side to fasten the board to a wooden supporting frame, with the possible addition of hot glue, was very widespread when it came to constructing the portable wall panels and hardboard cutout frames of the period. Whether deliberately or unintentionally, Lozza’s use of the ribbon, delayed the oxidation of the metal in the nails, which transmits to the surface with time. Thus, many decades later, there has yet to be any evidence of corrosion on the nails, as shown in the X-ray

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images taken of the work. The common procedure of sinking the head of the nail and then covering it with different fillers has not proved to be a stable solution in any case; the material seems to only delay the oxidation of the metal, so that the chemical process advances slowly until it ultimately has obvious consequences for the painted surface, first, in the form of cracks that follow the shape of the nail head, and later, as cleavages.

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For his works in irregular formats, he used a series of different presentations, though the majority of his pieces are hung directly on the wall without any auxiliary support. Some works are mounted on a panel of the same material and shape as the piece itself but in a slightly larger size, thus acting as both a frame and a support. A photograph from his family archive shows the artist in front of Pintura Nº 15 as it was exhibited at the AACI show held at the Peuser gallery in 1946. When the piece entered the Museo Moderno collection in 1968, the artist had mounted it on a rectangular portable wall in a medium grey, signed on the front at the lower right, “Raúl Lozza 1945”. This is very unusual for his works, as he generally dates his pieces on the back. The panel may have been used more as a means of protecting the fragile work during its transfer to the museum, as the portable wall had been designed as a support for the coplanars due to the impact the colour of the wall had on the colours of the work. In 1997, on the eve of his solo show at the Museo Moderno, the artist requested the work be removed from the background. Since then, it has been continued to be exhibited without it, though the portable wall, which shows the phantom contour of the cutout frame it supported for so many years, has been preserved separately. In others of his cutout frames, the different colour planes are individually prepared and arranged on an auxiliary support that copies the shape of the perimeter, separated from the work by a space that acts like the dividing line of a grid, for example in the case of Pintura Nº 72 (Museo Sivori collection), another of the

works that was included in the exhibition at the Peuser gallery, as attested by the author in a handwritten label on the back. Many researchers who visit the Museo Moderno are surprised to see the freshness of the colour in Pintura Nº 15; in my opinion, this may be related to the polishing technique he used, which frees the surface from a large portion of the binders and varnishes that may be included in the pictorial layer and are responsible for the yellowing process that occurs with age. The degradation of the pigment is more closely tied to photodeterioration, to which the general response is a loss of saturation and the value of the initial hues. It should be noted that it seems to have been Lozza’s absolutely outside of the box thinking that helped him arrive at this technical solution, as it is hard to believe that in Buenos Aires in the mid1940s he would have had access to information on the materials and techniques of the European avant-garde, considering information on the materials is still very poor, erroneous or non-existent in the books and catalogues that are published today. A contemporary precedent for the procedure can be found in a single figure, the Belgian artist Georges Vantongerloo, who shares Lozza’s scientific approach to art, wherein both worked to link science and aesthetics based on the dichotomy between rigour and freedom. In 1938, Georges Vantongerloo abandoned the orthogonality of Neoplasticism and began to incorporate curves and fine undulating strokes of primary colours against a polished white background into his works, which seem to respond to gravitational centres. Two valuable examples from this period that are part of the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires collection are Formes dites irrationnelles, 1942, polished enamel on plywood,30 and Attraction répulsion, 30

Unfortunately, all of the polished white has been covered with overpainting executed with a brush. The Library of the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires contains a very simple typewritten receipt for a contract between Víctor Magariños and Ignacio Pirovano commissioning the restoration of two paintings by Vantogerloo that belong to the collection; however, which two works were not specified. Ignacio Pirovano Documentary Collection, Folder No. 71 [Source: María Amalia García].

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1946,31 polished enamel on 5 mm hardboard. He executed the latter work on the textured side of the board, covering the weave with layers of oil paint, which he then polished until it looked, as Juan Melé said, “like porcelain”. It should be recalled that together with Vardánega, Melé visited the Belgian master in his Paris studio on 1 November 1948, where they could certainly have seen these pieces that are now housed in the museum. During our encounters, when I asked Melé about Vantongerloo’s execution techniques, he replied, “His surfaces were enamelled, like porcelain. He worked by loading them with a large amount of colour which he applied with a palette knife, large tubes of white artists’ oils, which he would then sand with waterproof sandpaper. His surfaces were highly polished. Then, on that surface, he would draw lines of pure colours.” As for the last point, his brief description and lack of detail is perhaps owing to the fact that it was not the thing that most interested him about Vantongerloo. Vardánega seems to have been more attentive, as Melé continued, “[…] Vardánega was more interested in it than I was. I was more finicky and thought these works were far removed from the Concrete ideal.” Attraction répulsion, from 1946, has a highly dynamic composition that is based on fine undulating lines of pure colour on a polished white background where the texture of the hardboard shows through in parts. The lines of colour are executed over a very subtle groove made in the polished white background, a fact that was revealed only through high-definition photography, as it is invisible to the naked eye. These grooves likely originated from the movement of a sharp instrument tracing the edge of a mould used as a guide; even the central circle must have been executed this way, given that beyond certain irregularities in the tracing, there is no trace of the inevitable mark left by a compass, which is discernible even when interventions are made to hide it. 31

Dr Ignacio Pirovano Collection. Donated by Josefina Pirovano de Mihura, 1980.

Back in Buenos Aires, Gregorio Vardánega turned to a similar technique in two works he executed on hardboard in 1950, both owned by the Museo Sívori of Buenos Aires, Aries o la línea melódica del radar [Aries or the Melodic Radar Line] and Desintegración cromática [Chromatic Disintegration]. The first consists of a generous white oil-based base layer that is polished, though with many imperfections. Over these, he executed a series of undulating arabesque curves that expand over the surface and were created using the same tracing technique with a sharp instrument guided by a mould. The grooves were then retouched in black. The eight small planes of colour that interact with the lines are defined by a straight edged perimetral line, a common device in Concretism and part of its aspiration to formal purity, as can be seen in other examples, such as Composición serial [Serial Composition], by Lidy Prati (1948, Malba collection), and Composición Nº 130,32 by Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart33 (1941, Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires).

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Melé

Though Melé states in his interview that plywood was used for the panels, this may be a simple misunderstanding or an inadvertent mistake by the artist, since it has almost certainly never been used in medium or large formats due to its tendency to warp and the consequent cracks that open along the grain. The most suitable material for the purpose is hardboard, the same material used in Marco recortado Nº 2 [Cutout Frame No. 2] (MoMA collection)34 and Marco recortado Nº 3 (Museo Sívori), 32

Dr Ignacio Pirovano Collection. Donated by Josefina Pirovano de Mihura, 1980.

This work was incorporated into the Pirovano collection on the advice of Tomás Maldonado, who collaborated with the collector in selecting a number of works that reflected the development of international abstract art. María Amalia García, “Legado Pirovano”, in La colección Pirovano en el Moderno, Buenos Aires, Museo Moderno, 2017, p. 112.

Gift of Patricia Phelps de Cisneros through the Latin American and Caribbean Fund.

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both of which are reinforced on the back with a very rudimentary support frame that is of little use to preserve the plane. The application of the colour in the work belonging to the Sívori is not uniform and shows signs of light impasto that allows the brushstroke to be visible in the texture, as is characteristic of oil paintings. The wide black lines are overlayed, almost like a physical grid, as a means of defining each plane. It should be recalled that Melé, likely influenced by Neoplasticism and his contact with the members of the AACI, was still perfecting his working technique, a process that at first saw him cast aside the rich impastos of his post-cubist period, which he had learned during his academic education. Despite assuring me during our encounters that until adopting acrylics in the mid-1970s, he had only ever used artist oil paints as his colour material, seven of the nine samples we analysed from Marco recortado N° 3 showed the use of alkyd resin,I possibly added to the oil as an additive. As for Manuel Espinosa, despite the unfortunate loss of almost all of his work from the Inventionist period due to an event that occurred in his studio after returning from his first trip to Europe, some examples of his work appear in the pages of the AACI magazine and show his own approach to the irregular format. One of the works contains a new feature, the perforation of the plane, in which two openings in the shape of irregular triangles appear to tilt at their upper vertices towards the centre of the visual field. The work is very similar in format and proposal to the reconstructed cutout frame owned by the Museo Sívori, signed and dated on the back in red marker, “Manuel Espinosa 1945/73”.35

In the 1970s, Espinosa signed his works on canvas with the same red marker. It should be added that this particular cutout frame is executed on 8 mm fibreboard, a material that came onto the market decades after the initial Inventionist works appeared.

The coplanars

The development of the irregular format enhanced the role of the space surrounding the work of art. At the next stage, it would become involved in the compositional structure of the work, separating the planes while maintaining their relational unity. Raúl Lozza and Alberto Molenberg were the first to present this variant of the irregular format, which would come to be widely used by the Inventionists, one example being Molenberg’s work, Función blanca. At first, different connection systems were used so the coplanars could hang directly on the gallery wall. These included thick wire, metal, or wooden rods, and, later, because of their visual weight, the artists would begin to use an acrylic sheet. These would be mounted using a series of small wooden dowels attached to the back of the planes. Different photographic and press archives from the time show a series of coplanars,36 the majority of which have since disappeared, and in which it is impossible at first glance to make any sense of the compositional relationship between the different planes that make up the open structures. Molenberg says – and I believe the approach was shared by the group – that he worked with the forms intuitively, until he found a formal and structural arrangement that he liked, which he then mounted on the final support. Certainly, in those first outings, the compositional arrangement seemed only to seek a prudent distribution and separation between the different planes, in such a way that the internal space they contained would not sever the relationship between them.37 In Función blanca, the artist makes use of the linear continuities between the planes to provide the entire work with an impressive structural solidity. It 36

A coplanar by Espinosa consisting of three planes, and another by Hlito, with eight planes, are used to illustrate an article written by Romualdo Brughetti in the magazine Cabalgata, No. 4, November 9, 1946.

“[…] from our point of view, it was about the relationship of free forms in space, united only by the visual connections of their compositional structure […]”. Juan N. Melé, op. cit., p. 109.

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is perhaps the only coplanar that clearly establishes the concept of partition and separation of a unit with an irregular perimeter. Contrary to the intuitive gestation of Función blanca, Lozza developed his own theory regarding the control of the colour field for which he adapted scientific principles and applied them to the extension, character, and context of each of the colours that appears in a work. Furthermore, in Lozza’s approach, the structure that gives rise to the formal progression of the work is, at first glance, imperceptible.38 On one of my many visits to his home, he pointed out a work that was hanging on one of the walls of the patio he used as his studio, a coplanar comprised of three pieces that were connected together by flat wooden rods. This was Nº 111, the first piece in which he applied his formal approach. The sketch for the work, in the possession of a local collector, includes a manuscript written by the author, the final lines of which read, “This is the first work I developed with an open structure concept. I repeat: it is original; unique”.39 He would systematise the application of his approach after leaving the AACI in 1947. On the subject, Adriana Lauria writes, “However, in his mind there was still another variable to consider, the spatial context in which the work develops; specifically, the colour of the wall on which the forms are installed. That year, he presented the issue to the Association, along with some ideas about how to solve it. The rest of the members did not share his opinion and, with time, they returned to the quadrangular frame. Coupled with a conflict of a personal nature, this led to Lozza quitting the Association”.40

See: María Cecilia Tomasini, Una revisión de la relación arte-ciencia en la obra de Raúl Lozza, Talleres Gráficos Córdoba (with the support of Centro Cultural Borges), 2002.

A sketch and manuscript by Lozza, in the possession of painter and collector Carlos Malvestiti, are dated 1946. However, the work is reproduced in the magazine Perceptismo, No. 7, where it is dated 1948.

Adriana Lauria, “Cronología biográfica y artística”, in Raúl Lozza, retrospectiva 1939 – 1997, Buenos Aires, Museo de Arte Moderno, 1997, p. 21.

The portable wall

The idea of the portable wall (a panel made of hardboard, reinforced with a supporting frame of wooden slats) allowed the artist greater control of the colour relationships between the coplanar and the background, while facilitating its portability and protecting the fragile planes. “Since his paintings are made for a wall, a specific wall, he has had to frame up ‘pieces of wall’ with their corresponding paintings in order to display them to the public. That is the incidental reason for why his paintings appear to have incidental frames. It is not his painting that is being framed, but rather the ‘piece of wall’”.41 The Museo Moderno has two of Raúl Lozza’s coplanar paintings in its collection, Síntesis mural Nº 310 [Mural Synthesis No. 310] (1953) and Pintura Nº 171 [Painting No. 171] (1948, exhibited at the Argentina pavilion of the 1953 São Paulo Biennial), as well as the original sketch for the structure, which is drawn on thick kraft paper and displays the list of colours with their respective colour codes for both the planes and the wall. The typical plywood planes are painted with a mix of oil paint and polished synthetic enamel.I They remain in a good state of conservation, though they exhibit the same transparency that all painted surfaces begin to show with age.II In a few cases, the white portable walls were replaced by new acrylic panels made years later; this was in response to the personal motivations of the collectors and was carried out in agreement with the artist, as in the case of Molenberg’s Función blanca and Melé’s coplanar N° 15.42 As can be seen in the photographs of the work that appear in the AACI magazine, Función blanca was held together by wooden rods and then mounted on 41

Abraham Haber, “Raúl Lozza pintor”, in Revista Perceptismo, No. 7, Buenos Aires, 1953.

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in 2013, on loan from the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros. The description of the work provided by the museum states that it is oil on pieces of wood, anchored in methacrylate.

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a portable wall of a colour which, according to the artist, turned somewhat “lilac” due to deterioration.43 Composición44, also by Molenberg and created in the same year, 1946, is a piece made of wood mounted on glass, a coplanar format which the artist called “Mondrianesque” in his interview. Orthogonal in composition, it is comprised of right-angled geometric figures made in wood and painted in a typical Neoplasticist palette of primary colours plus white, with black stripes for the linear shapes. With the exception of the small red square, the planes extend beyond the boundaries of the glass support. In 1980, prior to the exhibition organised by Professor Perazzo at the Museo Sívori, my friend Julio Flores, a visual artist and teacher, had the opportunity to establish a relationship with Molenberg as a result of a neighbourhood show in which the artist presented two works, one of which was Composición.III Flores shared with me that the planes of the piece had simply been affixed to the glass support, which had later cracked. And so, at Molenberg’s request, Flores collaborated in ordering a new glass pane so that the piece could be reconstructed in time for the exhibition. Current images of the reverse side of the planes45 show they are now mounted to the glass using through bolts, and the remains of the adhesive used for the original mount can still be seen on the back of each of the planes. Following this brief experiment with coplanars in 1946, Melé would produce a series of works over the next two years which he would term “reliefs” or “structures”; these works were also derived 43

According to Melé, the new blue background was made for the show at the Arte Nuevo gallery, Homenaje a la vanguardia argentina de la década del cuarenta, curated by Nelly Perazzo. Juan N. Melé, La vanguardia del 40. Memorias de un artista concreto, Buenos Aires, Ediciones Cinco, 1999, p. 133.

Composición, 1946. Gift of Patricia Phelps de Cisneros to MoMA New York in 2016, through the Latin American and Caribbean Fund, in honour of Eva Luisa GriffinCisneros. The work was purchased from the César Aché Gallery in Rio de Janeiro, as Molenberg recounts in his interview.

Kindly shared by Pia Gottschaller. Getty Conservation Institute.

from the coplanar format, though they lacked the compositional dynamic of those paintings. These compositions were more closely related to his gouaches on canvas of those years, in which the portable wall device allowed him to incorporate small planes and lines in a structure dominated by perpendicularity. They are works that have been made using the same material structure as his first coplanars, that is, plywood planes painted with primary colours that have barely been modified, mounted on a background that is always white. The artist has acknowledged repainting the background at a later date in order to maintain a plane that is free of visual noise and to allow for a clean reading of the composition, as is the case of Relieve 33 [Relief 33] and Construcción 37 [Construction 37], both from 1948. In these works, he began to project the planes from the background support and play with different heights, which resulted in a fledgling use of overlaps. Relieve (1948, Malba collection), a work by the artist’s great friend and partner Gregorio Vardánega, also derives from the coplanar format and is similar in composition and materiality to Melé’s works of the same year. The portable support is made of a panel which, like the smaller planes of the work, appears to be of plywood.46 The artist also makes a novel use of glass, seeking to sustain the discourse of the coloured line in space, in a similar manner to Melé’s earlier work, Colores en el espacio real [Colours in Real Space] (1947, Museo Sívori). The glass runs through the piece from top to bottom, floating approximately 5 cm away from the support.47 The pictorial layer of both the smaller planes and the background support is very rich in terms of the load and texture of the brushwork, and 46

Although the work was included in our research into Concrete Art in Argentina and Brazil, samples were not taken from it and therefore we have been unable to use organoleptic examinations to determine the nature of the support with certainty. The work entered the Malba collection through an acquisition from the Swiss collector, Von Bartha.

In his interview, Melé remarks on both the mishap that occurred with the original glass when it was part of the Von Bartha collection and on the solution adopted to remedy the situation.

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exhibits widespread cracking.IV Furthermore, the aforementioned issues that arise from the practice of inserting nails from the front side to fasten the panel are very evident in this piece. The support presents a very significant amount of deformation due to the sensitivity of the material to fluctuations in humidity. These are accentuated by its size, 74.6 cm x 52.7 cm, considerably larger than those typically made with this material. The return to a regular format

The rich Del Prete–Yente documentary archive48 includes black and white photographs of the First New Art Salon, held in 1947 at the Kraft Gallery. The show included different expressions that ranged from the abstract to the figurative, created by the new generation of artists. At the exhibition, alongside works by Del Prete and Yente and the aforementioned Composición by Alberto Molenberg, were pieces by Maldonado, Prati and Melé that illustrated the model they adopted following the rupture that opened at the heart of the AACI over the use of the irregular frame and the coplanar, and which showed a clear association with orthogonal Neoplasticism and, in particular, with the works of Vantongerloo from the 1930s. “The AACI began to fall apart around 1947. New investigations and contacts signalled the new pursuits of several members of the group. In this regard, Raúl Lozza’s separation [from the group] marked a deep split within the Association. From that moment onwards, a new formation can be detected within the AACI, involving the artists Claudio Girola, Alfredo Hlito, Enio Iommi, Maldonado and Prati. Around 1948, this quintet began to rethink the investigations they had carried out up to that point, inspired by different kinds of changes. From an aesthetic point of view, the abandonment of the cutout frame and the return to the regular format in 48

Courtesy Liliana Crenovich.

painting were the most significant transformations.” 49 In 1948, the European diaspora helped artists enter into direct contact with some of the founding figures of abstraction, whose works and ideas, known to them through the pages of different publications, had guided them from a distance. Tomás Maldonado, for instance, was able to establish contacts with concrete artists in Italy, Switzerland and France, of whom Vantongerloo and Max Bill were the most vital in terms of his career on the old continent and the evolution of Argentinian concretism. He would gradually shift towards design and teaching work50 prior to abandoning painting for many years beginning in the mid-1950s. Hlito would only get to Europe in 1953. By the time he was able to see those works first hand,51 his Buenos Aires output had already achieved a high level of technical refinement. The Museo Moderno collection holds important works by both artists from the 1950s in the form of oil paintings on commercially-prepared canvas stretchers in regular orthogonal format. In the case of the work by Hlito, he applied the colour with such a degree of delicacy that he was able to produce a plane free of any kind of visual noise or texture. He then used a mechanical ruling penI to trace the pure line that interacts with the background, as well as for the lines that mark the perimeters of each plane, which he then finished with a brush. He always began with a geometric sketch that he patiently drew to full scale. The stratigraphic cross-sectionsII of Estructura sobre verde [Structure

María Amalia García, Yente/Prati, catalogue, Buenos Aires, Malba, 2009, p. 89

In 1954, he was invited by Bill to teach at the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Ulm, Germany, where he remained until 1967.

“I also realised that Mondrian’s painting was not as I believed it to be, that he worked very hard on each piece; I saw that his white backgrounds – which I believed had been painted without mishap – had black lines that were in fact grooves”. Alfredo Hlito, Escritos sobre arte, Buenos Aires, Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes, 1995, pp. 205-206.

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on Green]52 allows us to observe the different overlapping layers of opaque, uniform green that extend as a background over which a line flows as almost the only motif. The work is in a good state of conservation; it presents the generalised cracking that is typical of an oil on canvas and which has resulted in a minimal loss of colour. UV-induced fluorescence photography reveals the interventions that have taken place in terms of the fixing and retouching of missing elements, as well as the uneven path taken by some of the cracks through the colour layer. The macrophotography of Forma y líneas en el plano [Shape and Lines in the Plane]53 allows us to observe the white lines of the composition in detail; though incredibly fine, they follow two straight lines that were executed with a ruling pen that created a minuscule groove so that a very fine brush could complete the final line. In addition, there is a line that was traced with a sharp tool on the background material while it was still soft, to correct the perimeter of the plane; this is one of several techniques employed by concrete artists in their obsession to achieve formal perfectionism. In both of these works by Hlito, the subtlety of the colour plane is achieved through the application of several coats of a diluted colour material, which both allows brush marks to be avoided and for the colour to flow from the ruling pen to the canvas without leaving any initial smudges, while having the ink load necessary to complete the desired path along the canvas in a horizontal direction. It is remarkable that despite the overlaps of colour, lines, and planes, everything appears to take place on a single layer of colour. In Maldonado’s work, the traces are less subtle, almost material. Azul con una estructura [Blue with a Structure]54 is an orthogonal composition in middle key tones with a wide range of 52

Oil on canvas, 1952, 50 × 100 cm. Dr Ignacio Pirovano Collection. Donated by Josefina Pirovano de Mihura, 1980.

Oil on canvas, 1953, 100 × 50 cm. Dr Ignacio Pirovano Collection. Donated by Josefina Pirovano de Mihura, 1980.

Oil on canvas, 1956-1957, 100 × 99.4 cm. Dr Ignacio Pirovano Collection. Donated by Josefina Pirovano de Mihura, 1980.

desaturated hues. The overlapping of layers due to modifications or changes of colour have created a complex laminar structure that over time has led to multiple cracks and some lifting. This perhaps suggests that the artist approached the work more intuitively in terms of the colour, and did not use a detailed sketch, which, in turn, suggests it was a process of affirmation and negation, similar to the pentimenti now visible to the naked eye in many antique works. In his interview, Manuel Espinosa, a close friend of both Maldonado and his wife Lidy Prati, said that the former used additives in his paints to accelerate the drying process and meet the pressing deadlines to show his works. Though Espinosa55 did not specify the nature of these additives, it is possible they were products that were regularly used by the group, such as varnishes and industrial enamels with good levelling, finishing, consistency and rapid drying properties. With time, these materials render the pictorial layer less elastic and thus less able to respond to the contractions and expansions of the canvas; this is perhaps the origin of the craquelure that can be seen in his works. Molenberg discussed the urgent nature of their work in those days, saying, “What happened, generally speaking, is that you hurried work for an exhibition; you had to exhibit on such and such a day, so you had to get it done and there wasn’t much time to work on it”. The works by Maldonado examined during our investigations do not show any signs of the use of mechanical tools for the definition of the planes and lines, nor is there evidence of adhesive tape56 55

When he saw the surprise on my face upon hearing such an interesting detail, Espinosa – an exquisite and refined man – reacted as if he had revealed the sins of a friend. He did comprehend that it was an important piece of information to be able to understand the effects taking place in the artworks.

The artist acknowledged he began using self-adhesive tape in 2000, but not during the heroic age of Concretism (between 1944 and 1948). He says this was because in his experience the only type that was available was incompatible with oil paint. From an unpublished interview with Tomás Maldonado by Pia Gottschaller, Milan, 11 December 2014. I express my appreciation to Pia Gottschaller for sharing the material.

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to define the edges, an unidentified technique in the first decade of the groups that emerged from the founding of Arturo. The original pencil lines used to trace the different planes on the primed canvas can be seen clearly, as can those that were drawn over top of the pictorial layer in an effort to correct the contrast. Una forma y series [A Form and Series],57 the other piece by Maldonado in the Museo Moderno collection, is executed in a similar manner though its constructivist proposal is very different, showing a series of parallel vertical lines accompanied by two diagonals, all of which is painted over a background consisting of two colour planes. Both Maldonado and Hlito worked on industrially-prepared canvasses. According to an inscription handwritten in graphite pencil on the stretcher – apparently in the artist’s own hand – Maldonado’s Azul con una estructura was painted in Ulm between 1956 and 1957. On the back of the canvas there is a stamp belonging to the art dealer “A. Schutzmann” and the label for a business “Kober” is affixed to the stretcher.58 After his meaningful time with the AACI, Manuel Espinosa left for Europe in 1951, hoping to come into direct contact with the works and artists of concrete abstraction. He followed an itinerary and agenda suggested by his friend Tomás Maldonado, who had been decisive in his joining the group. As Espinosa recounts, “I had a great friendship with Tomás Maldonado and his wife, Lidy Prati. You could say that it was him that led me to Concrete Art”. On the old continent, Espinosa’s encounters with Georges Vantongerloo, Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart, Max Bill, Bruno 57

Oil on canvas, 1953, 150 × 71 cm. Dr Ignacio Pirovano Collection. Donated by Josefina Pirovano de Mihura, 1980.

Composición 208, in the Cisneros collection, has the same stamp and label from the same stores, L. Kober of Neu-Ulm, Germany, and A. Schutzmann, near Munich [source: Pia Gottschaller]. See Pia Gottschaller, “Making Concrete Art”, in P. Gottschaller, A. Le Blanc, Z. Gilbert, T. Learner, A. Perchuk, Making Art Concrete: Works from Argentina and Brazil in the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Trust Publications, 2017, pp. 24-59.

Munari and Richard Lohse, among others, would be pivotal in the development of his work. Though he exhibited little during this period, he produced a series of works in tempera on paper59 in a rectangular format. In these, he re-established the dialogue between the figure and the background, concepts that Inventionism had set aside due to its understanding of the work as a self-referential unit. In these pieces, Espinosa anticipated the visual elements that would become part of his pictorial output on canvas: the circle, the square and the line, organised in kinetic configurations. The Museo Moderno owns four works produced by the artist during this period. One of these, Sin título [Untitled], in tempera on black paper (ca. 1950), shows four lines created by a succession of tiny circles of colour that appear to pivot around the point at which they intersect. The artist’s skill with a drawing compass is evident. He would go on to produce many of these compositions on canvas in the 1950s, generally in rectangular format and making use of traditional oil paints for his colour material. In this period, he would hide the natural textures of the industrially-produced60 canvas supports by applying several polished layers of paint to create a smooth surface on which the delicate interplay of his shapes and lines could take place. In terms of his execution technique, after applying the background colour with a brush, he often turned to a template system for the application of the pictorial colour over this uniform base,61 in a somewhat similar fashion to the technique used by Arden Quin for his first cutout frames. The compositions alternated between orthogonal arrangements in which he sometimes created a dialectic between the closed form and the sfumato,62 and more lively developments that included as 59

See: Cristina Rossi, catalogue, Manuel Espinosa, Antología sobre papel, Buenos Aires, Museo de Arte Moderno, 2003.

The only stamps I have been able to observe on the back of many of his stretchers belong to the well-known Argentinian company, Tandil.

Unrecorded communication with the artist.

We should recall his encounters in Paris with Vantongerloo, who used the same treatment

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their only visual element a modulated yet uniform curved line, like a fragmented circumference, in which he plays with juxtapositions that, in essence, suggest movement across a neutral background.63

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On his return from his second trip to Europe in 1967, he worked on a series of monochromes and polychromes in a square format where the circle appears as a repetitive motif. Unstable geometric configurations appear within a grid, arranged in a symmetrical structure and progressing from transparent to opaque, thus generating planes of different depths. Illetas (1967, oil on canvas, 150 × 150 cm, Museo Moderno collection) is representative of this period, during which time he worked on commercially-prepared canvasses and abandoned his process of the previous decade that consisted of covering the texture of the canvas with dense layers of stucco. He did, however, maintain the same system for the application of colour, always applying it in thin layers of varying degrees of transparency. Later, in the 1970s, he would continue to use a regular grid for his composition, but the square would become his new repetitive motif. In addition, he would only apply the transparent progressions to each motif that makes up the grid, as opposed to the movement between units seen in the works of the previous decade. Aazvere64 is one of the last works he executed in oil on canvas, this time in a rhomboidal format. He would soon switch to acrylics – the new medium taking the art industry by storm – when he was invited to take part in the show Projection et dynamisme. Six peintres argentins, at the end of the 1940s, as can be seen in works such as Fusée et taches, from 1948, or Radio-activité, from 1953. Lidy Prati makes use of sfumato in her work Referencia sensible de un espacio definido [Sensitive reference of a defined space], which features a freer approach to the composition. See: María Amalia García, Yente/Prati, catalogue, Buenos Aires, Malba, 2009, p. 91. 63

I have been lucky enough to have worked with most of his pieces from this period and can thus confirm that unlike his output from the 1960s and 1970s, where his signature and the identifying details of the pieces appear on the back in black or red marker, those from this period lack information of any kind.

Oil on canvas, 1972, 100 × 100 cm. Dr Ignacio Pirovano Collection. Donated by Josefina Pirovano de Mihura, 1980.

held at the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris in 1973, where he exhibited twelve large format artworks.65 Time constraints would force him to turn to the new aqueous medium that allowed him to overlay layers of colour in a short period of time. He remarked, “I began working with it, and it worked perfectly right from the start”.66 Though there are a few early works executed in acrylic that are classified as being locally made in the mid-1960s,67 in fact they are the product of acquisitions made during trips or grants for the study and development of Argentinian artists abroad, as Puente and Paternosto point out in their interviews. Acrylic production in Argentina would only begin in the mid-1970s and the polymer would be universally adopted due to its excellent elasticity and adhesiveness, which allow it to elongate and contract with the movements of the canvas without cracking, as well as its quick drying properties and the lack of restrictions on pigment mixtures that are so common with oil paints. Alejandro Puente and César Paternosto

Three years after my first meeting with Lozza at the museum studio in 1997, I welcomed César Paternosto, who came to visit in connection to the preparations for his solo exhibition at the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires,68 which would include the reconstruction of some of his missing works from the legendary show, La mirada oblicua [The Oblique Gaze], held at the Carmen Waugh gallery in 1971.I Paternosto had kept precise colour sketches of the works for this purpose. We set about the 65

According to Cristina Rossi, only nine of these works were executed in acrylic. Cristina Rossi, op. cit., p. 7.

Pino Monkes, Arte Concreto en el Río de La Plata: de los materiales al ideal concreto, Buenos Aires, Universidad Nacional de las Artes, 2008.

Adentro y afuera [Inside and Out] (1967, 199.5 × 199.5 cm), by Rómulo Macció, Museo de Arte Moderno collection, is one example.

La visión oblicua, held in 2001.

task in the large, well-lit studio space with the radio tuned to FM Tango. Inasmuch as the progress of his work allowed, we organised to have a chat, an invitation that a few days later would be extended to include his great friend Alejandro Puente, due to their synchronous relationship and approaches to the different junctures of international abstraction and its aesthetic/conceptual correlation with pre-Hispanic cultures. The aim of these encounters, like all of my encounters with the concrete artists, was to retrace and document the aesthetic and ideological pursuits that marked the development of their visual language, where they had so many points in common, as well as the way in which they have developed personal processes, tools and materials at each new stage. Puente and Paternosto are both self-taught, they had not followed the usual routes of an education in the fine arts. However, they had accumulated a solid theoretical background through auditing the classes of Professor Héctor Cartier on ‘Vision’, held at the Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes of the Universidad de La Plata69 between 1956 and 1965.70 It was the first national institution to include the fine arts in its academic programme. Professor Cartier’s classes emphasised visuality, and “the courses involved the theoretical and practical teaching of form and colour, and had been developed based on a translation of texts written by the Bauhaus, given to Professor Cartier by a priest”.71 The cycle of courses Professor Cartier offered at the institution coincided with the vertiginous growth of new proposals in the Argentinian milieu that would radically change the concept of the work of art and 69

The Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes was founded in 1924. In 1973, it became the Facultad de Artes y Medios Audiovisuales (Faculty of Arts and Audiovisual Media) and the following year, it adopted its current name, the Facultad de Bellas Artes (Faculty of Fine Arts). https://www.fba.unlp.edu.ar/

Paternosto attended between 1957 and 1960, while Puente attended between 1958 and 1962.

See: https://cesarpaternosto.com/index.html

the role of the viewer, who would become increasingly involved in the process. “[...] The institutional reforms that began in September 1955 were key to the development of the arts and cultural scene in Buenos Aires. The main purpose behind the creation of institutions to promote the arts was to provide exhibition spaces, such as the Museo de Arte Moderno, as well as material resources for artists through the Fondo Nacional de las Artes. The creation of the museum and the momentum of its first director Rafael Squirru and his collaborators are evidence of the sense of renewal the new provisional government hoped to project through all of its policies. It was a theme that was then adopted by the government of the president-elect, Dr Arturo Frondizi, who expanded both the economic and cultural modernisation policies with a programme fuelled by developmentalist views.72 In November 1960, in the generous space of the Teatro General San Martín, the Museo de Arte Moderno inaugurated the Primera Exposición Internacional de Arte Moderno [First International Exhibition of Modern Art], organised by the creator and director of the museum, Rafael Squirru. The exhibition sought to update and position local output in the international context, creating a dialogue between Argentinian artists and the important figures of the European and North American avant-garde who were active in Abstract Expressionism and Informalism, such as Jean Fautrier, Pierre Soulages, Franz Kline, William de Kooning, Jackson Pollock and Antoni Tàpies. That same year, the Di Tella collection produced an exhibition of important Informalist works at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, and the following year, it organised 4 evidencias de un mundo joven en al arte actual [4 Pieces of Evidence of a Young World in the Art of 72

Sofía Dourron, “El Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires: 1956-1960. Cuatro años de fantasmagoría”, Materia Artística, Revista de la Escuela de Bellas Artes de la Universidad Nacional de Rosario, No. 1, 2015.

Today], held once again at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes and featuring a solo exhibition of Antoni Tàpies.73 With origins in post-war Europe, InformalismII brought together a series of abstract tendencies with an ideology strongly linked to existentialism, a philosophical and literary trend that focused on the human condition and which was very popular at the time. Informalism was opposed to the concepts and clear formal identity presented by the hard lines of abstraction, and instead expressed itself through mechanisms based on the mark of the individual, on improvisation, material exuberance, chance and gesturalism. It found some degree of empathy and synchronicity with American Abstract Expressionism. By the end of the 1950s, local artists of all different trends had already adopted the poetics of Informalism and of abstraction, in all of its variants. In October 1957, the Pizarro Gallery held the exhibition 7 pintores abstractos [7 Abstract Painters]. The participating artists were Osvaldo Borda, Víctor Chab, Josefina Robirosa, Rómulo Macció, Martha Peluffo, Kazuya Sakai and Clorindo Testa, and their work showed a vitalistic or lyrical current dominated by the gesture and the symbolic line, and it could be understood as one of the first local references to the gestural and material abstraction of the Informalists. Then there was the brief but important contribution of a small collective of young artists whose only exhibition was held in November of the same year, at the Sociedad Estímulo de Bellas Artes, featuring their somewhat eclectic productions. That collective, today known as the San Isidro Group, consisted of Jorge López Anaya, Jorge Martín, Mario Valencia and Nicolás Rubió,III who joined the collective after the exhibition. Their activity was oriented towards Dada, Art Brut, Duchamp and the expressionist 73

“[...] the show actually consisted of four exhibitions (or pieces of evidence): it included part of the Di Tella’s collection of 20th century works; a selection of pieces that had participated in the painting prize organised by the same institution; and two solo exhibitions, one of Antoni Tàpies and the other of José Antonio Fernández Muro”. Isabel Plante, https://www.bellasartes.gob.ar/coleccion/obra/7992/.

gestural stroke, in reaction to all forms of abstract academicism and the conventions of good workmanship. They produced a series of works they called cosos (‘thingamajigs’) that were related to material accumulation, automation, collages of assorted and waste materials, and actions such as ripping, burning, tearing and perforating. IV Collages comprised of stained and worn rags and other waste materials were presented by Kenneth Kemble the following year at the 4th Salon of the New Art Association,74 held in April at the Pizarro Gallery and in November at the Van Riel Gallery. They marked a trend that would emerge on the Buenos Aires gallery circuit, at establishments such as Galatea, Antígona, Rubbers and Van Riel. The works of Towas (Tomás Monteleone), Mario Pucciarelli, Fernando Maza and Luis Alberto Wells could be seen at solo and group shows, often sponsored by Rafael Squirru in his role as director of the Museo de Arte Moderno.75 The only two exhibitions of the Informal Movement were held in 1959; the first was at the Van Riel Gallery on 13 July, featuring Enrique Barilari, Alberto Greco, Kenneth Kemble, Olga López, Fernando Maza, Mario Pucciarelli, Towas and Luis Alberto Wells, and the second and final show was held in November at the Museo de Artes Plásticas Eduardo Sívori, with the support of the Museo de Arte Moderno and featuring the same artists plus the addition of the photographer Jorge Roiger. They employed a series of miscellaneous materials and diverse mechanisms of execution, such as involving the artist’s physicality in the dynamics of the broad gestural strokes; actions that took advantage of the mechanical properties of industrial enamels, such as drips and dribbles that forced the horizontality of the plane; and textured and uneven extensions of complex mixes of enamels and industrial varnishes that included powdered materials in the load. 74

In 1955, Carmelo Arden Quin and Aldo Pellegrini created the Asociación Arte Nuevo [New Art Association], which brought together independent abstract artists.

Jorge López Anaya, Informalismo, La vanguardia informalista, Buenos Aires 1957 – 1965, Buenos Aires, Ediciones Alberto Sendros, 2003, p. 27.

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Paternosto and Puente began to exhibit their works within this current as part of the Grupo Sí76 of the city of La Plata.77 In November 1960, the group was introduced to the society of La Plata at a show held at the Círculo de Periodistas with the support of the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires. Paternosto’s use of dense materiality was influenced by the Catalan artist Antoni Tàpies, while Puente would develop his own abstraction of a more vitalistic and gestural nature, linked to the Zen spirit of the first lyrical manifestations of abstraction, a theme Professor Cartier discussed in his classes. Two pieces from the period

Sin título, by César Paternosto (1960, 118 × 93 cm), and Pintura [Painting], by Alejandro Puente (1961, 195 × 172 cm), entered the collection of the Museo de Arte Moderno alongside many other pieces by the La Plata group, thanks to the efforts of Rafael Squirru. They are clear – and rare – examples from the period by both artists. The first piece – the artist ironically called it “pastón” (a bundle),I due to the weight of the mixture, applied horizontally – is executed on a cotton canvas (taffeta of 11 x 11 threads per cm2). He used a mixture of oil paint, marine varnish and painting paste, and included volcanic sand for the final texture. Although the cotton fabric does not seem sufficiently robust to support such a heavy load of material, the prominence of the thick pictorial layer has limited its movement in response to climatic changes, thus, sixty years after its creation, the work presents no risks. 76

At that time, the group included Carlos Pacheco, Dalmiro Sirabo, Horacio Elena, Omar Gancedo, Mario Stafforini, Alejandro Puente, Horacio Ramírez, Eduardo Panceira and Nelson Blanco. Cesar Paternosto, Carlos Sánchez Vacca, Roberto Rivas, César Blanco, Hugo Soubielle, Saúl Larralde, César Ambrossini, Antonio Trotta and Juan Antonio Sitro joined the group in later exhibitions.

See: Cristina Rossi, Grupo Sí – el informalismo platense de los ’60, Catalogue, La Plata, Secretaría de Cultura de La Plata, Centro Cultural Borges, 2001.

Some small cracks and microscopic losses of coloured material can be observed, and in the past decade new cracks have developed, revealing a shiny material that is likely elastic and hence its movements have caused the harder upper layer to crack. This application was undoubtedly in response to the well-known “fat over lean” principle recommended for the execution of the different layers of an oil painting.II Within this same type of practice, Paternosto produced a series of paintings that show an archaic symbolism influenced by his contact with the pre-Columbian art collection at the Museo de Ciencias Naturales in La Plata, and in particular, the ceramic figures of the La Aguada and Santa María cultures.78 Both Paternosto and Puente were fascinated from an early age by pre-Columbian culture, which, at that time, was almost completely absent from the country’s educational curriculum, even in the context of the fine arts. Puente’s work, Pintura, in oil and painting pasteIII on canvas, mounted on a fixed support frame built by the artist himself, has a neutral background over which he executed a pair of energetic strokes in the form of signs. The support is a coarsely woven juteIV fabric (taffeta of 5 x 5 threads per cm2) with a very open weft. The white ground presents a large number of holes between the warp and weft threads due to the poor coating of the material during the original preparation. As Puente recounts in his interview, the first background was executed using diluted painting paste applied with 78

The Aguada people made the greatest contribution to agro-pottery cultures in Northwest Argentina. They emerged around 650 A.D. from the Ciénaga and Condorhuasi cultures and their interrelation with other societies of the ArgentinianChilean-Bolivian altiplano; together they are referred to as the “Barreales” cultures, barreales being the local term for the alluvial lands on which they settled. Around the year 900, the Aguada disappeared as a cultural entity, although part of its legacy can be recognised in later cultures, such as those of Belén and Santa María. The people of the Santa María culture settled in the Yocavil or Santa María valleys of Cajón (Catamarca) and Calchaquí (Salta) around the year 1000, and their lands stretched as far as the snow-capped Acay, spreading the magnificence of agro-pottery culture through northwestern Argentina.

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a paintbrush in loose, broad brushstrokes. The “signs” or strokes that are the main motif of the work were executed in oil; the black, white and red paints were first squeezed directly onto the canvas from the tube and then he attacked this accumulation of material with a quick gesture that swept it downward. I still remember how we laughed during the interview when he demonstrated that gesture for me, executing the downward motion in the air. The work is in a very good state of conservation. Only a few cracks have developed in the red and there is also some slight liftingV at the edges of the black strokes, evidence of that particular hardness and tendency to retract with age that is so typical of bone black oil paints.VI These have been retouched according to traditional easel painting relaxation and re-adhesion procedures. Many of the typical problems that present in Informalist works derive from the imbalances generated by the weight of their generous yet uneven materiality, how it is distributed on the plane, and the tension it exerts on a support such as canvas, which does not always have the structural strength necessary to neutralise these effects. In cases where there is good adhesion between the pictorial layer and the support, the tensile forces of the material loads prevail and almost irreversibly warp the canvas support, since traditional attempts at correction are not only ineffective but ultimately alter the marks or textures left by the brushstrokes by softening them. The diversity of the surface qualities or finishes (matte, glossy or satin) generated by the mixing and overlapping of multiple materials is characteristic of the period and should not be cancelled out by the usual and automatic final varnishing. It could also be argued, obvious as it may seem, that the deterioration of an Informalist work does not have the same visual impact as it does in a geometric or concrete piece. Generally speaking, it has less impact on our contemplation of the work. In fact, in addition to using materials that were less physically and

chemically stable, some of the practices of the period included damaging the surfaces through perforations, lacerations, burns and abrasions, as further expressive elements in the piece.79 Towards a new geometry

Once their brief Informalist experiments were over, both artists began to purify their visual language, taking on a type of “humanised” geometry that, in Puente’s words, was far removed from the rigours of concrete art but maintained some of the style of the previous period. In Paternosto’s works, this was done by communicating material properties with the use of a palette knife, and combining it with collage. For Puente, it was through working with freer brushstrokes and allowing the colours to vibrate in such a way that the borders of the plane are diluted. The surrealist poet, playwright, and avant-garde art critic Aldo Pellegrini was interested in their work and would speak of the new abstraction emerging in Argentina as Sensitive Geometry.80 In 1964, Pellegrini wrote the preface for the exhibition, Paternosto-Puente, la nueva geometría [Paternosto-Puente, the New Geometry], held in separate rooms of the Galería Lirolay in Buenos Aires.Though the exhibition positioned them within a sensitised version of abstraction, 79

In 1967, Federico Peralta Ramos presented a series of works at the Vignes gallery that included a formidable amount of impasto using active materials: “[…] I make a mountain of chalk. And I throw in castor oil and buckets of paint, and I make a gigantic, immense dough, like a bakery. And when it’s well kneaded, you get these paint balls that go ‘pop, pop’ And then I stick them on the wood”. From the artist, in “El enemigo nº 1 de la copa Melba”, Primera Plana, Buenos Aires, 31 October 1967.

“They provide us with a new aspect of visual art that could be given the name ‘Sensitive Geometry’. These painters counter the apathy, hardness, and impersonal nature of the geometry of traditional concrete art with a personal geometry in which the imprint of the creator – his particular sensibility – leaves its mark. The geometric figure ceases to be an active element and becomes nothing more than a passive support, a truly neutral stage, so to speak, on which the real characters of the painting – colour and texture – perform”. Aldo Pellegrini, from the catalogue for the exhibition Paternosto-Puente, la nueva geometría, Buenos Aires, Galería Lirolay, 1964.

the artists ‒ who were also attentive to the developments of the international avant-garde ‒ moved towards an approach that involved greater definition and formal elementariness, in synchrony with the New Abstraction trend prevalent around the same time in the United States, which emerged as a reaction against the material accumulation and gesturalism of Informalism and Abstract Expressionism. Using a highly formal planimetry, Puente and Paternosto would give prominence to perceptual and chromatic aspects, which they would then use to create a conceptual link with the symbolic abstraction of pre-Hispanic cultures. Paternosto would briefly experiment with collage, creating interactions between circles of metallic paper (which he called “magic balls”) and the texture of oil paint. This would be followed by a period in which he developed geometric works in a larger format, consisting of undulating bands drawn with the help of both a regular and a beam compass, and using colours in what the artist describes as an “atonal” key. Climax III (180 × 180 cm, 1965), in the collection of the Museo Provincial de Bellas Artes de La Plata Emilio Pettoruti, is a good example of his work from this period. He developed this series over the course of that year and part of the next, using commercially-prepared canvasses and adding a matte industrial enamel to traditional oil paint. This not only neutralised the natural gloss of the oil paint but also contributed levelling properties, characteristic of this natural binder, which reduced the imprint left by the brush. The velvet-like quality results in a surface finish similar to that of the works of Ad Reinhardt,81 which is the result of the partial extraction of the oil from the oil paint. It is also evidence of another aesthetic link that Puente and Paternosto have shared throughout their careers, that is, an affinity for a matte finish. 81

Adolph Dietmar Friedrich Reinhardt (Buffalo, 1913 - New York, 1967).

Puente was seduced by the aesthetics of colour very early on, almost by chance, when he visited Carlos Pacheco’s studio in Gonnet (La Plata). As he watched Pacheco, a fellow member of Grupo Sí, prepare a canvas in a device the artist has built for the purpose, Puente noted how the thinner and binder were absorbed by the support. As opposed to traditional paint, where the pigment is suspended in a translucent medium that adds its own aesthetic value, with the absorbed colour, he saw that they acquired an appearance similar to dry pigment, free of gloss, to which the artist would attribute an ethical meaning. Furthermore, it could be said that by reducing the proportion of oil in the preparation of the material, the cohesion of the final film is also reduced, leaving the particles of pigment less protected and more prone to detaching. Going forward, Puente would continue to use these finishes throughout his career, as there are only a few works in which the colour is a regular, stand-alone film of a certain consistency overlaying the preparatory layer. In this period, Puente executed works in regular formats, alternating individual works for related sets of canvas frames that hang on the wall in orthogonal compositions, always using the floor of the gallery as a secondary support for some of the canvasses, thus creating a work that gives viewers an active role, wherein they are forced to move around the space in order to have a complete visual experience. His articulated works from 1966 express this concept of projecting into the environment and relate to the idea of primary structures at play; they are “[...] visual structures, chromatic objects that in their approximation to minimal art announce the conceptual approaches of the 1970s”.82 The articulated works are composed of industrial canvas frames made by the artist himself, wherein he joined the canvasses 82

María José Herrera, “Alejandro Puente, geometría sensible”, in CAIA, 3as. Jornadas de teoría e historia del arte, 1990. p. 207.

mounted to the wall and those displayed on the floor using small, specially made metal parts and mounting accessories. An innovation of note are the central frames, which are positioned perpendicularly to the wall and are lined on either side with a light sheet of canvas. The flat, uniform colour is applied in thin layers of oil paint that adapt to the topography of the canvas fibres, enabling it to communicate its perceptive qualities. Meanwhile Paternosto’s works, with their robust and complex canvasses that alternate straight sides, curves and rounded corners, are more similar to the American shaped canvas, which, paradoxically, had a local predecessor that was little known outside of the Latin American sphere, and which both artists had responded to with a more humanised aesthetic: the cutout frame presented in Arturo magazine, in the summer of 1944. The chosen support for this new phase of work would be an industrial canvas83 that he would mount unprimed to a support, as this would facilitate the resolution of the folds for the convex or concave sides. He would then seal it with a weak solution of vinyl glue, which would protect the canvas fibres from the degradation caused by the fatty acids in the oil paint and enamel,84 and yet be lean enough to allow the fabric to incorporate a good level of colour absorption. Salvador Stringa, a painter and restorer at the Museo Provincial de Bellas Artes de La Plata Emilio Pettoruti – the museum carries the name of one of its former directors – explained to Puente that this same technique resulted in a series of perforations in a work by Miguel Carlos Victorica, which had also been executed on raw canvas. The colour practices of these artists from La Plata break with the traditional scheme of easel painting, which is understood as a structure comprised of a pictorial layer consisting of one or 83

A raw canvas, known as ‘Cabeza de toro’ or bull’s head, 10 oz. in weight, from the Alpargatas company.

The series was painted in oil and just one work, Planiformas en azul y ocre [Planiforms in blue and ochre] (1966-67), was executed in acrylic following a trip to New York in April 1967, when he brought back a set of acrylic colours.

more layers of paint extended over a support; in this case, the support, priming layer and colour coexist on a single level of activity. In his introduction to the catalogue for the exhibition Nueve pintores contemporáneos de los Estados Unidos de América (Nine Contemporary Painters from the United States of America),85 held at the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires in 1965, Lawrence Alloway86 mentions three other artists who handled their colour material in a similar fashion: “Like Downing and Davis, Meyer employs a plastic paint that permeates the canvas rather than resting over top of it as a solid impasto […]. The properties of the plastic paint seen in the works of Tom Downing, Gene Davis and Mary Meyer, executed over raw, unprimed canvas, are clarity, smoothness, uniformity and permeation”.87 American artists of that time witnessed the introduction to the market of Magna,I a new, fast-drying acrylic resinII colour medium whose miscibility in alcohol and mineral spirits led many artists to make the switch from oil paint. “Magna paints came in tubes and had a similar consistency to oil paints […] they had a high pigment content and therefore could be thinned considerably without losing colour intensity, whereas diluted oils become translucent”.88 After five centuries of the almost exclusive reign of oil paint, this new binder would quickly lead to the development of acrylic polymer emulsions,III for the production of a new type of 85

The exhibition was the result of the Pan-American Union exhibitions exchange programme that sought to promote new North American visual artists in Latin America.

Lawrence Alloway (London, 1926 - New York, 1990): an American curator and art critic of English origin. He was curator at the Guggenheim Museum in New York between 1962 and 1966.

From that exhibition, the following works became part of the Museo de Arte Moderno’s collection: Inspiration, by Sam Gilliam (Magna on canvas, 143 x 143 cm), Helix, by Tom Downing (Magna on canvas, 137.5 x 137.5 cm), and Chartreuse, by Lowell Nesbitt (pastel on paper, 130 x 91 cm).

Phillip Ball, La invención del color [Bright Earth: The Invention of Colour], Madrid, Turner, 2004, p. 609.

water-miscible paint: acrylic. The same emulsion was used as the base for the production of gessoIV and modelling paste.V A trip to the United States in 1967 would introduce both artists to the medium, which was very ductile to handle and received widespread acceptance on the New York scene. It dries quickly and evenly, with practically no procedural restrictions. Its natural elasticity allows it to accompany the movements of the support without the appearance of the usual craquelure seen in oil paintings, which is due to the hardness they acquire as they age. The new product also allowed America Colour Field artists to work on unprimed canvasses, without the typical perimeter halo around the colour stain caused by the oily migration of the binder. It also allowed artists to circumvent some of the rules of preparation and execution that were required to achieve acceptable permanence in oil painting, such as using a medium-absorption support to ensure the colour is anchored, following the principle of fat over lean, or avoiding certain mixtures of pigments due to possible chemical reactions. Differences in the surface finish that are observed in oil paint once it has cured could also be avoided; these usually needed to be solved with either a retouching varnish before the work could be continued, or by simply applying a regular final varnish. A possible limitation in the use of the acrylic medium can be its incompatibility to mix or overlay with other materials, particularly those of an oily nature. In this regard, oil has historically demonstrated a good performance and compatibility with other media, both as a final coat over egg tempera bases as in mixtures with oleoresinsVI and, in the particular period addressed here, with the new synthetic media developed in the first half of the 20th century, thanks to the participation of fatty acids and drying oils.

Although the dyeing processes used with the textile supports in the1960s were considered practically the one and only structural problem, the considerable dilution of the coloured material for the impregnation of the canvas deprives the pigment of the necessary amount of binder for cohesion and adhesion, and thus it experiences some degree of solubility should it undergo a simple wet cleaning. César Paternosto’s Díptico II [Diptych II] (1966, oil on canvas, 217 × 278 cm installed), now in the collection of the MALBA, is a good example of his technique from the period.VII I had the opportunity to receive the two pieces that make up the diptych in my studio. They had been in storage for decades, rolled up together with other canvasses the artist had been removing from their stretchers for his imminent trip to New York, in November of 1967. Unfurled, the canvasses showed the not unexpected folds from their prolonged storage, as well as areas of oxidation of the canvas, which, due to the small amount of colour involved, had migrated to the front, causing slight discolouration. As the work presents an interaction of the lateral edges in continuity with the front plane, the system that fastened the textile to the robust stretcher continued onto the back of the same, which is why that part of the fabric was devoid of the meagre vinyl preparation that protected the fabric from the fatty acids of the oil paint and, thus, as a consequence, was more sensitive to degradation processes. Following the intervention,VIII a support frame was specially designed for this irregular format, which, unlike the original fixed stretchers – now lost – incorporates wedges for adjusting the tension as well as leveled edges on the bars. In addition to adjusting the perimeter of the stretcher frame to the outer measurements of the front of the work, there was the issue of being certain not to neglect the precise depth of the original side edges. This was of utmost importance in the experience of the work, and the laterals would soon become the focus of the artist’s

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attention in the next chapter of his output, when he would shift his interest and reflection to the side edges of the canvas. In 1969, two years after his arrival in New York, Paternosto tackled what he termed his obra de ruptura, or “ground-breaking piece”, in which he wiped the frontal plane clean of content in order to concentrate the entirety of his interest on the side edges. This makes it essential to maintain the depth of the stretcher in its original state and recover the orthogonality of the regular format, in order to empty it of interest and favour a lateral gaze, free of distractions. In this series89 – for both the individual pieces and those consisting of related panels – he would work in acrylic on commercially-prepared canvasses and, in a few cases, in watercolour pencils. For the first time, he would turn to adhesive tape to better define the perimeter of the geometric planes he developed on the side edges.IX From 1974 onwards, Paternosto would extend his compositions from the lateral to the frontal plane, in what he termed an “integral vision of the painted object”. He executed his works with the same materiality and in an earth tone colour palette, sometimes in monochrome, almost in anticipation of his next encounters with the productions of the ancestral cultures of the Andes in the north of Argentina, Bolivia and Peru, beginning in 1977. There, he would begin research that would culminate at the end of the following decade in the publication of his book, La piedra abstracta. La escultura inca, una visión contemporánea90 89

One interesting museographic detail from his show at the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires in 2001, when this series of works was displayed, is that a satin finish was chosen for the walls of the exhibition halls. It reflected the colour of the side edges of each piece, thus generating a certain visual disturbance reminiscent of the resources kinetic artist Luis Tomasello uses in his series of reflections, irrelevant in a regular work that presents a frontal discourse.

César Paternosto, La piedra abstracta. La escultura inca, una visión contemporánea, México-Buenos Aires, Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1989. The book was later expanded and translated to English in 1996.

[The Stone & The Thread: Andean Roots of Abstract Art] in which he analyses the aesthetics of Inca culture, focusing mainly on the geometric synthesis of its monumental sculpture. These encounters would have an enormous influence on his output. Though already implicit or latent in his own works, from that ancient symbolic geometry, he would recover compositional elements such as formal reduction, silence, orthogonality, monochrome earth tones and greys, and rich textures. These were all characteristic features that were fundamental to the initial affectionate, professional and aesthetic links Paternosto had with Alejandro Puente, though the latter was more focused on the gesture and on a material lightness that enabled an expressive dialogue with the support material and which, in addition, reveals the process of elaboration, what we in the field of visual perception call the “tactile dimension”. In fact, of all those interviewed for this book, Puente was the one who most emphasised the importance of a matte finish and the sensitivity of the underlying layer, using terms such as “lo seco” (the dry or matte), “teñir” (to dye) and “lo táctil” (the tactile). The works that fall into this tactile dimension include: Pintura [Painting], (1961, Museo Moderno), executed on a poorly prepared burlap, covered only in part by a few gestural strokes; Fugaz [Fleeting] (1961, private collection); Quipu (1971, private collection), with its cotton support and executed using an application process that borders on garment dyeing ; Mancapa (1979, Museo Moderno); Auca (1990), on fibreboard, made with a mix of different fibres; Ñanquín (1987), a colour cork plate; and three works that arose from his encounter with pre-Hispanic feather cloaks. On their surfaces, all of these pieces externalise what Puente felt was “an incentive to tactile communication […] there is almost an impulse to grasp it, to touch it”. Before leaving for New York in 1968, he had already oriented his output towards a concept of systems and modular structures that

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allowed him to present chromatic developments referring back to the ideas addressed in Professor Cartier’s classes. “[…] He would devote the following three years to working with colour, analysing and manipulating the possibilities in order to give concrete form to different concepts. He tested ideas on canvas in works such as Secundarios llevados al blanco [Secondaries Brought Up to White] (1968) and even extended his reflections into three-dimensional structures with executions such as Sistemas cromáticos [Chromatic Structures] (1968), where he returns to the use of a series of L-shaped structures (at a reduced size), positioning them according to the chosen colour progression for each work. These studies were accompanied by graphical drawings he used to explain the chromatic language of each particular piece.”91 Procedural mechanisms appear in these developments, where he ordered primary and secondary colours in degrees of saturation, that were unseen in his earlier output and that are more closely related to the conceptualism of the New York scene, where he worked between 1968 and 1971. In 1970, these productions led to an invitation from Kynaston McShine to participate in the exhibition, Information, held at the MoMA in New York. Here he presented his work Everything goes, in which he arranges canvasses that have been removed from their frames on a white table, alongside L-shaped metal plates, jars filled with liquid paints and boxes filled with powdered pigments. They are all in primary and secondary colours, displayed in an order progressing to white and accompanied by an informative panel that explains how the system works. Just as Paternosto recognized that the oblique gaze was a limited art that was difficult to sustain over time, Marchesi believes this approach “placed Puente at a crossroads: was it possible to go any further in this direction? As with most proposals linked to tautological conceptualism, which reflects on language itself, 91

Mariana Marchesi, catalogue Alejandro Puente, abstracción y tradición americana”, Buenos Aires, Fundación OSDE, 2015, p. 26.

the reduction to a minimum unit of expression presented a boundary”.92 On my visits to his studio, among the many finished canvasses and works in progress, I was able to see one that was a tribute to the Russian composer Alexander Scriabin (1970), which showed the new direction his work would take in the face of that dilemma, influenced by his encounter with Andean textiles at a show in New York: “[…] the challenge Puente set himself was how to give concrete form to the aesthetic link between the visual language of modernity – which he had employed up to that moment – and the ‘social system’ of colour in Amerindian cultures. The formal system of the series and repetitions seen in the warp and weft of those textiles was closer to the formal structure he had been working with since the mid-1960s”.93 The work referred to, made on his return to Buenos Aires in 1971, is a formal appropriation of the quipus, the system the Inca used for transmitting messages and managing social records. It consists of a series of cotton threads, coloured with acrylic and hanging in a line; the threads have knots, which the artist took advantage of to fix the work to the white fibreboard support. The presentation refers to something one would see in an ethnographic museum, that is, the threads are displayed as if it were an inverted fan, with greater separation between them at the bottom of the work. From this new direction, he then returned to the canvas stretcher for aesthetic and ideological reasons, creating works that refer to pre-Hispanic productions without losing references to modern circumstances. The orthogonal grid, symbols and fretwork would be decisive in the compositional structure of his works. The shade, tone and value of his colours are planned so as to obtain his sought-after final finish, which originates from the customised canvas preparation technique that he arrived at after 92

Marchesi, ibid., p. 27.

Ibid., p. 28.

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carrying out a series of tests. Mancapa (1979, acrylic on canvas, Museo Moderno) is a clear example of his working method. The colour, which is an active element in the play between cold and warm tones, is integrated into the canvas through sensitive strokes, used to build a symmetrical rhomboidal composition over a background grid traced with a graphite pencil. Transmitted light images allow us to observe through the transparency the meagre structure of the work. As the artist explains in his interview, there was little preparation of this support, but it was necessary if he was to overcome the colour being rejected due to the hydrophobic additives in the unbleached canvas. Infrared reflectographyx reveals a pentimento or a posteriori addition by the artist, as some of the lines of the small squares that complete the central rhombus do not exhibit the same thermosensitivity. If we refer to the image under normal light, there are some differences of shade in the colour of that diagonal, so it was surely applied later than the small planes of colour, out of aesthetic necessity.

THE INTERVIEWS

Many of the problems mentioned in this introduction were discussed with Raúl Lozza, Martín Blaszko, Juan Melé, Manuel Espinosa, Alberto Molenberg, César Paternosto and Alejandro Puente in the interviews that follow, in which the artists share their own aesthetic and constructive points of view. The main reasoning behind the interviews was to discuss the materiality of the works of art, the mechanics of their execution, and the deterioration processes. The different themes we addressed were approached from a museological perspective in order to establish a framework of criteria for the preservation of the true physical nature of a work, i.e., its material structure and

the artist’s intent, as well as accepting the impact of the ageing processes. Despite the procedural innovations imposed by both abstract collectives, from an interpretation or intervention perspective, it could be said that the production of these works conforms to the theoretical and practical norms of traditional conservation and restoration, which are based on the ethical valuation of the natural qualities of the image-bearing film and the application of precise technical standards for the resolution of losses of the original. This is the appropriate conceptual framework for all contemporary painting whose execution is framed within traditional procedures. Although the impact of natural deterioration is of greater relevance in those works that seek a visual uniformity of the plane, the criterion we have adopted at our institute is in line with that of the most renowned international art centres. The Museo Moderno, apart from a few well-founded exceptions, prioritises minimal interventions and accepts the natural chromatic changes that result from ageing, regardless of whether they damage the integrity of the plane. Our intervention in Paternosto’s Díptico II (1966) provides a clear illustration of the working method we employ at our institute for works from this period. Once the issues of dirt, wrinkles and deformations of the colour-impregnated canvas support were corrected, discolourations that resulted from oxidation due to the prolonged and precarious storage conditions of the work were accepted as irreversible, that is, they were not “refreshed”. Beyond performing a reasonable assessment of these marks that are part of its history, in this particular case, the discolouration consisted of a degradation of the original colour and not a loss of colour material, so that any kind of activity that may have been undertaken would have presented an inappropriate improvement of the original. All the same, it should be made clear that one always acts according to the particular circumstances that

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are presented, and in this case, the alteration of the colour still allowed for an acceptable reading of the plane. Furthermore, beyond these conceptual considerations, the artists are reluctant to accept any treatment that does not return the work to its “original splendour”, as is evident in the interviews. However, as you may guess based on this text, quite contrary to what Raúl Lozza expressed during our encounter, this particular museum curator prefers a damaged work to a reconstructed one. However, as Puente remarks in his interview, works are inevitably sold and have owners, and thus decisions related to them may respond to other expectations and interests that are no less worthy of consideration. For instance, Manuel Espinosa’s account of the state of conservation of the works Tomás Maldonado took to his studio to show an important Swiss collector is testament to the natural evolution of a highly experimental production, and also explains the scarcity of credible works from the early years of the Inventionist period. Espinosa hints at the magnitude of the intervention required for those pieces. “The entire background had fallen off. Only parts remained. The guy bought it because they were going to restore it perfectly.” While no details were provided as to the identity of the work involved, if the restoration had been carried out, it would constitute what Cèsare Brandi, from his radicalised position, defined as: “... A process of historical and creative substitution, pretending to be included at a moment in the process of the work of art that has been finished by the author and which is irreversible.”94 Espinosa’s comments also expose the widespread reality of the commercial art circuit, which is far removed from the critical attitude that must be adopted by a public institution that plays an educational role, such as a public museum. With mimetic 94

Cèsare Brandi, op. cit. p. 72.

restorations involving large amounts of inpainting, as is the case here, the viewer is unaware of how much of what he is seeing corresponds to the hand of the artist and how much was executed by the restorer. It should be made clear that there may be multiple deterioration issues that affect the work and the artist’s concept in different ways, and it is up to the professional, in consensus with the curatorial team, to propose the strategies considered appropriate. It is not the intention of this book to establish a pattern of action, but only to set out some of the criteria considered appropriate in each case and particular context. The radical cases of stripping and repair of the colour layer, as discussed in relation to Martín Blaszko’s Conquista espacial [Space Conquest] and the portable wall paired with Raúl Lozza’s Nº 310,95 are exceptions to the traditional interventions and were based on the legitimate concerns of both artists. The functionality assigned to these layers of colour by the artists – neutrality, in the case of Blaszko, and precision of colour and surface finish, in the case of Lozza – in my opinion justified the criterion of action. In Blaszko’s work, the artist felt the neutrality of the enamel layer facilitated a good spatial reading of his white sculptures from the Madi period, and therefore favoured the decision to reconstruct it, saying, “… what is important is that the colour is uniform, because it is not a painting, nor a picture. There is a language here, and it is the language of formal rhythms”. Another strong argument for the decision was that the work had entered the museum with its pictorial layer severely damaged after years of neglect in a municipal space. In fact, it was exhibited for the first time in 1996 after having been restored. For sculptural works, reconstructing the pictorial layer is considered to be a last resort alternative, as the discipline privileges formal developments and relegates colour to a compositional argument. 95

See interview with Martín Blaszko, end note XII, p. 194, and interview with Raúl Lozza, p. 146.

The pieces the Museo Moderno classifies as “visual experiences” represent less of an undertaking in terms of their treatment, particularly with regard to the kinetic devices that are technological containers for optical illusions. The historical irrelevance of the finishing coat is accentuated by the exclusive design value of a kinetic proposal, which must be sustained even at the cost of replacing accessories due to malfunctioning, obsolescence, or reconstruction. The industrial production process led kinetic artists to produce series of works under the concept of multiples, the idea of “demystifying art objects by avoiding the uniqueness fetish”.96 When there are minor or specific problems in sculptures that have a similar formal approach as the Blaszko piece, the criterion that has been followed is to conserve the original finishing coat and intervene only in the problems as a means to reduce their visual noise. Furthermore, emphasis must be placed on the importance of lighting, light intensity, and luminous flux as strategies to be undertaken by museums with respect to three-dimensional pieces. They are fundamental for a good reading of the volume, can minimise the issues that could interrupt the reading of the surface, and they can prevent the loss of information to deep shadows. In the interviews, it is Blaszko, perhaps because of his great devotion to sculpture, who most reflects on the value of correct lighting. Melé also reveals something of its importance for the perception of one of the great resources of kineticism: reflected colour, that is, colour that is not presented directly to the spectator but is the product of the reflection of a hidden plane of colour.

Isabel Plante, “Kinetic Multiples: Between Industrial Vocation and Handcrafted Solutions”, in Rachel Rivenc and Reinhard Bek (eds.), Keep It Moving? Conserving Kinetic Art, Los Angeles: The Getty Conservation Institute, 2018. p. 43. Available at: http://www.getty.edu/publications/keepitmoving/theoretical-issues/13-plante/

In terms of paintings, in the case of the reconstruction of the colour layer of the portable wall for Lozza’s Síntesis mural Nº 310 the decision was made due to the artist’s assessment that the portable wall acted as a colour complement for the chromatic relations of the coplanar and they were thus a unit, “because it is a wall and as such, I don’t care what material it is painted with; what does matter to me is the exact shade of colour used, its chromatic persistence, and its finish”. It should however be acknowledged that, of the three points Lozza raises, only the final finish appears to be potentially viable since, as has been pointed out above, permanence is a utopian concept and the idea of copying the shade and value of the colour is understandable only within the limitations of our poor visual system. There is another very particular case that involves an intervention of different type, as Melé remarks in the anecdote above involving the Swiss collector, and that is the removal of the overpainting the artist himself had carried out three decades after the work had been executed. Although the removal of additions to an original work that were the result of inappropriate interventions carried out for the purposes of reinterpreting the work or concealing a deterioration is part of the restoration practice, in this case, the overpainting had been carried out by the artist himself. The decision to remove the layers was reached easily, since the restorer and the artist were sharing the same space temporarily and agreed to the intervention. Were this not the case, it may have been considered a simple pentimento or correction by the artist, like those revealed by the scientific techniques of today that lay works bare through comprehensive or surface examinations,I or those that naturally become visible to the naked eye with the passing of many years.II Another point of attention are the possible outcomes of those historical works by Melé, whose original pictorial layers the artist decided to strip off completely due to the poor condition

they were in; however, at the end of his remarks, the artist clarifies, “But they were not painted”. These are some of the many dilemmas regarding criteria of interpretation and possible actions that emerged from my dialogue with the artists and which, to a large extent, were prompted by the strong objectual character introduced by the Inventionism of the Río de la Plata. The conservator will regard some of the statutes of conservation and restoration used to approach traditional problems to be inefficient. This will lead to reformulating the questions about access to the work, in some cases to come to decisions on recovery criteria that are usually forbidden in the usual discourse of the discipline. At what point in its development does deterioration overshadow the artist’s concept? What are the most appropriate criteria considering the uniqueness of each proposal? What poetics may be altered by certain proposals for interventions? In which cases can differentiated inpainting be considered viable or tolerable? Does the disposition of a piece in and of itself justify a total replacement of the colour? What is the rationale for the reconstruction of a missing piece or accessory? In which cases is the concept of “ruined” sustainable for this particular period? The artists who are interviewed in this book have played a fundamental role in the development of Latin American art and modern world culture. The synchronicity with which they accompanied the different experimental processes that marked contemporary global culture has led to a shift in the perception of art at the regional level. In the twenty years since these interviews were conducted with the artists, there has been growing interest among international collectors in their work and constant calls for their participation in important international exhibitions documenting the trajectories of modern art. Proof of this is that many of the works I was able to document in the artists’ studios and that served to shape the direction of each interview can now be found

in important collections or are part of the permanent exhibits at prestigious art centres around the world. In terms of scientific research, the Arte Concreto en Argentina y Brasil project, carried out between 2016 and 2018,97 in which I took part at the invitation of the Universidad de San Martín, is confirmation of the importance of this mid-20th century regional abstract collective. It aimed to provide a comprehensive understanding of the execution processes and materiality adopted by the most influential abstract artists from Argentina and Brazil. The content of the interviews is produced from a series of audio and video recordings I made during my numerous and periodic visits to the artists’ studios between 1998 and 2001. I met three times with Carmel Arden Quin, one of the co-founders of the movement that is the focus of this book. I should clarify that at Carmelo’s request,98 the talks we had were not recorded, which is why I have included only a few references to them, on issues I consider particularly vital. At that time, Arden Quin was preparing for his retrospective at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de La Plata (2000), after which he would soon return to Paris. We had agreed to have a more formal meeting on his return, which unfortunately never came about. The first interview with him took place over more than two hours at a bar on the corner of Beruti and República Árabe Siria streets. It was a very entertaining chat in which he provided, with incredible 97

The findings were part of a collaborative project between the Universidad Nacional de San Martín (Argentina), the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (Brazil) and the Getty Conservation Institute, with the support of funding from the J.P. Getty Foundation, as part of the Pacific Standard Time: LA / LA initiative. The project sought to study the production of concrete art from a materials and technical point of view.

Carmelo’s wariness likely had to do with the public disputes he had with Gyula Kósice over his leadership in the Madí group, which had been exacerbated in Madrid by a group exhibition at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, which took place from 1 July to 20 October, 1997.

detail, information about his early forays into poetry, his first works, the beginnings of the movement and the legacy of his own teacher, Joaquín Torres García. He also drew a sketch for me on a paper napkin at the bar where we met, on which he provided the details of the manufacture of one of his Madí sculptures, which is now part of the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires collection. After the first introductory meetings with Lozza, Blaszko, Melé, Espinosa, Molenberg, Paternosto and Puente, the frequency of my visits led to a natural informality which would, in turn, lead to a good friendship with most of them. Indeed, my friendship with César Paternosto, formed at that first meeting at the Museo Moderno, was further cemented on each of his visits to the country for one of his shows at different city venues – the most recent of which was César Paternosto. La mirada excéntrica [César Paternosto. The Excentric Gaze], held at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes. We have also kept up our long-distance communications over the years, first from New York, where he had lived since the mid-1960s, and then from Segovia, Spain, where he moved in 2004. The conversations we had were always related to the recovery of some of his early works that remained in Buenos Aires, or about newer episodes involving the impact of his work at the international level. The block of questions I originally devised to structure the interviews referred directly to the physical structure of the works and gave the artists the possibility to divide their output into periods marked by different materials or procedures. From this, a discussion of materials would arise, whether these were specific to their craft, what they used for supports, for their priming layers and colours, the brands they used, their instruments and procedures. Based on their categorisation, I was interested in understanding the deterioration issues that may have emerged at each stage, as well as the scale of these. At the same time, I was interested in hearing their opinions as to how the original aesthetics had

been affected. Despite the rejection of a final varnish layer, as has been manifested by different avant-garde currents ever since the rise of impressionism, I wanted to know their own points of view and experiences with the procedure, which some members of the AACI would have learned as part of their academic training. They also told me some of their experiences in the exhibition environment, where they focused mainly on the lighting and certain disappointments suffered during the transport of their works. Although I had a feeling that objections would be raised, and indeed they were, I was interested in hearing their definitions of two somewhat extreme conservation and restoration strategies. The first of these is the conservation of works inside of an acrylic box; this generates a thermo-hygrometric inert microclimate and reduces the usual contraction and expansion movements of the textiles and woods historically used as supports for paintings. However, this response to the environment jeopardises the stability of the support itself and, consequently, that of the colour layer, which loses elasticity with the ageing process. The use of acrylic boxes has not and is not currently a widespread practice in our museums; while the technique is effective for all works, it is particularly so for works that incorporate rigorously uniform and flat colours, that is, works that in the event of damage are difficult to intervene in without interrupting a clean reading of the piece. Second, I felt it was important to understand the artists’ positions vis-à-vis certain convictions about restoration that were developed around the middle of the previous century and that framed the interventions for traditional art. These concerns, together with others of lesser relevance, formed the basic content of each interview.

Buenos Aires, November 2021.

RESEARCH BACKGROUND FOR THE BOOK

Thanks to training I received through study grants from the Fundación Antorchas of Argentina and Vitae of Brazil and my long career and professional experience as a conservator, I had the opportunity to share with my colleagues in Europe, the United States and Latin America some of the common conservation and restoration issues that can arise in a body of works as heterogeneous as that created by the avant-garde movements of the 20th century. The Arte Concreto en Argentina y Brasil project has been of utmost importance and provided much of the data included in this book. The project was carried out between 2016 and 2018 with a grant from the Getty Foundation and was conceived in conjunction with the Getty Research Institute; I participated by invitation of the Universidad de San Martín. It gave professionals from important research centres in the United States, Argentina and Brazil the opportunity to carry out analyses from several perspectives of a large corpus of works from the period that can now be found in different public and private collections. In this analysis, the information gleaned from these interviews with Argentinian artists provided a better understanding of the objects and allowed their accounts to be compared with the results of the scientific analyses,99 some of which have been included in this book, where appropriate. Since the beginning of 2000, I have had the opportunity to present the work at different conferences and have done so not only to share the data and conclusions with my colleagues, but also to promote in my local context the important role having contact with the artist plays in our activities, particularly when we take into account the complexities posed by contemporary art today. The technical and scientific studies performed for the surface 99

These encounters resulted in the book Purity is a Myth. The Materiality of Concrete Art from Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, Los Angeles, Getty Research Institute/Getty Conservation Institute. Getty Publications, 2021.

analyses and identifications of pigments, fillers and binders – the results of which are mentioned in this book – were carried out by professionals at the following prestigious local and foreign institutions: the Instituto de Investigaciones del Patrimonio Cultural - TAREA (Universidad de San Martín, Buenos Aires, directed by Fernando Marte), the Getty Conservation Institute (Los Angeles, USA, directed by Tom Learner), the Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica (Buenos Aires) and the Departamento de Pintura y Conservación-Restauración of the Universidad Complutense (Madrid, Spain).

TECHNICAL NOTES FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF CONSERVATION I

These are materials that are susceptible to temperature changes. Some have very low softening points – such as mastics, asphalt paints or waxes – and react in the high summer temperatures of the Southern Cone. At 40° C and higher, asphalt materials begin to increase in viscosity (undergo thermal expansion) and can produce what is known as “bleed-throughs” in the paint. II These are colour reintegration systems based on the hatching or tratteggio technique. The selection of colours chromatically and formally reconstructs the missing layer of paint, rebuilding it using a pattern of the colours found adjacent to the lacuna, applied using a hatching technique. Astrazione chromatica, or chromatic abstraction, resolves the issue in the same technical manner but rebuilds the missing area of an image using a general colour obtained from the whole work; it thus creates a neutral or uniform plane for instances when the remaining formal elements provide an insufficient reference. III Mimetic or imitative inpainting rebuilds the missing parts of an original through a process of visual recomposing the entire image. The artist’s style is imitated in an attempt to conceal the restorer’s intervention.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF PAINTING MATERIALS I

“In modern understandings, tempera painting is that which uses a medium that can be freely diluted with water but which, when dry, is sufficiently insoluble so as to be repainted with more tempera or with oil-based mediums and varnish […]. Applied to paint technology, the term has been used to indicate the conversion of a non-plastic, non-ductile substance into a material with properties suitable for the intended purpose. In this sense, ‘to temper’ is to convert dry colours or hard pastes into adherents, fluids, etc. The word ‘tempera’ has the same root and was used in Latin and Italian texts to indicate any liquid medium with which pigments could be combined to make paint, thus obtaining a different product than those used for fresco, which contained no additional media. Later, the term was applied to paints made with egg yolk, and following the development of other materials, the term has come to include all painting techniques that use emulsions, and is sometimes (though incorrectly) used to designate any watery, opaque paint, distinguishing it from oil paint.” Ralph Mayer, Materiales y técnicas del arte [The artist’s handbook of materials and techniques], Madrid, Herman Blume, 1983, pp. 201 and 590. II

The term “drying” is in fact inaccurate, since the oil does not harden due to the evaporation of a solvent, but as a consequence of a chemical reaction by which it absorbs oxygen from the environment (autoxidation).

III Some of the most important pigments that were developed included zinc white (zinc oxide), viridian green (chromium oxide dihydrate, 1865), emerald green (copper acetoarsenite, also known as Schweinfurt green), lemon yellow (barium chromate), cadmium yellow (discovered in 1817, marketed beginning in 1850), zinc yellow (zinc chromate, discovered 1809, manufactured as a pigment from 1850 onwards), cerulean blue (cobalt stannate, synthesised in 1805 and introduced by George Rowney to England in 1870) and ultramarine blue (the name was originally applied to lapis lazuli; since 1828, commercially-available ultramarine has been artificially produced).

Patented in 1811 by John Goffe Rand and mass-produced since 1841, the paint tube replaced the use of a pig’s bladder or glass syringe as containers for the substances.

“The key difficulty in understanding colour reproduction lies in the ability of the eye to adapt to colour so that, no matter the light source, which can be described as white, the eyes will see white and the white objects underneath it. This unconscious adjustment influences the perception of all colours. Colour temperature is conventionally measured on the Kelvin scale. 0 K is absolute zero and is equivalent to -273.15° C. The red glow of a torch is warm. Even the conductor of a steam locomotive knows that, if the fire is red, the engine is running. The whiter the glow, the higher the temperature, until it goes past a certain temperature at which time it will appear blue. A tungsten (incandescent) lamp has a colour temperature of about 2,800° K and is considered ‘warm’, whereas the colour temperature of a cloudy sky is about 6,500° K, which gives a ‘cold’ light”. Garry Thomson, El museo y su entorno [The Museum Environment], Madrid, Akal, 1998, p. 54/55.

VI “There are many oils of plant origin, but only some have the property of being able to form a dry, adhesive film. These do not dry by evaporation of a volatile ingredient, but by the intake of oxygen from the air, a process that is accompanied by a series of chemical reactions that give rise to a new substance, different from the original liquid and which eventually turn the oil into a hard, insoluble film called linoxin, which is prevented from returning to its original state due to the presence of linoleic and linolenic acids, which combine with the oxygen in the air to trigger these reactions. These drying properties can be accelerated by sunlight, oxygenation or temperature. Linseed oil has a higher percentage of these acids than any other oil, followed by poppy seed oil.” F. Marte, P. Monkes and W. Hopwood, III Jornadas técnicas de Conservación, educación, gestión y exhibición en museos. Museo Jesuítico Nacional Jesús María, Ed. Brujas, Red Jaguar. 2005, pp. 35-42. VII

Alkyd resins are oil-modified polyesters. They are based on an esterification reaction between a polyol (commonly glycerol or pentaerythritol) and an acid with more than one functional group (commonly phthalic acid or isophthalic acid). Florencia Castellá, Marta Pérez-Estebanez, Joy Mazurek, Pino Monkes, Tom Learner, Jorge Fernández Niello, Marcos Tascon, Fernando Marte, A multi-analytical approach for the characterization of modern white paints used for Argentine concrete art paintings during 1940–1960, Journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/talanta, p. 4. VIII

This was the most widely used white until the 19th century, when it was somewhat replaced by zinc white and later, in the 20th century, by titanium white. Other names include:

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Biacca, Lead White, Cremnitz White. Basic lead carbonate. Formula: 2PbCO3 ∙ Pb (OH)2. M. Matteini, A. Moles, La chimica nel restauro. I material dell’arte pittorica, Florence, Nardini, 1989, p. 23. IX Duco was the commercial name for a line of automotive lacquers developed by the Dupont Company in 1920. It continues to be used as a colloquial name for nitrocellulose lacquer. X

Despite Melé’s statements, an analysis carried out on his piece Marco recortado N° 2 (Oil on hardboard, 1946, Gift of Patricia Phelps de Cisneros to MoMA New York in 2016, through the Latin American and Caribbean Fund) showed alkyd resin was used in the primer layer. Although this does not coincide with the author’s assertion, oil bases are the most appropriate, considering the hygroscopicity of materials such as hardboard and plywood.

ABSTRACTION IN THE RIO DE LA PLATA Supports I

Plywood boards are made of thin, overlapping wood sheets that are glued and heat pressed, alternating the direction of the grain. This arrangement of the sheets significantly improves the dimensional stability of the board. II

Hardboard panels are manufactured with lignocellulosic fibres that have been compressed at high temperatures and pressed in a hot press to a density of 0.5 kg/dm3 or higher. Other materials may be added to increase certain properties such as stiffness, hardness, finishing qualities, resistance to water and moisture absorption, as well as to increase strength, durability and usability.

From canvas to cardboard I The restoration included the fixing of the lifted paint flakes with animal glue in distilled water (7% W/V), the correction of planar deformations with controlled moisture input and drying on a suction table as well as aqueous surface cleaning with additives (distilled water and neutral detergent at 0.05 %) and colour inpainting with pure pigments and Paraloid B72. II

Marouflage is a technique that was widely used in France in the 18th and 19th centuries, in which a painted canvas is adhered to a rigid support of any kind. Annex C of the 1972 Carta del Restauro, which establishes the norms for the restoration of cultural heritage in Italy, states: “Operations that involve affixing a painting on canvas to a rigid support (marouflage) must be strictly excluded”. III

The canvas was removed from the board and the distortions were corrected using a suction table after relaxing the canvas by means of controlled humidity (between 60 and 65%

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RH). Once the distortions were corrected, the original canvas was mounted on a 3 mm aluminium support (marouflage) that had been cut by Blaszko himself to the same dimensions of the original cardboard. It should be recalled that the artist had worked with this material for his sculptures for decades. As an adhesive, we used Beva 371, a traditional product that is specifically designed for conservation work. To facilitate any possible future removal for new treatments, the adhesion of the canvas to the metal support was interleaved with polyester monofilament bonded with Paraloid B67 (Tg 59° C). The work underwent an aqueous surface cleaning with additives (distilled water, neutral detergent and a wetting agent) and minimal colour inpainting was performed to reintegrate the work. It was then protected with Paraloid B72 (with 3% microcrystalline wax), applied using an atomiser, to maintain the initial surface finish. Another of Blaszko’s works, Luces blancas o Blanco y verde [White Lights or White and Green], in the Malba Collection (cardboard: 109.7 × 475 cm; canvas: 105 × 44 cm), had suffered from the same issue of the canvas detaching from the support, and so Professor Alejandro Bustillo intervened. In his conservation report he noted, “The cardboard and the remainder of the glue were mechanically removed from the canvas. The canvas was adhered, under a vacuum, with Beva Film contact adhesive to a rigid panel, with a fibreglass fabric interleaved in order to facilitate the reversal of the process”. Courtesy of Alejandro Bustillo.

Towards solid supports I

Celotex is a moisture resistant sound and thermal insulation board. It is made of strong cane or bagasse fibres that are waterproofed and felted in sheets at a high enough density to give it structural strength without diminishing its insulating values, which are mainly due to the millions of air cells trapped in the fibres and their interlacing. Its strength is provided by its own structure, as it does not contain any adhesives. Available in various finishes and textures. Celotex, Catalogue No. 25, July 1940, p. 6. The Celotex Corporation, Chicago III, USA. II

Medium density fibreboard (MDF) made its first appearance in 1959 but was not produced at an industrial scale until 1966, in New York. “The technology was developed by Allied Chemical and Bauer Engineering. It was initially known as Allied Chemical Bara Board.” Luis García Esteban, et. al., La madera y su tecnología, aserrado, chapa, tablero contrachapado, tableros de partículas y de fibras, tableros OSB y LVL, madera laminada, carpintería, corte y aspiración, Madrid, a co-publication of Fundación Conde del Valle de SalazarEdiciones Mundi-Prensa-Aitim, 2002, p. 121, quoted in: Juan José García Garrido “La madera y materiales derivados en la fabricación de soportes artísticos: Aportación estructural y estética”, Doctoral Dissertation, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, 2010, p. 810. III

This is an application technique used for polishing and buffing shellac on antique wood furniture. IV

Three samples were taken from the work, of blue, black, and white. From these, glyce-

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rol, fatty acids and phthalic anhydride were detected, components which suggest an alkyd resin or a mixture of alkyd with drying oils. The presence of abietic acids in the black sample may be due to the presence of pine oil. Method used: Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS), at Tarea-IIPC (Buenos Aires), performed by Florencia Castellá. V

The accentuated brush strokes on the frame contradict the information contained in the technical data sheet available from Malba’s official website, where it is characterised as lacquering; however, this technique, beyond the material used, refers to a process of painting and polishing in several layers with the aim of achieving a smooth, soft and shiny surface.

Lozza I

The Italian term ‘pentimenti’ (to repent or change one’s mind) is used to refer to changes made during the execution of a work. The drying oils used as binders undergo a long process of modifications that, after many years, changes their refractive index. This change allows the light to suffer less deviation when it passes through the pictorial layer, making it possible to see earlier layers the artist covered over for different reasons.

Melé I

Method used: Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS), at Tarea-IIPC (Buenos Aires), performed by Florencia Castellá.

The portable wall I

Analysis of the colour samples from each plane (yellow, carmine, blue, light blue and red) have shown, based on the components detected, that it may be either an alkyd resin or a mix of alkyd resin with drying oil; the blue and carmine samples present pentaerythritol alcohol and glycerol, which would corroborate the latter hypothesis and which also agrees with Lozza’s statements in his interview. Method used: Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS), at Tarea-IIPC (Buenos Aires), performed by Florencia Castellá. II In oil paints (oils and industrial enamels), the binders harden as they age and become more translucent due to a change in their refractive index. This results in the light being subjected to less deviation as it passes through the film, thus resulting in greater transparency of the pictorial layer. This is when pentimenti (regrets) can show through in very old paintings; the corrections made by the artist become perceptible many years later due to the change in opacity of the pictorial layer. III

“I met Molenberg in 1979 or 1980, when we put together a flyer and poster campaign calling on artists in the Catalinas Sur neighbourhood of Buenos Aires for an exhibition at a non-profit organisation that had been closed down by the military dictatorship and which was associated with the Carlos Della Penna neighbourhood primary school. When

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Molenberg showed up and we saw the two works he had brought us for the exhibition, we thought they were really interesting. We got to talking and that was when we realised who we were dealing with ... They were coloured planes that were stuck to a glass panel that had cracked. He said to us, ‘I want to remove the background and have the coloured squares loose’. He had lost touch with the whole world of visual arts. His works were very good; I don’t know if he had just finished them, in the sense that he had just repainted them. The little wood plates, I don’t remember if they were plywood, but they were stuck on the glass and they were all wrapped up very carefully. The glass, which was relatively thick, had broken at his house. I recommended he use some tempered or acrylic glass, and he asked if I would go with him to order a new one. In this exhibition full of figurative works, his stood out because it was so compelling”, Julio Flores, visual artist and teacher at the Universidad Nacional de las Artes, interview with the author, 15 February 2020. IV For the characterisation of the binders, samples were taken of white (1) and dark blue (2). Sample 1 resulted in a finding of modified oils due to the presence of pentaethritol and abietic acids. Sample 2 was determined to be an oil of industrial origin, due to the presence of abietic acids. Method used: Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GCMS), at Tarea-IIPC (Buenos Aires), performed by Florencia Castellá.

The return to a regular format I A ruling pen is an instrument used for precise line drawing in design or architecture, first produced on an industrial scale in 1853 by William Stanley (1829- 1909). It consists of two stainless steel blades of a certain concavity that face each other, allowing them to accumulate ink or another thinned coloured material in order to draw; the separation between the blades can be adjusted to regulate the width of the line drawn. They are available either with a handle that allows straight lines to be traced, or with attachments that can be fitted to a compass to draw curves and circles. II

“A microscopic slice or cross-section of a pictorial layer that is removed with a scalpel. The cross-section should be taken from a representative area of the work that is neither of essential, or historical, or artistic interest and, if possible, should include all of the layers of paint and be approximately 1 mm in size. These consist of synthetic, hard, colourless, transparent polymers. The surface is polished until cross sections are obtained in order to observe all of the layers that make up a painting ... Hence, these types of microscopic preparations are often termed “stratigraphic studies”. Finally, the sections are observed under a petrographic microscope with reflected light (epi-illumination dark-field microscopy)”. María Luisa Gómez, La restauración, examen científico aplicado a la conservación de obras de arte, Madrid, Cátedra. Instituto del Patrimonio Histórico Español, 2000.

Alejandro Puente and César Paternosto I “As to your question, no, there never was a specific event that led to the disappearance of 60% of the works I showed with Carmen Waugh in 1971. It so happens that they remained

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in Buenos Aires after the show and because of the danger of flooding at the house in City Bell, I first left them at the gallery for some time, and then later at a friend’s office. The cleaning staff or some other occurrence caused them to suffer damages and several issues that I was never able to deal with, that’s the truth. At that time, you understand, they were not ‘historical’, and I walked away from it. Of the four works that were saved, two I rolled up and took to New York (these entered Venezuelan collections a few years ago) and there (in Buenos Aires) remained the others, one that, after some time, was purchased by the gallery owner, J.M., and another smaller one that today (all dirty) is in the hands of H.F. Despite the period having its moment ‘in the sun’ with Denise René and the NY/Paris scene beginning in 1972 and through the middle of that decade, the truth is there never was much of a demand, much of a market for that work, otherwise I would have recovered them. I had to wait forty, fifty years for them to be reappraised, both in terms of their historic and their market value. There was an exceptional reappraisal that began, in fact, with the exhibition at the Museo de Arte Moderno, as you well know.” E-mail correspondence with the artist. II The term “Informalism” was first used by the critic Michel Tapié (Albi, 1909 - París, 1987); it came from the title of a show, Signifiants de l’Informel, held at Studio Fachetti (París) in November 1951, and featuring the works of Fautrier, Dubuffet, Michaux, Mathieu, Riopelle and Serpan. Shortly thereafter, Tapié published the book Un art autre [Art of Another Kind]. The term tachisme (stain or splash) first appeared in 1954, when used by the French art critic Charles Estienne. Around the same time, in 1952, Harold Rosenberg began to popularise the use of the term action painting. It was used to identify a sector of American art that was executed in an almost physically violent manner. Additional terms – such as lyrical abstraction, tachism, sign painting, gestural painting, material painting – were all originated to reflect the philosophy of the time (which included Sartrean existentialism and Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology) and the physical act of executing a painting. CVAA (Centro Virtual de Arte Argentino). Available at: <http://www.cvaa. com.ar/02dossiers/informalismo/3_definicion_i.php> III Two of the pieces included in the show, El chupamedias [The Bootlicker] and La guerra de los treinta años [The Thirty Years’ War], are in the Museo de Arte Moderno collection. While they are in a good state of conservation, El chupamedias required an intervention in 1997 due to the degradation of the original plunger. It was donated by the German artist Wolfang Luh, who had lent it to the museum the previous year for the show El arte salva la vida [Art Saves Life]. The plunger was a remnant of one of his installations. IV

“The group discovered a means of producing a painting that was decidedly irreverent, non-conformist, humorous at times and caustic at others. They stopped using a brush as their instrument and made use of spoons, knives or, quite simply, their fingers; they wanted to have more direct contact with the material. This was no longer pure oil paint, but a mixture of pigments and different substances: sand, charcoal and other mineral products. They integrated all kinds of objects onto this thick layer of material, which was smooth in some spots and rough in others, full of graphics and sgraffito”. Jorge López Anaya, Informalismo, La vanguardia informalista, Buenos Aires 1957 – 1965, Buenos Aires, Ediciones Alberto Sendros, 2003, p. 24.

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Two pieces from the period I

A mixture of cement, sand and lime used in the construction industry.

Although the artist was asked about the issue, he was only able to confirm the materials that were involved, not how they were used in the execution of the work, i.e. whether they were applied in overlapping layers or if they were mixed. The gloss of the lower layer (likely varnish) confirms the use of the fat over lean principle. III An industrial paint made from double boiled linseed oil with physical and chemical characteristics that are very similar to artist oil paint, and which artists turned to due to its lower cost. In addition to the double boiled linseed oil, it was made with vegetable resins and metals were added to accelerate its oxygen uptake. It came in a paste format to be thinned with turpentine and applied in the same manner as today’s synthetic enamels. Its use declined in the 1970s. IV

Jute (Corchorus capsularis): “The fibres of the Indian and Chinese linden bushes provide jute fibres from which coarse, stiff fabrics can be made, which do not play an important role in the pictorial technique, even if there is no objection to their quality”. Max Doerner, Los materiales de pintura y su empleo en el arte [The Materials of the Artist and their Use in Painting], Barcelona, Reverté, 1989, p. 129. “Jute becomes very brittle and lifeless on short ageing and should not be used”. Ralph Mayer, Materiales y técnicas del arte [The artist’s handbook of materials and techniques], Madrid, Hermann Blume, 1985, p. 224. V

In the last treatment, the lifting was first relaxed using a traditional wetting process and then set down with animal glue (7% W/V) and temperature VI “[...] obtained through the dry distillation of degreased bones. In addition to the carbon colour component, it contains non-negligible quantities of calcium phosphate which give it a grey-blue tint […] Due to extremely high oil requirements, carbon black oil-based paints dry very slowly”. Max Doerner, op. cit., p. 80.

Towards a new geometry I

Magna is a special type of fast-drying artist’s paint that was developed by Leonard Bocour and Sam Golden between 1946 and 1949, and became established in the market in the 1950s. It uses acrylic resin as a binder, miscible in mineral spirits and turpentine. In 1960, Bocour Artists Colors developed a water-based, water-soluble acrylic paint named Acqua Tec, which was adopted by the leading American Colour Field and Pop artists. II “An important family of synthetic resins first prepared by Otto Röhm in Germany in 1901 and, as of the 1930s, marketed in North America by Röhn and Hass and by E. I. Dupont de Nemours. The acrylic family is probably the most popular and admired of all plastic mediums due to its excellent properties [...]. In solid form, they are marketed under the names Plexiglass and Lucite […]. One of the series in the family, methyl methacrylate, is soluble in mineral spirits and turpentine and is sold under the names Acryloid F-10 and Lucite 44. It is the type that is used in acrylic varnishes and colours

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[…] by polymerising the acrylic monomer by emulsification, which disperses the resin into minuscule droplets suspended in water. This is the milky fluid which is used as the base for composing polymer colours”. Ralph Mayer, op. cit., p 179. III An emulsion is a heterogeneous mixture of two immiscible liquids. One liquid (the dispersed phase) is dispersed in another (the continuous phase). Emulsions are prepared using a process known as emulsification, the result of which is a water-soluble medium. Acrylic resins are made using acrylate emulsion or acrylic and methacrylic acids. IV “A material with plastic or liquid characteristics, which is applied as a coating to surfaces in order to make them receptive to painting, gilding or other decoration. It is made by mixing an inert white pigment, such as Crete, Spanish white or plaster of Paris, with an aqueous binder, which may be a glue, gelatine, or casein solution”. Ralph Mayer, op. cit. Today, they are made using an acrylic emulsion base. V

A thicker version of gesso, used for texturing and relief modelling.

The thick, viscous liquids which exude from certain trees, mainly conifers, are called oleoresins or balsams. Ralph Mayer, op. cit., p 181. VII

The final measurements are almost certainly somewhat smaller than the originals, as canvasses, even those with a regular pictorial layer, tend to shrink when they are not mounted to a stretcher. This is why, for any geometric work, the planes that are parallel and close to the sides of the stretcher tend to be visually damaged by ‘rippling’. The perfect orthogonality of the canvas begins to be lost as soon as the work is executed, as it is the response of the canvas support to climatic fluctuations which cause the work to undergo a process of elongation and contraction, resulting in distortions that are particularly evident in any straight lines. In a traditional painting, a series of arches, known as ‘cockling’ or ‘rippling’, begin to emerge at the points where the canvas is affixed to the stretcher (where the canvas cannot give way) due to the contraction of the canvas in those areas where it can move freely, between those points of attachment. VIII After an initial dry cleaning with a brush and extractor, work was carried out periodically over the course of a couple of months to correct the planar deformations and marks; this was done in a humidification chamber followed by drying under pressure. The dominant structure of the canvas forced us to turn to an aqueous cleaning by means of wet blotting paper compresses, which extracted some of the pigment particles that had not achieved an adequate cohesion or adhered to the fibres of the textile. A paper cleaning pad and a selection of solvents were used to clean specific areas of non-water soluble dirt. Always working in communication with the artist, certain problems of discolouration due to oxidation and slight degradation processes involving the structure of the textile were accepted as irreversible. The little colour that was reintegrated with watercolour to provide continuity was applied in a few spots on the lateral edges of the work; the loss of colour in this type of large-format, heavy piece often occurs due to abrasions from handling. IX

This series, with its incorporation of the oblique gaze, made an unprecedented con-

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tribution to art but also created a new point of attention when it comes to handling the works. Since the sides are often used as indirect points of attachment when moving or mounting a piece, it is common to find those areas marked by fingerprints or damage from abrasions that, in a traditional work, would be considered irrelevant. However, in this series, the side edges are the focus of the image. X

This is a technique consisting of a “visual investigation that allows us to see and study the inner layers of the pictorial layers, and particularly, the preparatory drawings made on the priming layer of the painting, the pentimento, and, in some cases, previous paintings. The sensitivity depends on the thickness and characteristics of the pictorial layer as well as the optical contrast of any preparatory drawing that may be found. The basic principle is that the infrared rays of a certain wavelength penetrate the pictorial layer and reflect part of the underlying layer, which is then converted from an infrared image into a visible image”. M. Matteini, A. Moles, Scienza e Restauro. Metodi di Indagine. Nardini, Firenze. 1984, p. 223.

THE INTERVIEWS I

Non-destructive analytical methods applied to the study of works of art, archaeology and ethnology, based on the use of visible and invisible (infrared, ultraviolet and X-ray) radiations. II

“In the 18th and 19th centuries, overpainting was frequently employed as part of the process of thematically readapting works, including amputations and modifications to the format for a wide variety of reasons, such as to reconstruct works damaged in their support by fire or other causes, for reasons of taste and, above all, to make the most of a space and to be able to insert them in other contexts for decorative reasons, propaganda etc.” Ana María Macarrón Miguel, Historia de la conservación y la restauración, Madrid, Tecnos, 1995, p. 123.

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Georges Vantongerloo (Antwerp, Belgium, 1886 Paris, France, 1965) Atracción repulsión [Attraction Repulsion], 1946 Oil paint on hardboard 93 × 100,5 cm Collection of the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires

Detail of coloured incisions

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Friedrich VordembergeGildewart (Osnabrück, Germany, 1899 - Ulm, Germany, 1962 Composición N° 130, [Composition No. 130], 1941 Oil on canvas 60 × 60 cm Collection of the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires Detail of perimeter incisions

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Tomás Maldonado (Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1922 - Milan, Italy, 2018) Una forma y series [A Form and Series], 1953 Oil on canvas 150 × 71 cm Collection of the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires

UV-induced visible ﬂuorescence photography

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Azul con estructura [Blue with Structure], 1956 - 1957 Oil on canvas 100 × 99.4 cm Collection of the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires

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Carmelo Arden Quin (Rivera, Uruguay, 1913 - Savigny-Sur-Orge, France, 2010) Sin título [Untitled], 1945 Oil on canvas 40 x 30 cm Private collection

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Composición [Composition], 1946 Oil on cardboard 43 × 62 cm Collection of the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires Detail of reverse

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Alfredo Hlito (Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1923-1993) Formas y líneas en el plano [Forms and Lines on the Plane], 1953 Oil on canvas 100 × 50 cm Collection of the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires Detail of the work using a ruling pen and paintbrush

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Estructura sobre verde [Structure on Green], 1952 Oil on canvas 50 × 100 cm Collection of the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires UV-induced visible ﬂuorescence photography

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Raúl Lozza (Buenos Aires, Argentina 1911-2008) Obra 171 [Work 171], 1948 Polished oil and enamel on plywood, mounted on hardboard panel 99.5 × 119.5 × 0.5 cm Collection of the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires

Stratigraphic cross-section imagery of the blue plane of the work

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Pintura N° 15 [Painting No. 15], 1945 Polished oil and enamel on plywood 87 × 69 cm Collection of the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires

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Photograph of the reverse

X-ray of the work

Detail of the fabric ribbon

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Sketch of Tríptico N° 1501 [Triptych No. 1501], 1991 95.5 × 33.5 cm

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Triptych N° 1501, 1991 Polished oil and enamel on plywood, mounted on three hardboard panels 86 × 36.5 cm each Private collection

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Martín Blaszko (Berlin, Germany, 1920 - Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2011) El plano azul [The Blue Plane], 1946 Oil on canvas mounted on cardboard 50 × 31 cm Collection of the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires

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El plano azul [The Blue Plane] (second version), 1946 Oil on canvas mounted on cardboard 50 × 31 cm Property of the artist at the time of the interview

Relining the work on a suction table

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Pintura Madí [Madí Painting], 1947 Oil on canvas mounted on cardboard 52 × 51 cm Property of the artist at the time of the interview

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INTERVIEWS

RAÚL LOZZA

Pino Monkes: Even though we will focus on the materiality and execution techniques of your works, it should be noted that viewers standing before your works cannot see the complex process behind the creation of the structures, forms and colours they are contemplating, and yet they can have the aesthetic experience all the same. Raúl Lozza: Yes, of course you can view them without that information because my paintings situate man, the viewer, in his physical reality. They do not create a spatial condition; they try to take you out of the alienating situation that any spatial illusion subjects you to. My own colour theory begins with the physical process of gradations and then moves to the surroundings and, from the surroundings, penetrates the form. The form in communion with colour is the specificity of painting. Painting must be independent, though committed to its social setting. As a specific discipline, it had never been independent until the arrival of concrete painting. My theory1 begins with six colours that I consider fundamental. From them, I get fifty, which are the saturated colours, and from each of those, the gradations to grey, black, and white. It is an ordering system I devised to assign a number to each colour. Then comes another complicated process, where context and form come into play. It is a problem that begins with the first line you draw on a piece of paper, when you simply trace out the work. There, the plane already closes and has its colour. It only has to be revealed, like a photograph. That development is 1

His theory was published under the following title: Raúl Lozza, Teoría estructural del color, Buenos Aires, Talleres gráficos Córdoba, 2004.

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the qualimetry. It is an adjustment tool, nothing more; I do not apply it a priori, but a posteriori. The most important aspect of my painting is the social message of the setting. Theory and practice are connected, they are the same. You begin tracing, structuring a painting or a drawing, but the theory is already inserted during the initial process. In doing so, there is a synthesis of the tactile and the visual, a two-dimensionality, which is the basis of concrete painting, its support. If a sense of space is created, it becomes an abstract fact. That is how painting remained in the abstract for millennia. PM: The processes of abstraction in the 20th century brought these structural mechanisms of the image to the surface and transformed them into a subject in themselves; this is particularly true of the movement in which you participated. RL: Yes, because when you abandon the figurative, imaginary spaces are created; this was the final barrier that hindered the historical development of painting. It had to be overcome. PM: False readings are created in detail. RL: Yes, absolutely. Distances are created through colour, imaginary spaces. Total control had to be achieved. If you don’t insert the colour into specific fields and forms, you lose control of that illusion, which is something Mondrian could not solve either, though he was standing at the threshold. PM: You say he always remained within abstraction, to which the argument can be added that there is a metaphysical essence behind it, that is, something beyond the purely visual. The neoplasticist palette is decidedly reduced, formal concerns take priority over colour as an issue. In your case, colour and form are one and the same, the colour field. For you, as for the rest of the group, all shades of colour are available. Your qualimetric process would not make sense in works like those of Mondrian, even if he had approached the work from

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the orthogonality of its planes. In your work, on the other hand, the formal aspects are decisive in the colour relationships. RL: Yes, in my case it is about a colour inserted into an environment, but not in the way it is approached in physics. Applying physics to a painting is of no use. PM: From what I see in these scales, you create a particular ordering of colour/matter, beyond the electromagnetic spectrum order of colour/light. RL: It’s because the spectrum is abstract, because if I contemplate it on any support, for example a white, black, or yellow paper, I cannot apply it. In the traditional order, the range of the spectrum is continuous and is always taught in the same way, which is an abstraction, because it does not take into account the background on which the colour is applied. In the panels where I develop my colour theory, the relative potentiality is very clear. You have to shift away from physics to art, because colour in physics is a different matter, it is a consequence of physical and chemical factors. Painting is an element that has nothing to do with physics or chemistry. In physics, colour acts only as a relative potentiality. Colour has a potential depending on the background, the colour of the wall, which is its environment. The colour potential is not continuous, as is taught with the spectrum; it is discontinuity. That is why a new doctrine had to be formulated. I speak of physics because physics is nature, but it is only one of its aspects, because then form intervenes. Form is something very special for colour, because in the abstract, colour has no limits. If I say, “red”, what form does red have? What are its limits? So, in abandoning the old theory of complementary colours and harmonies – which are musical in origin – it needed to be replaced with another relational medium, and the only relational medium between one colour and another is the form, its character. But it is an order pursued from a visual perspective; the eye is the first judge. To have that control, I had to create qualimetry. 129

The qualimetry of the flat form can be measured down to the last consequences (its character, its limits), not just the area it occupies. Painting has always worked with borrowed forms, it never had its own form, which made it simply a compositional object. A painting is not composed by taking things from another field with a certain order. My painting is about totality, it is structural not compositional, so any alteration – be it of the colour, of one of the forms, or of the wall, the background – changes everything. Of course, the form will not change over time, but the colour will, it will produce that illusion I mentioned to you. That is the theoretical side. As a result, I had to develop a different theory of colour, which avoids the illusion of space, because the form has a colour that corresponds to it. That, to me, is the subject of concrete painting, synonymous with Perceptism,2 which was a name that came to me by chance when I took the final step to kill all traces of illusionism, starting with changing the system, the method, something which we had not managed to do during the period of the Asociación Arte Concreto Invención. When I left the AACI, I began investigating, because we were making a new art, it was not illusionist but it followed a traditional method, and that did not work, we had to change the system. Colour acts according to its potential and in relation to the morphology of the plane in which it is expressed, that is why it is structural. PM: In accordance with the form of the plane and the colour of the background. RL: We had to do away with everything that had been done and create a new system. This new method is only useful for painting, nothing else. And above all, for the intentionality of 2

Raúl Lozza founded Perceptism in 1947, together with his brother Rembrandt and the critic Abraham Haber.

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concrete painting, which does not pierce the wall or the background, and where the tactile and the visual are on a single plane. PM: It’s purely two-dimensional. RL: We were not and are not interested in seeing some forms that are close and others that are far away, but when you touch them, they are on the same plane. There has to be a good relationship between the tactile and the visual. PM: You turn to mathematical arguments to establish all the colour relationships between the background and the planes, on the basis of the formal qualities of each of them. RL: Yes, I take a form and apply qualimetry to obtain a number. The only relationship between one colour and another is the form of the plane, its character, and the background on which they develop, the colour of the wall, for example. There are three factors, the wall being the first. This3 is a work that won the Palanza Prize.4 It was executed based on a small sketch, on three walls of different colours to see how the colours of the forms changed according to the change in background colour. PM: The same morphology is applied to the planes in different chromatic ratios on different coloured backgrounds. RL: Yes, one of the elements is constant – the form – and two change, the colour of the planes and the colour of the wall. The potentiality of the colour is very important. It is often said that red is the most powerful, the best perceived, I completely 3

Lozza indicated three coplanar panels, 28, 29 and 30 of his Teoría estructural del color [Structural Theory of Colour]. They have the same composition as Pintura Nro. 1051 [Painting No. 1051], from 1991. See: Raúl Lozza, Teoría estructural del color, Talleres Gráficos Córdoba, Buenos Aires, 2004, p. 76. The Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes awarded the Palanza Prize for the submission of Pintura N° 118 [Painting No. 118] (1947); Pintura N° 163 [Painting No. 163] (1948); Pintura N° 312 [Painting No. 312] (1962), and Pintura N° 1048 [Painting No. 1048] and N° 1051 [No. 1051] (1991). Adriana Lauría, “Cronología biográfica y artística”, in Catálogo Lozza, Retrospectiva 1939-1997, p. 27.

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reject that. It is all a problem of relativity. Here, for example, it isn’t the red that is most visible, it’s the yellow. It all depends on the context in which the colour plane develops. The important thing is the context. In the traditional system, the context is not involved, which is why everything is abstract. The painting is just another object in the space in which you live, the same as a table or a chair. It is an object, though an aesthetic one. PM: And so we are back to talking about real space, not imaginary space. RL: Is the chair in a physical space and the painting in an imaginary one? Absolutely not. Therein lies the problem of concrete painting. In abstract painting, figurative or otherwise, they have turned to external forms, and as a result there is a duality: composition, on the one hand, and colour harmony, on the other. No, they are involved in the same structure. The problem lies in the structure itself, which is the creator of an independent plastic form in space, but committed to the environment. That is the process of the independence of the form. If painting does not resort to forms from its surroundings, where does the form that belongs to the colour come from? That’s where we get into structural issues. PM: Regarding the mathematical argument of the qualimetry of the flat form, I confess that when I read Abraham Haber’s article, though I understood the problem to be solved – very ambitious and unprecedented, though somewhat utopian – I did not really understand its foundations. RL: When I show you the panels that illustrate the theory, you will understand, and I will explain it so you can record it here, on your little device. For example, if I have a square that has a value of ten and a triangle that has a value of ten, they are not equal. You are looking at a square and a triangle, but in the context of visual art. In terms of mathematics, those shapes 132

have the same value, which means that the formal quality does not come into play. In mathematics, the two never come into play together. However, in qualimetry, the result is a higher number. If I take a square with a value of ten and divide it into two equal parts and apply qualimetry to each, the colours will be different and the sum of the two will no longer be ten but eleven, because the quality of the two rectangles comes into play, rather than that of the square. Even if divided into ten, the sum of the parts will be greater than the whole and always different. Ordinary mathematics does not come into it. PM: You divide it and the formal quality of each means they are enhanced in different ways by the environment. The character of each form is very different and this is expressed through the qualimetry. RL: But it is only a tool, I don’t make forms and create a work of art with mathematics or geometry, which are independent sciences. I use it only to adjust what my eye indicates above all. It is always the eye, because there are infinite forms in the structure of my painting, forms that are new, that are a complex extension of colour. What use is it? I don’t know, maybe it is only useful for my work. Then I get a number for each form, and from that number, in relation to the others, I get a potential of colour to balance the differences. If a form has a value of twenty, all of them must have a value of twenty, because they are balanced by the colour in their relative potentiality. PM: In N° 310, which is in the Museo Moderno collection and which I restored for your 1997 show, there is a vibrant red or vermilion which I feel is balanced by two other larger planes of pale blue and ochre. RL: But, as I said, it is not just the size but the character of the form. The shade is very strict and cannot undergo alterations over time, because the shape does not alter, but the colour does. 133

PM: Given that the colour does undergo alterations, I would like to know your thoughts about the role of deterioration in the composition over the passage of time. In a colour relationship that is so precise, one has to think that change is bound to occur. RL: That is why the quality of the materials is so important, is undoubtedly related to the survival of the work. It is very important in my work, more than in any other. PM: I’d like to hear your own thoughts on the subject of materials and their permanence, particularly in relation to the theoretical speculations you have sustained in your work up to the present. RL: Change usually happens over time and is inevitable. PM: No matter how careful we are in museums, due to the simple fact of existing in an environment, no matter the type, there will be a change in colouring, which depends on several environmental factors, including the light they receive (illuminance).5 Both visible and invisible light (infrared and ultraviolet) have a damaging power that contributes to pigment discolouration and the yellowing of the oils and varnishes on the surface. Simple cross-section microscopy6 of a paint sample allows us to assess the state of the external colour layer, among other issues. It can reveal changes that are difficult to perceive 5

The illuminance or illumination level is designed as the luminous flux that hits a surface. The unit of measure is the lux.

Cross-sections of the pictorial layer are extracted with a sharp instrument. Inasmuch as possible, they should include all of the layers, be a size of about 1 mm, and should be taken from a representative area of the work that is neither of essential, historical, or artistic interest. These consist of synthetic, hard, colourless, transparent polymers. The surface is polished until cross sections are obtained in order to observe all of the layers that make up a painting or the polychromy of a sculpture. Hence, these types of microscopic preparations are often termed “stratigraphic studies”. María Luis Gómez, La restauración. Examen científico aplicado a la conservación de obras de arte, Madrid, Cátedra. Cuadernos de Arte. Instituto del Patrimonio Histórico Español, 2000.

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in the day-to-day and which only become slightly noticeable after a long time. RL: I often applied a sample of the colour of the planes and of the background to the back of a work. Anyway, it is useless since, although it doesn’t get much light, the little light it does receive can still alter it. But we all age. PM: Have you noticed any real differences between the colour of the plane and the sample you left on the back of any of your works? It must cause you some concern. RL: All colours change with the light, but not in the same way; some colours resist more than others, which worries me a lot and is unavoidable. A conservator should have in-depth knowledge of the theory on which I base my paintings, because in traditional painting it is of no importance, but in my case, it is. For example, in a crucifixion scene, no matter what century it is from, the colours function in an abstract manner, they are not related to each other; the composition is the form and the colour just accompanies it, bringing harmony. My paintings have both a theoretical and a practical part, together they are a whole, but there is an intentionality and thus the colour and its permanence are of utmost importance. Taking a millimetre or two off of the planes of my works produces a change in the manifestation of the colour and creates an illusion of space, which is precisely the last link to illusionism. PM: Have you ever worked with assistants, even for primary tasks? RL: No, I even take care of the sawing, which you have to be very careful with because the plywood7 tends to splinter, and I can even lowPM: Your cutout frames are generally made of plywood, but I have seen a couple of varieties of your portable 7

In Argentina, plywood is called terciado, madera terciada or contrachapado. See technical note I of the “On the Work. Abstraction in the Río de la Plata. Supports.”, p. 106.

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walls, hardboard8 in the older works and fibreboard9 in much later ones. RL: Before, there was no material other than hardboard, which at first was not from here, it came from Chile, especially in the 1940s. Then I had a few problems, it twisted or warped, and I replaced it with fibreboard, but it was too heavy for the large format works. I remade a lot of old pieces where the portable wall was in poor condition; I changed the wall. I left clarifications on the back, on the new support. PM: You leave a record. RL: Of course, because if the painting has a date that does not coincide with the era in which a material existed, it seems like it is a fake. At any rate, in my case, it is nothing more than a fragment of a wall. PM: What has been renewed has a very specific, objective function. RL: The planes are the same but the support has been renewed. In the 1940s, many used glass and when they broke, they changed it for acrylic, but they are dated 1948, when those materials did not exist. That is why you have to clarify.10

Hardboard, or high-density fibreboard is also marketed as Chapadur or Táblex in Argentina. See technical note II of the “On the Work. Abstraction in the Río de la Plata. Supports.”, p. 101.

See technical note II of the “On the Work. Towards solid supports.”, p. 102.

He may be referring to a work by Melé, Planos en el espacio real [Planes in Real Space], in the collection of the Museo Sívori, which is done with acrylic and not glass. In a black and white photograph from the Melé archive, it can be seen that this is not the same piece, there are small but noticeable formal differences. The second version, which Melé refers to in his interview, is in the Malba collection and differs from the previous ones, so they are undoubtedly not exact copies of a lost piece.

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PM: What did the appearance, or rather, the invention of the coplanar mean and what consequences did it have for the movement?11 RL: It was the final step taken in that period and it brought with it the crisis within the Asociación Arte Concreto Invención. It was also the reason I left the group, as appears in an essay by Tomás Maldonado in our magazine Arte Concreto Invención12 in 1946, when I began to separate the forms in space. The crisis erupted because when you hang this on a wall of any old colour, it creates more of an illusion of space than the other works. PM: Yes, of course, it changes the entire colour relationship, the temporary background of a wall at an exhibition can swallow up some of the planes. RL: Exactly. If I hang that work on a green wall, the green plane goes to hell. That was my last step with the AACI. I left in 1946, and in 1947, I began my research. On seeing this copy of Pintura N° 82 [Painting No. 82] (1946), I realize I already had an intuition about searching for colour that is anchored to a certain dimension of form. That was another problem, the form of concrete painting. What was the proper form? The problem 11

The physical separation of the planes that constitute a work provokes an interaction between each of the planes and the background on which they are mounted.

“We firmly resolved that, if we expanded out into the space, it would always be as a solution, not as a detour when faced with a two-dimensional stumbling block. We once again delved into studying the issue of the frame or marco recortado (cutout frame). We began by giving more importance to the penetrating space than to the painting itself (Molenberg, Raúl Lozza, Núñez). And it was along this path that we arrived at the ultimate breakthrough of our movement: the separation in space of the constituent elements of a painting, without abandoning the coplanar arrangement (Molenberg, Raúl Lozza). In this way, the painting as a continental institution was abolished. After so many years of struggle, the concrete had been achieved, and it was only from that moment forward that the neo-representational composition could be a reality, indeed it already was. Today, non-representational art finds itself, for the first time, with the ability to approach space and movement from an absolutely concrete point of view”. Tomas Maldonado, Arte Concreto Invención, No. 1, Buenos Aires, August 1946, p. 7.

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was structural, a system that had to change, just as it was necessary to change the closed structure that makes the painting, rectangular or not, that distances it from the medium and creates a world apart. Why should a painting be considered a world apart, at odds with our environment? It is somewhat alienating; you immerse yourself in an unreal context. PM: The old issue of the window. RL: That’s why we had to find our own form; the issue was structural. Where did it come from? From an open structure instead of a closed one. So, after working with the colour, I studied the issue of searching for the specific form and its origin. PM: You speak of origin and I think of the sketches of crossed centrifugal forces from which lines emerge that later define planes. RL: Yes, they are didactic works. The structure is open. It doesn’t start from the periphery that demarcates a window, but from the centre going towards the space. Only then is the painting structural, it moves into space, into the environment. The true creation begins on the paper and ends with the drawn structure. I already have the colour, even though at that moment it is not visible. As I said before, it is like a photograph being developed, it is at that moment that I get the colour because, as soon as I have the background colour, by applying qualimetry I get the colour of the planes. I sent the theory of qualimetry of the flat form to the Sorbonne; though it is of no use to other branches, it is essential for my painting. Qualimetry says, “two and two are not four, but more”. PM: Although your painting has a scientific basis, the viewer ultimately confronts an aesthetic object, a flat, opaque colour that is approached for a visual experience, as in the case of American colour field painting, with its large expanses of flat colour there for that very purpose, and with the formal aspects relegated.

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In terms of its scientific side and the mathematical process you apply, do you think the advances in computing in recent years could provide you any benefits? Colour has been measurable for a long time and it could be evaluated and its modification over a long period of time could be measured. RL: A technology that imitates qualimetry? But one that includes the character of the form, not just a regular surface and its environment. Well, one day such a device will be made. I use mathematical formulae in qualimetry, so a device could be created to do those calculations. But it makes no sense to create such a thing for concrete painting. It could be done; more difficult things have been done. It’s a fantasy, because the character of the form has to come into it, it isn’t just a matter of light or colour. Well, we’ll have to see! Besides, the mathematics I use in qualimetry is a particular one, but there could be other resources, other systems. It’s a subject that is still open to anything, even if I use this particular method. PM: According to these speculations, you have undoubtedly gone through different varieties of materials and methods of execution in order to achieve satisfactory results. One of the characteristics that makes a work of art – and that the conservator must respect when reintegrating part of a lost pictorial layer – is the surface finish, which together with hue and value constitute the three primary aspects of the colour surface of a work. If one of these does not function, the restorer’s reintegration of colour is ineffective. RL: Of course, apart from the importance of colour, the issue is the quality of the surface. At the beginning, in my first works, reflections were created, which is why at one point I gave them a coat of acid to eliminate the shine. I think it was the reduced muriatic acid or some other kind of acid that damaged the surface and dulled it.

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PM: That was during the first years that you participated in the movement? RL: Yes, because I wanted the colour to be uniform, not to produce reflections, so I needed a strong paint. I added varnishes but it produced a mirror effect, which is why I began to use acids and then polish them. PM: Are there any works you can identify in which you used this acid procedure? RL: No, I only did tests and realised that it didn’t work, because the acid continued to work over time and altered the colour. There is no work that incorporates the procedure, they were just tests that I ended up setting aside. In fact, I did a lot of experiments. First, I was interested in getting rid of the gloss, because I wanted to avoid that sensation of spatiality, which is why I ultimately decided to go with polishing. Polishing allows you to get rid of the roughness or sheen, but the paint has to be resistant. I do it with a pumice stone in water, between coats. With industrial materials, which can withstand polishing very well, you sometimes cannot find the pigmentation that can be found in artists’ materials. If the background colour changes, it destroys the colour structure. PM: It breaks the colour relationship. P. 118

RL: Exactly. From the start I used Rembrandt oil colours. There was also Talens, but in order to polish it I needed to add a strong, synthetic varnish. That is, mix it so that it would be resistant, otherwise you have to wait years for the oil to dry. Polishing required a large time investment. It had to be painted and polished at least two or three times and, in addition, if there was the slightest mishap, everything had to be painted and polished again, because the planes had to be uniform. Nowadays, you can get highly pigmented paints, but at that time, in 1945, there wasn’t much around here.

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PM: Do you remember some of the brands from that time? RL: Well, I think there was Alba, and another brand was Ripolín, which Carmelo Arden Quin also used, it was a kind of house paint, like a synthetic enamel that I used quite a lot for decorations, but never for my artworks. Generally speaking, it was a paint that came in quality whites and light tones, because they didn’t have any with a lot of colour power. But I never use Ripolín for my paintings. PM: Arden Quin told me that he used it for the white of the Madí sculptures in the 1950s. RL: Yes, and he also used a lot of white. Going back to the subject of my materials, for the backgrounds – which are a piece of wall – I can do them with wall paint if I want, but since it is used as a painting, I try to work with quality material that lasts. At one point, I abandoned the polishing technique for them, and replaced it with a satin industrial paint. I used Satinol, from Alba. I have been using it for a long time because, since it is a wall, I don’t care what material it is painted with, all that concerns me is the exact shade of the colour, its chromatic persistence and its finish, because otherwise the whole relationship with the colour planes changes. PM: When did you begin using satin paint for the backgrounds? RL: It was after doing many polished backgrounds, but already in 1948, I had used satin enamels on some of them, Alba, in general. I could advertise the paints and earn a few bucks, couldn’t I? Now, I turn to an exact tone for the colour planes and I can’t find it in that type of paint, so I make it by mixing oil with a synthetic varnish, as I explained, so that I can polish it. Sometimes I mix the oil paint with synthetic varnish that has already been coloured with an enamel, if the tone allows me to do so, because from the mathematical point of view the tone of the colour is very strict since, if it varies just a little, it can produce illusionism, which is equivalent to the sensation of frontal space. 141

In 1947, I made many experiments, I even had insomnia because of the issue, and it led me to tackle the colour issue through creating a new system of relative potentiality, free of marks or qualities that alter the fundamental concept, which was the non-representation of imaginary space. That was the first step, I wrote a seven-volume book, unpublished, with a series of panels to illustrate it. A total of forty panels to present my colour theory.

Concrete drawing

rL: Because of their specificity, I separated drawing from painting. Drawing is not drawing from painting, it is its own independent art. This work is part of a series I made as a proposal for concrete drawing. There are twelve and, in essence, they do not need to have colour and there must not be any closed planes, because if there were, if they were the same colour, they would have a different quality. A colour in a given plane and on a given background will vary, and you would be creating a painting, not a drawing. So drawing is simply lines of force in space, which do not enclose planes. I made two in Germany and ten here. I have three or four left, no more. Lozza shows me the sketch of a drawing he was colouring. It seems to say No. 7 H 47. He runs a finger over one of the lines of the work made from the sketch to remove an impurity, and he makes a final touch-up to the black lines, using synthetic enamel. The twelve concrete drawings were made with the same materiality, lines on flat, black wooden rods on a right background, in this case, fibreboard. In the drawings, Lozza disregards the problem of the final finish that was such an obsession in his colour planes. It is no longer a question of a field or extension of colour. This is also the reason for the little relevance he gives to the task of repainting the lines.

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PM: This corner has swollen. It is characteristic of the way fibreboard responds, absorbing moisture from the medium, bringing its texture to the surface. RL: But do you know how old this work is? Fifty-three years old. This one I am working on now is from 1947, in fact, I am repainting it. It is a proposal I made for a concrete drawing, which would be the same as an independent drawing, no closed planes, no colour contrast, just lines of force in space.13 PM: Black lines on a white background, basically. RL: Of course, hence the uniformity. This concept is specific to drawing, it makes it independent. It has to stop being an annex or appendix to painting. It makes no sense to do the same in drawing as in painting. PM: As for supports, you are the only one in the movement that invariably turned to rigid supports, both plywood and hardboard at first, and then different varieties of fibreboard. RL: At first, the backgrounds were hardboard because there was no other material. Then I turned to fibreboard, which was much heavier. And now I use medium density fibreboard, which is a lighter material and does not change as much, but those works from 1940s are hardboard. I used fibreboard until the 1980s, but the colour planes are always made of plywood, though it is difficult to get it well-seasoned. PM: There are always problems with them because of the glued and pressed laminar structure. They are prone to the outer layers detaching because of the way they respond to sudden changes in humidity.

Lozza did not probably remember having replaced the background, as it was fibreboard, a material he himself remarked, did not exist during the golden age of the movement. Fibreboard has a characteristic response to humidity, in which its texture of crossed and pressed fibres rises to the surface.

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RL: Yes, I have had deformations that occasionally led to me remaking the planes, so sometimes I look for the wood that people have thrown away, from used furniture, because it doesn’t change as much, it doesn’t submit as easily to humidity. The colour planes first are given a wood primer base coat that comes in white, called a background white, and before the first coat of paint I apply a spackling paste that I polish to eliminate the texture of the wood. That is the procedure I have used the most so that the planes receive the first coats of colour. With each coat, I polish. With that finish, I had to be very careful, same with the saw, so as not to splinter the planes. An electric cutter would make the task much easier, but it splinters; that’s why I use an ordinary saw, it’s better, even though it makes for more work. PM: Did you have any other previous experience before you came to this option for the material of the supports, both for the background as well as the planes? RL: The first works, the vast majority of which did not survive, were made using hard cardboard. Something more solid needed to be used. PM: Espinosa spoke of some thick cardboards that were easy to cut but have not survived. And there was also the initial sketch and first version of Función blanca [White Function] by Molenberg, which is now in a private collection and was also on cardboard. RL: Yes, it was terrible. Only those works where the cardboard was used as a background, framed, survived. But the first works where it was used for the small planes did not survive at all. Maldonado made many works on cardboard and nothing remains. PM: There is an important piece by Tomás Maldonado from 1945 that belongs to a private collection in Buenos Aires. It has a thick cardboard painted in white and framed with thin wooden strips. Likely, they were reinforced this way because of their fragility. There is also another piece in the same format by Arden Quin, from 1945, in the collection of the Museo Moderno. It is a very thin cardboard, also framed. 144

RL: But I always used plywood for the planes, prepared so that they do not warp, though sometimes they still do. PM: Sealing helps to stabilise the wood so that it does not respond as drastically to changes in relative humidity levels, which would result in cracks forming in the direction of the wood grain or, as you said, warping of the plane. As for the mounting of the planes to the portable wall … RL: I use vinyl glue to affix the 5 mm wooden dowels and then secure them with nails. Those planes are then fastened from the back with screws to the big support frame that acts as a wall. This is the varnish I use and you can see how it begins to gel and dries after a couple of days (Kuwait, transparent varnish). It is the one I add to the paints that I then polish; I thin it down with a lot of turpentine. PM: Climate-controlled acrylic boxes are a resource whose use has spread around the world in recent decades for the conservation of modern and contemporary art. They are climate-controlled, protecting the work from sudden changes in the humidity levels of an environment. They also prevent direct contact with the work during handling. Even though I am sure I can guess your answer, given your refusal to close off the works from the environment, I would like to hear your opinion on the matter. RL: That they should always remain in a box? No, not at all, my works go on the wall, it’s absurd. Bergara Leumann has a work of mine in an acrylic box, but I don’t like the idea. The work belongs in an environment and, what’s more, I don’t think it does much to preserve it. PM: You find the issue aesthetically disturbing, isn’t that so? RL: It must be free on the wall. If you put it in a box, it is no longer a fragment of a wall, you lock it up as if it were a prisoner, don’t you see?

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Restoration

PM: On the subject of the interventions I had to carry out for your show at the Museo de Arte Moderno in 1997, I will tell you, I was somewhat questioned by colleagues for having reconstructed the layer of paint on the portable wall belonging to the work N° 310, which had been covered with industrial varnish in a frustrated attempt to hide the problems it had. I remember your concern about altering the colour, which I later came to understand because of the precise colour relationships involved in your work process. The functionality of the background had a higher value than its historical value, even though we conservators are very keen for an object or painting to show its age. It relates to similar work I carried out on a sculpture by Blaszko, where I completely replaced a layer of paint. Though it involves different disciplines, the problem is similar, one of historicity versus functionality. But you gave it a uniform colour and you were concerned about the final finish, that it not create any visual disturbance. So we resorted to an imitative intervention, as we call it, and which I think is the most appropriate for these types of issues. I suspect I already know your answer, which is the same as most of those I have interviewed. RL: Yes, because in the case of a broken work, if I measure it, it would give me another value because of the alteration of the form and the potentiality of the colour, which is always relative. PM: In that case it would require a new qualimetric calculation. RL: Exactly, because by taking out a piece of the form, you are actually taking out a piece of colour. The “form is an extension of colour”. In my own case, when faced with a damaged work and without a restoration that can bring it back to its original state, I prefer a fake that is in good condition.

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PM: It is difficult to define that category of “original state”, since everything undergoes a constant transformation. Nobody swims in the same river twice; nobody sees the same painting twice. However, I understand your position. Indeed, it is hard to imagine one of your works with one of the plywood planes either missing or with a marked deterioration that interrupts the reading of the plane. RL: The restorer would have to have very good knowledge of my approach to be able to find the exact colour and finish. I would also agree to the complete replacement of a piece that for whatever reason has been lost or irreversibly damaged. Generally speaking, on the back of my works you can find the tonal and formal structure. PM: So, in the event of irreversible damage to the colour from any cause, you would suggest... RL: Paint it again, look for the colour and repaint it. Did you know that in 1939, I made my first work with a cutout frame? It was for an advertisement and I didn’t dare call it a painting.14 PM: They were in your retrospective at the Museo Moderno. RL: But earlier you were talking about confining works, and in my works, you can always see my concern for getting out of that confinement, as you can see here. These are all from 1945; they are replicas, the originals are in an important private collection in Buenos Aires,15 and the original of the other one is in the Museo Sivori.16 In fact, I made them so that I didn’t have to ask for them all the time.

Lozza’s 1939 drawings for advertisements with their irregular contours were shown at the Arco Internacional, Madrid (2001), in which he was invited to participate by the Fondo Nacional de las Artes.

Among them, Pintura N° 82 [Painting No. 82].

He is speaking about Pintura N° 72 [Painting No. 72].

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PM: Do you leave a record on the work that it is a copy of the original? RL: Yes, of course, I have the permission and I record that it is a replica. PM: Another intervention that is very typical with modern and contemporary art is reconstructions, both of parts of the works as well as of complete works, though doing so requires the rationale to be duly supported. Taking this period into consideration, there are a series of common problems for which that option would make sense. It is the option we adopted for the piece in the Museo Moderno collection, N° 310, which we mentioned earlier. The original chalk-white portable wall had degraded, taking on an amber tone from the varnish that had been applied and which also altered its colour relationship with the planes that make up the coplanar. After stripping the industrial varnish – which had not been applied by yourself – we redid the background using a white that you approved and following your technique of applying of oil and enamel in several coats. We then polished between coats using a pumice stone powder in water. RL: Yes, it turned out well, and I will tell you about that polishing, because I no longer polish the backgrounds. Quite some time ago, I replaced that technique for the backgrounds with satin paint. But what I do now is varnish, as I told you. Polishing was very time-consuming, and at almost 90 years old, I don’t have the time for it. Imagine polishing those big backgrounds by hand. That’s why I use a semi-matte varnish that I find satisfactory for my work in terms of the finish. PM: In short, the colour planes are oil paints to which you add enamel or synthetic varnish and then polish with a pumice stone in water. Historically, is that how it worked? RL: Yes, that’s right. That’s why I added good quality enamels. But lately, I sometimes varnish the plane as well, because it preserves it. I sand it instead of using the pumice stone powder, and 148

then I apply a satin varnish to the paint, it is more like polishing and it also preserves it. PM: Since it is an industrial household varnish, it is possible it will oxidise over time and alter the colour towards more amber shades, like what happened with the Museo Moderno’s coplanar. RL: It can be redone, like we did with that portable wall, but you have to find the colour and finish. As I said, change is inevitable. PM: So, you first made the backgrounds using your polished oil/enamel technique. Then you changed to semi-matte or matte enamels, and lately you have been using enamel with a semimatte varnish as a finish. From what I can see, some of these look as if they were painted recently. What did you do for a living before you got into painting? RL: I did works like the ones you see there in the newspapers. In the 1930s they were a protest, figuratively speaking. I went to jail three times for those drawings. Did you know that? The First of May, Sacco and Vanzetti, Mitre, Abyssinia bombed by Italy. Well, it’s all there. I wrote the texts and everything, in the newspapers. That was in the 1930s. Then, in the 1930s... PM: You were already in Buenos Aires by then? RL: Yes, I arrived in Buenos Aires in 1929. I went back to Alberti to open a play there, because I’ve been writing since almost before I could paint. I publish poetry, everything.17 PM: Many of you had that same restlessness, didn’t you? Carmelo Arden Quin, for example, whom I met a few days ago at a café down the corner from his house; he came down with a book of poems by Wilde. Kosice also wrote. RL: But it was all nonsense that inventionism in poetry. No, no. It’s not a theory. For example, Kosice thought that 17

On 6 December 1930 at the Roma theatre in Alberti, Lozza premiered the play, La sombra de la nada [The Shadow of Nothing], written together with his brothers. See Adriana Lauría, op. cit., p. 17.

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inventionism was invented words. He did not touch on aspects of the structure of poetry. There was no semiotic support. A word has a richness that expresses something. If not, what is a word? A word expresses. It was necessary to resort to something else, another relationship of language. In 1947, it occurred to me to take on the proverb, “tanto va el cántaro a la fuente que un día se rompe” [“the pitcher can only go to the well so often before it breaks”], right? I said to myself, “What happens with this if I apply a principle of inventionism to it?” “tanto va el cántico a la fuente que un día se festeja” [“the poem can only go to the well so often before it celebrates”]. The words cántico [poem] and festeja [celebrates] break everything. It creates an invention that is neither relational nor didactic. No, it is specific to the language. But that wasn’t contemplated, there was no theory. I’m working on that now. There was no theory of inventionism in language. So, what does it consist of? To say the very least, the greatest ineptitude would be to think of it as an “invented word”.

At the home of the artist, Fragata Sarmiento Street, Buenos Aires, 1998 -2001.

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MARTÍN BLASZKO

Martín Blaszko: I began to draw when I was about twelve years old. I would draw my family members, especially my parents and my siblings. My brother kept all of those drawings without telling me. It is nice to go back and see them again after more than 60 years. I remember an experience that left a big impression on me. I was living in the city of Danzig and one afternoon, walking down the main street, I saw some reproductions of works by Van Gogh and Cézanne in a window; I remember the impact they had on me, I have kept them to this day. I loved Van Gogh’s colours and the structure of Cézanne’s landscape. I think that was when my passion for painting and art in general was ignited. In 1939, I travelled to Paris with the rest of my family; my father had already been living there for 15 months. I wanted to stay in France but the French authorities did not have much sympathy for immigrant refugees, so we were not allowed to stay, we only received transit visas. My father thought that if he enrolled me at the Beaux-Arts with a letter of recommendation from Marc Chagall, perhaps I would be allowed to stay. So, we went to see him to ask for a recommendation to enter the school, and he said to my father, “Look, here both the official Academy and the milieu consider me to be a poor painter, so my recommendation will not help”. After looking at my drawings, he asked if I had visited the Louvre and seen a work by Seurat of a horse and rider, and he wanted to know what I thought of it. At that moment, I told him that I preferred a work by Paul Cézanne, Les joueurs de

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cartes [The Card Players]. That dispute with Chagall taught me that everybody has a certain mindset; mine is based on construction, nothing of improvisations or whim. But he also gave me some good advice; he said, “… Look, there are many painters here in Paris suffering from economic hardship, so I recommend you learn a trade so that you can live from something else that isn’t painting”. I followed that advice. After a three-month stay, we set sail for South America. My final destination was Bolivia, but first I had to pass through Argentina. Luckily, at the Retiro train station, where we were going to board a train for Bolivia, we met a young man on the platform who recommended that we stay in Buenos Aires. Our passports would continue on to the north all the same, because the Immigrations Officer had handed them over to the postal officer with the instruction to return them to the immigrants only when they went through border control on exiting the country. We were forty immigrants in transit, none of us had permission to stay here. But we did as the young man from the platform – who was an illegal immigrant – told us to do, and we got off the train in Tucumán. Twenty days after disembarking there, we returned to Buenos Aires. The young man who gave us the advice was Ben Molar.1 When we arrived, we got in touch with him, and he later gave me my first easel. So I began to draw and paint as well as visit exhibitions. In 1945, I met Carmelo Arden Quin, and a short while after, I joined the Grupo Madí.

P. 123

P. 122

Arden Quin taught me to use a compass and ruler and everything that has to do with the golden ratio. I applied those teachings in this work.2 1

Author and musical composer, and promoter of the arts (Bueno Aires, 3 October 2015 - 25 April 2015).

He is referring to the work El plano azul [The Blue Plane], a second version of another piece of the same title and composition that is in the collection of the Museo Moderno, 50 × 31 cm.

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Procedural technique

Pino Monkes: I see your paintings from the mid-1940s, when you were already participating in the Madí movement, are executed in oil on canvas mounted on cardboard and that, as of 1949, your first rigid supports emerge, hardboard, in particular. What technical procedure did you follow for your first works from that period? MB: I have always used oil, the old oil on canvas, even today. In those days, I painted the work first, on a regular canvas on a stretcher, and then I would adhere the canvas to cardboard. PM: The work takes on a lot of humidity in the process. Did you let a lot of time pass after finishing it before mounting it on cardboard? MB: I think several months, but something less than a year. From what I have seen, it was not done altogether well, it was a bit shoddy, because over time, part of the canvas has detached from the cardboard and blisters have formed; it will likely need to be intervened.I But my paintings are very classic in terms of their execution, I have always used Winsor & Newton.3 I primed my first canvas myself, first with carpenter’s glue and then adding equal parts of zinc white and ground chalk. Generally speaking, my first Madí paintings were primed in the same way. I prepared everything in a water bath, applied two or three coats, and then mounted it. But later I preferred hardboard as a support. PM: Though the group initially had a strong programme and even turned to specific materials and procedures, it was inevitable that certain individual languages would emerge. There is a cutout frame at the Museo Moderno by Carmelo Arden Quin 3

A factory for artists’ products created by the scientist William Winsor and the artist Henry Newton in 1832; it was located at 38 Rathbone Place, London. See: http:// www.winsornewton.com

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that was made according to a process he used at the time, which he told me about himself; he said he painted with a muñeca [a pad], rather than brushes.II MB: That was around the time when we met, at Grete Stern’s house in Ramos Mejía,4 Buenos Aires province, around 1945. It was a house designed by a great Russian architect who came here when he was young, Wladimiro Acosta.5 It was a very modern house. I saw these paintings there. That work of Carmelo’s that you restored for us, it is clearly painted with a brush,III but the work that you are talking about, the one in the Museo Moderno, seems to be made in that way, with the muñeca application technique. Carmelo made everything, the painting and the frame. He cut the wood, assembled, mounted and lacquered it himself. PM: Carmelo also told me that in the 1950s the Grupo Madí frequently used a French synthetic enamel called Ripolin, especially for the white of the sculptures from that period. MB: Yes, it was a brand that was widely used in the past, just as there are other well-known brands today. But I never used it; I didn’t have much confidence in it because the tones change with time and then, after a while, you realise that it is not the same tone as the one you spent so much time searching for and 4

Grete Stern and Horacio Coppolla had a house at Ballesteros 1173 (ex Hilario Ascasubi), in fact, it is technically in Villa Sarmiento, Morón district, to the west of Buenos Aires.

Wladimiro Acosta (Vladímir Konstantinowski, 23 June 1900, Odessa, Russia, now Ukraine - 11 July 1967, Buenos Aires, Argentina) was an Argentinian architect of Ukrainian origin. In 1922, he moved to Berlin where he studied engineering and became acquainted with the work of Walter Gropius, who would have a considerable influence on his later work. He emigrated to Buenos Aires in 1928. It was there that he would produce most of his work, which followed rationalist lines and focused on the relationship between architecture and the climate. Source: https://www. modernabuenosaires.org/arquitectos/wladimiro-acosta.

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preparing. They change a lot, they alter, and I have seen that they deteriorate, lose opacity.V PM: The same thing happens with oil paint, it undergoes changes over time, although it takes much longer to dry, or better said, to cure. MB: I recall there is a painting by Corot at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in which you can see a change; you can see an earlier tree that is underneath the paint layer. PM: Yes, a landscape. The oil paint hardens as it ages and becomes more translucent due to a change in the refractive index of the oil, which allows the light to pass through the layer following a path of lesser deviation, thus resulting in a greater transparency of the pictorial layer. That is why pentimenti (regrets) or the corrections made by the artist, become perceptible many years later, because of the change in the original opacity of the pictorial layer.6 MB: The paintings I made are in the same state as they were fifty years ago, and the colours are as they were then. Winsor & Newton used good pigments. When I asked about good brands of oil paints, a restorer in Paris told me that they used high-quality German pigments for their products, which were imported, just as they are today. PM: I haven’t seen much acrylic in your body of work. MB: I didn’t use it much, I made limited use of it, generally to imitate the characteristics of watercolours. In many collages that I have made lately, I have used acrylic for that purpose alone. In this collage, for example, the white pieces are glued with plasticola (vinyl glue), the kind of glue you use in primary school. But it is a technique that works very well for me, in this nice size in which I can control the measurements and proportions of the colour planes, which I cut with scissors and at 6

See technical note I in “On the Work. Lozza”, p. 103.

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a speed that allows me to express what I like. I have these little works here that I think will be useful for a large painting. For example, here I have used the colour of the background to harmonise the whole piece. And this, for example, is green biro; this is made with coloured pencil; this is a white paper on which I pasted a yellow one, which I had also made with coloured pencil. I try to use coloured pencils that last, that are lightfast. I am doing an experiment to see if the colours last over time: I take a piece of paper, make strokes in different colours with the pencils I have, and expose it to the sun. I noticed that red is the weakest, it was almost completely lost. The blue and yellow hold up quite well. I think it has to do with the quality of the pigment the pencil is made of, that is why you have to invest in good materials. I use a lot of India ink as well. Kurt Schwitters was a member of the Dada group, which also included Jean Arp, and what lasted from the group is the visual quality of the works. The ones I saw in London are very small, the size of a postcard, made with cinema and underground tickets glued onto them. What struck me is how well-preserved they are. PM: And we continue to ask ourselves, what is art? MB: I don’t know, I try to make works that fulfil me. But when I look at this, I say to myself, “It’s a mess” (laughs). I am very objective, critical. Did I ask you to do the test I do with the drawings? PM: About the order of execution? Yes, we have done it a couple of times. MB: I like to do that test because I think in general there is a consensus. When a work is bad, everyone feels it is bad, and if it is good, it is good for everyone. PM: You say it is objective; so, you might come to the conclusion that you yourself are a great artist. MB: What? How? (laughs).

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But as far as a painting is concerned, the material I like the most is oil, generally on rigid supports such as hardboard and, lately, medium density fibreboard, which I prepare with a matte synthetic white primer, Albamate. First, I paint the work and then I adhere it, using nothing more than a vinyl adhesive, to a small frame made of wooden strips, without using nails. PM: In terms of the hardboard and the priming layer with the industrial matte paint, have you discovered whether there is any change in tonality over time? MB: No, not at all, there is no change. This other one, for example, is also made according to the classic oil technique, and it was shown at the first exhibition of the Madí.7 With hardboard, I had to be careful not to let the humidity get in, because it is a conglomerate, it swells. All of those details led me to sculpture, because bronze is a durable material, the shape does not change. The only thing that can change is the patina, but the main thing, the form, does not change. PM: How is the frame that supports the hardboard mounted? MB: First, I painted the work and then I glued these strips with glue, nothing more. I really like working with oil paint, it has an infinite range of shades that are very difficult to achieve with acrylics. I value things that are technically well-executed; that is why I admired Emilio Pettoruti so much. He was a consummate technician, there is a technical control in his paintings that extends to the last detail, he left nothing to chance. Hlito is another great artist who, towards the end of his career, painted with acrylics. There are contemporary painters who do not care whether their works are durable, and they do whatever they like. They 7

This was the show that launched the Grupo Madí after the breakup of the original group. It was held at the Instituto Francés de Estudios Superiores from 3 to 6 August 1946, six months after the first show of the Asociación de Arte Concreto-Invención at the Peuser.

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don’t prime the canvas well, or they simply don’t prepare it at all, for example Deira and Macció, among others. Do you remember the Macció that you restored for me?8 PM: Yes, it was very bad, with a very weak canvas support considering the weight of the heavy material load it supported. A poor, rudimentary preparation of the canvas, which was not sufficient to cope with the mechanical stress it would undergo during the curing and drying of the heavy impastos. MB: After a while, these works have problems, but Pettoruti’s look as good as new. PM: He was a real class act. Well... you are also a class act. MB: Who, me? I don’t know. I don’t know what I am (laughs). He shows me an oil on hardboard. MB: I have to change things; it is very boring. Although I like the rhythm of the black theme, I don’t like the background, it’s too monotonous. And the red, it is still a bit coarse; at any rate, to me it appears coarse. I don’t know, but I like changing things and since oil allows you to do so, you build it up layer by layer. That is the beauty of the material, you can work until the work matches what you feel, sometimes it can take months, other times, years. That’s why I am so grateful to Chagall for his advice, when he told me to try to make a living from something else. If someone tells me my work is not saleable or that the prices don’t align with current market prices, it is of no interest to me, it doesn’t bother me; on the contrary, it makes me happy. Because it lets me know that I’m on the right track.

In terms of priming the canvasses, I believe Blaszko erroneously includes Ernesto Deira. So far, most of the works by him that I have had the chance to observe have been executed on high-quality commercial canvasses —in general, the Tandil canvasses (Number 09) that were widely-used by many artists in the 1960s, including (of those to which I can attest) Dalila Puzzovio (in her informalist period), Carlos Squirru, Silvia Torrás, Kenneth Kemble and Manuel Espinosa.

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Supports

PM: Returning to the subject of supports, we have already talked about the execution of your first Madí works. Was it around 1949 that you switched to hardboard?9 At the Museo Moderno, we have several oils on that type of support and, apart from some minor warping of the planes, especially in the large format works, due to mistakes made when making the supporting frame on which the hardboard is mounted, the colour material has survived without signs of any type of cracking apart from those which are known as premature cracks, typical of the drying mechanics of some pigments.VII MB: Canvas is also sensitive to humidity. PM: What happens is that the deformations that occur in a canvas in response to the climatic environment are reversible to a certain extent, and conservators have established procedures to correct them. The problems in a canvas that has been in direct contact with moisture for a long period of time, in an unventilated space and in the dark, go beyond just the growth of micro-organisms to involve the disintegration of the priming layer and, consequently, the pictorial layer. The dilation or swelling that can be observed at the edges of supports such as hardboard or fibreboard10 is the result of the same issue of the exchange of moisture with the environment and can advance towards the centre of the work, bringing the texture of the support to the surface. It is irreversible and it causes a great deal of disturbance in a geometric or concrete painting, which is why great care must be taken with these materials.

See technical note II in the “On the Work. Abstraction in the Río de la Plata. Supports”, p. 101.

See technical note II in the “On the Work. Towards solid supports”, p. 102.

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P. 124

Of the paintings from the Madí period that I have seen, this one (Pintura Madí [Madí Painting], 1946)11 is the only one that appears to be varnished. Perhaps it has been executed with a high concentration of linseed oil. MB: Perhaps, although I don’t remember. I’ll tell you an interesting story about that work. A French curator once came and asked me about the date. I said it was from 1949, I was almost sure of it. And she replied, “No, it’s from 1946”. And I asked her how she knew. So she showed me a photo that I didn’t know about from the first Madí exhibition,12 and the work was there, hanging on the wall at the exhibition. I was shocked, because I never gave much importance to dates. I don’t think that the value of a work is dependent on the date. I’m not interested in the date on which Cézanne painted one work or another, 1895 or 1903. But I have never been a fanatic nor have I limited myself to a particular style, because I am convinced that what matters in art is what endures throughout history, and not the stylistic expression of a single moment. What gives a work its value is its permanence. Even the dates of the works are secondary. The signature is in the character of the work, in its quality. So much so that Cézanne never signed a painting. If you know an artist

This oil on canvas mounted on cardboard was dated on the back by the artist as 1949, likely a long time after it was executed, since from 1948 onwards the artist would use hardboard as the support for his paintings.

“In August 1946, the first exhibition of the Madí was presented at the Galería Van Riel. Over the course of four days, in addition to the exhibition of paintings, there were avant-garde musical performances by Esteban Eitler and Juan Carlos Paz. Paulina Ossona also danced and the manifesto of the movement was presented. Members included: Arden Quin, Kosice, Rothfuss, Blaszko, Diyi Laañ, Elizabeth Steiner, Eitler, Valdo W. Longo. Later, they would be joined by Aníbal Biedma, Juan Delmonte, Jaqueline Lorin-Kaldor, Antonio Llorens, Rodolfo Urrichio, Nelly Esquivel, Salvador Presta, Juan Bay, to mention just a few historical members”. See: CAAV (Centro Virtual de Arte Argentino), < http://cvaa.com.ar/02dossiers/ concretos/04_historia_5.php>

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very well, know their formal language, then you will know exactly which period a work is from. PM: So, we could say that there have been no major changes in terms of the development of techniques, materials and methods of execution in your paintings. MB: No, none whatsoever. PM: Almost all of your works that have an irregular format have been framed. Historically, the frame has served as a means to isolate a piece from its environment, to emphasise that sense of being a window that opens onto a virtual space, and that is a concept that your works and theories were against; I am thinking of the essays by Rhod Rothfuss in particular. Although you entered the movement with that format already established, how close is the relationship, from a conceptual point of view, between the frame itself and your works from that period? Because in many works, yours and Carmelo Arden Quin’s in particular, it acts as another plane, in some cases with the contribution of its colour and the texture of the brushstroke. MB: The cutting of the frame responded to the internal structure of the work, because there was a particular composition in which some of the planes extended outward. That was how the cutout frame came about, there was more unity between the frame and the work itself. Aesthetically, the intention was to create a dynamic structure, to free the rhythm of any representation, to create controlled, rigid lines that were organised according to a constant rhythm of the whole. We realised that in order to achieve that effect of the dynamic of the whole, we had to do away with the rectangular format. We changed the rectangular frame and made a frame that was cut according to the interior rhythm of the painting. I was fixed on the idea of expressing nothing more than the dynamic, the continuous movement, a perpetuum mobile; so, my obsession

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was to try to avoid any romantic or sentimental expression. All of the lines are drawn with a ruler and the formations organised according to the golden ratio. I wanted to make a cold, calculated construction where everything was controlled by a conscience. That’s why there are only straight lines, no curves. And well, I worked with that system for ten years because at the time I believed that artistic activity is the product of an intellectual process, of logic. After fifty years, today I can say that is not quite true, the artistic act is based deeply on instinct, an instinct to escape the chaos of passion. So, logic helps. As Cézanne said, it is the harmonisation of the senses and sensibility with the control of the brain. You cannot separate the two things, and one does not dominate the other. Every artist wants to make a masterpiece and the artist is not to blame for the artistic quality of what is made – good, mediocre, or bad – because it is not a product of one’s will, there are other phenomena at play that are beyond one’s control. But going back to the subject, the colour of the frame must harmonise with the internal tonality of the work. PM: Especially if dealing with the period in question and the cutout frame as a device, since, in traditional painting, the role of the frame is to create even more separation between the work and its environment. However, there are also many pieces with an irregular format that lacked a frame. You are a kind of Sisley in the group, as you have a very sophisticated palette and great modulation of colour, which is somewhat unusual if you consider early Inventionism, the Madí or Perceptism. MB: Yes, you can betray yourself with colour. At heart, I have always been a passionate artist and it comes out in the colour. You cannot change your personality, it is impossible. So I see that contradiction between colour and structure. I tried to harmonise the two aspects.

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PM: In that case, the choice of colour for the frame was important. MB: I felt the frame was part of the structure, and the colour was important because it was harmonised according to the colour of the plane. PM: Especially in the 20th century, frames have been used to improve the presentation of a piece, but also to protect against abrasions on the edges and to be used as a support for handling. They did not have that aesthetic relationship with the work, as is the case in some of yours and Arden Quin’s works, so it would be hoped that the restorer that comes across one of your pieces with such a frame works according to the needs of the colour plane. Certainly, some of the painted frames from the Madí period have suffered damage, which is much more disruptive than in a regular frame that is not part of this same proposal and can be intervened separately from the context of the work. However, I see that the treatment is quite varied. There are untreated wood frames (such as in Plano azul [Blue Plane], in the collection of the artist at the time of the interview and in a second version of the work in the Museo Moderno, and Estructura [Structure] or Luces blancas [White Lights], in the collection of the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires), and others with brushed textures, such as Plano azul, the work that belongs to the Museo Moderno, and others like the ones I see in your home, which are enamelled. MB: Yes, of course, there are not many works in which I adjusted the colour of the frame to the work, for example there is one in the Costantini collection. PM: The frame of Plano azul, in the collection of the Museo Moderno, has a very special tone and quite a material load. MB: Yes, it is also harmonised, if you ask me.

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PM: I understand. It is not part of the work but it is indeed part of the tonal structure. which is most important if one is thinking of changing the frame. MB: Yes, but that cut frame had a finish like almost all frames, and hard angles, that is, with edges. In Switzerland, they took it out of the frame and put it in another, obviously, cut frame. But they did not respect the width, the new one was much narrower and the outer edges were rounded. I have that painting here. It was a different time, I had something else on my mind. To fix this now would be impossible for me.

Varnishes

pM: Were you in favour of varnishing your works? MB: No, I never used varnish. When I had a work that had an uneven finish, I would apply linseed oil to even out the uneven surfaces. When you use turpentine alone to paint, the result is more or less a matte finish. If you add linseed oil to the turpentine, it takes longer for the layer to dry, but it is glossier. I don’t use varnish because it darkens over time; it yellows and changes what the painter had planned. PM: And it becomes a problem for the conservator because due to an oxidation process, varnish hardens as it ages, taking on an amber and, ultimately, a brown hue. In traditional procedures, polar solvents are used to remove it, which may come close to the degree of solubility of the linseed oil in the paint. Though it is rarely the case these days, many artists finish their works with coloured varnishes. MB: Turner did, with glazes.

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PM: Yes, Turner and many other painters, such as our own Miguel Carlos Victorica, used varnishes to give a work a final layer of translucent colour that modified the tone. I remember a case I saw at a workshop led by Stephen Hackney, the conservator of the Tate Gallery in London, which was held at an important art museum in São Paulo, where they had a Turner. The work was practically gone; as a result of the radical removal of the aged and darkened varnish, the base on which the artist had worked with the final glazes had been exposed. With pieces like that, it is difficult to establish the precise limit between the final varnish and the last coloured glazes, because the solvent used for their removal also acts on the glazes. Despite everything, the work was still on display, much to Hackney’s surprise. I wanted you to make your position clear in this regard, because varnishing was not common in the early years of the concrete and Madí movements, according to the works I have been able to see personally, both in terms of the cutout frames and the coplanars. What’s more, and related to this same subject, Raúl Lozza worked until he found a method to polish his works to eliminate the surface sheen that was caused by his addition of industrial enamels to the oil paint. And, according to him, it was significant to the movement. MB: The impressionists never varnished. PM: In fact, on the back of some of Camille Pisarro’s works, it states, “Do not varnish this painting”.13 We often receive works with a varnish that was applied years after they were executed, and generally not applied by the artist.

See Lance Mayer and Gay Myers, “American Painters and Varnishing: British, French and German Connections”, Journal of the Institute of Conservation, 33: 2, 2010, pp. 117-127, DOI: 10.1080 / 19455224.2010.500192.

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MB: I remember an old manual from 1935 that I bought in Germany,14 whose author I cannot remember at the moment. It recommended that works not be varnished. It was a manual that continues to provide me with good advice. From it, I learned how to prime the canvasses as I told you, and how to paint the first coats with turpentine and the next ones with more linseed oil. PM: The old tenet of fat over lean. The advice of never to paint over a layer that is more elastic, that can move better with the support. The top layer, which is leaner, will not be able to accompany those movements and will end up cracking. MB: I currently do more sculpture than painting, but for these paintings I am working on, I am using hardboard as the support. They have four coats of white, synthetic matte Albamate paint, and the paint itself is still oil.

Sculpture

PM: I’d like to talk about the subject of your sculpture, without leaving the Madí period. I wanted to ask about the 1948 monolith or the 1947 Madí column that Von Bartha purchased from you and which today belongs to the Malba (Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires). My concern is the whites; were they originally pure whites or were they modified? They look very deteriorated and oxidised. MB: No, in that period it was industrial white, right out of the tin. Now, I don’t always do it that same way. For example, 14

Blaszko is referring to the book ÖLMALEREI (Materials and Techniques of Painting), written by the German professor Kurt Whelte, in which he gave practical advice that Blaszko took advantage of, such as how to prime the canvas and how to paint the first layers with a lean material and then cover it with layers that use more linseed oil. It also recommends that works not be varnished.

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this white (he points to Conquista espacial [Space Conquest], a polychrome aluminium sculpture from 1989) is not pure white; it is a white that has been modified slightly. It is something I did mainly during the period of the painted aluminium sculptures, which is much later. It has some earth or black in it, so it isn’t a pure white. But during the Madí period, they were pure white. PM: Do you remember any of the brands of synthetic paint from those days? MB: Alba, of course, and Steelcoat. As for the wood, most of it is palo borracho (Ceiba speciosa, floss silk tree) and incienso (Myrocarpus frondosus or ibirá-payé), especially the ones that are not polychrome and that come after the Madí period. The one that belongs to the Malba is a piece made from two blocks of wood that are joined with carpenter’s glue and bolt-like screws to ensure their adhesion. PM: In this other piece in wood (Pórtico, [Portico] 1949), I see there is some putty and some smaller forms that are apparently adhered to it. MB: They are small strips that were attached, glued with carpenter’s glue and as far as I can tell, they have remained in the same condition to this day. And in some parts, where there were some imperfections in the wood, I did use putty. But I’m clumsy when it comes to the technical side of things, so they aren’t perfect. But in other works, specifically in bronze, I develop the patina a lot by working with acids. When I go too far with the green, I use hydrogen peroxide to give it some brown. In the show I just did at the Museo Moderno, there is a work on loan from a young collector, which has a patina I like very much. On another note, bronze really withstands outdoor conditions, which is another advantage, and the patina takes on new tones over time.

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PM: That’s very important. Recently, I was with some restorers from the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, and they said the Spanish artist Eduardo Chillida uses a type of steel called Cortén (weathering steel), which oxidises up to a certain point and then acts as a protective agent, that is, it forms an oxide layer that protects the rest of the material from corrosion, which is somewhat similar to what happens with aluminium oxide. The action of the material interests him, and he even had to stop several restorers who, unaware of his intent, wanted to remove the rust from the piece. Fortunately, they contacted the artist before taking any action. He shows me another green patina. MB: This is made with an acid that I buy at a pharmacy. PM: Which acid did you use? MB: Nitric acid. Before, I used copper nitrate; I would dilute it in water and then heat it together with the piece. Then I discovered that with the acid, you can avoid heating the piece, which is an advantage, especially when it is a large piece. Much of my information I have learned from a very old German book15 on how to make patinas. PM: Is there any piece of yours that, for some reason, is an exception in your entire body of work? MB: The only work I could consider an exception was one that was really conceived for the public realm, that has been installed at the Hakone Museum in Japan. They gave me the opportunity to really create a work for the landscape, which was a challenge for me. PM: How was it made, in technical terms? MB: The execution technique was the same I used for the aluminium models. We just had to be very careful that the work 15

Chemische Färbungen von Kupfer und kupferlegierunen, Deutsches-Kupfer Institut, Berlin, 1962.

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was stable, so we made an internal steel structure that was clad with aluminium sheets. You might say that it is the only piece that didn’t follow the routine of my works. As for the colour layer, first I gave it a base, or primer, that allowed the white enamel to affix well; it was created specifically for use with aluminium or non-ferrous materials, so that the paint wouldn’t lift over time. PM: Generally speaking, one of the principal causes of deterioration is often the mishandling of pieces for exhibitions in museums and galleries and during transport. You likely have some experiences or thoughts on the subject, especially in terms of the transport of works. MB: When someone begins talking about moving a piece, I cover my ears, I don’t want to hear of it. That’s why I feel much better about my bronzes; they don’t have any problems. Neither does aluminium, though it is a bit of a softer metal. A few years ago, a painting came back damaged from an exhibition of Argentinian art in Chile, for which a compensation had to be paid. Although it was not major damage, it was significant. And recently, something happened that left me outraged. I was sent an artwork with a small broken piece and, though it wasn’t a big deal, what angered me was the bad faith: standing beside the lorry, they made me sign the paper saying it was delivered in good condition before they unloaded it. When I unpacked it, I saw there was a piece that had broken, and they knew it. Artists have bad luck here, no one respects their work. But bronze is a noble material, you have to work hard to damage it. Now I’m looking to cast some of them in sand; it’s much cheaper than lost-wax casting. For example, the Monumento al prisionero político desconocido [Monument to the Unknown Political Prisoner], at the Museo Moderno, was sand casted. It was for an international competition organised in London by the Institute of Contemporary Art, a competition to choose a work to 169

commemorate the unknown political prisoner. 3,500 sculptors from all over the world took part. Each country had a jury. Fifty works were presented here, including works by Libero Badii and Osvaldo Stimm. Curatella Manes, Noemí Gerstein and I were chosen. The pieces were exhibited in London and there were works by Calder and Pevsner. There were twelve grand prizes. The first prize was given to an English sculptor. The three of us were awarded. Later, Romero Brest – who was one of the national jurors along with Tacchini and Rinaldini – made a report upon his return on the exhibition at the Tate Gallery. He remarked that my work deserved one of the twelve first prizes; it is the one that is in the Museo Moderno. For me, it gave me more moral support, because I had never done exhibitions before. PM: We are talking about 1952, right? MB: Yes, exactly. PM: And with regard to your Madí productions, was Romero Brest able to see them then? MB: He saw them in 1946, when we launched the Madí. When he came out, he said, “Shit” (laughs). But in this project (Monumento al prisionero político desconocido), I was interested in the material as well as the structure and the rhythms. I am fascinated by bronze, especially because of its permanence. It withstands the weather, it is strong, and it also acquires a beautiful patina over time; it’s very pictorial, a very noble green. And for those who feel colours, as I do, the patina is impressive because of its beauty. The structure is the same as the one I used in many paintings, a continuous dynamic. All of the rhythms move from bottom to top and from right to left, and vice versa. PM: For your show at the Museo Moderno,16 you asked me to recover the shine of the edges of that work in order to accentuate 16

Martín Blaszko - Nace una escultura [Martín Blaszko – A Sculptor is Born], Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2001.

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them because, as you told me, they had been lost. In fact, the sensitivity of bronze to environmental agents and the products of oxidation causes a patina that, over time, hides those details. MB: Yes, in those works I do it with a very fine sandpaper because with time they are lost, that is, they get darker. And I always like that the bronze background shows a little, and, also, to see how the light works when it illuminates the different volumes. So, the edges are a great help in terms of visualising those aspects. PM: Over time it tends to lose its original aesthetic. Bronze requires preventive treatment so that the patina is a bit more permanent and does not continue to work. Often microcrystalline wax is used to create a barrier so that the surrounding atmosphere does not affect it as much. In many countries, there are government services that are in charge of regularly treating the bronze monuments. NB: There is a work by Marino Marini at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes. It is fabulous, a rider from the Di Tella collection. It has a very special patina, but the bronze cannot be seen, and I would have liked it to show a little. But going back to the subject of sand casting, the format is important. There are some pieces that can be difficult to get out of the mould, that is why the work has to be simple, to be able to get them out without issue. Now, look at the detail of this work, the bronze rods must be chosen carefully. These are a different alloy. The material responded differently to the action of the acid. I think I have to be insistent with the acid, to correct things.X The structure of my sculptures is the same as the one I used in the paintings; it is a continuous dynamic. All of the rhythms move from bottom to top and from right to left, and vice versa. It is a perpetuum mobile, and I believe it is a dynamic that reflects the spirit of our age. Because, in addition to reflecting a universal cosmic dynamic, it gives the sensation of serenity 171

and does not block the gaze, instead it carries it from one point to another, slowly, in a very calm way, as in the music of Bach. When I make a work, be it a painting or a sculpture, the measurements, the relations between segments, they are crucial. Sometimes I spend months adjusting the measurements between internal elements. My first sculptures are not dominated by colour, they were more of an effort to create volumes in space and rhythms that move through the mass, the proportions, etc. In the first ones, I left the wood with a natural finish and later, over the years, I began to carve cheap wood because I intended to paint it white. This is a model, 50 cm in height, and to make the most of the material, I left the edge with the natural colour of the bronze. PM: They are two entirely distinct tones. I’m sure it has to do with the proportions of the copper and tin alloy. One looks like a red earth and the other like a green. MB: When you buy a bronze you may not recognise the fact that everything is bronze with the exception of the base, which is aluminium and is going to be painted black. These lumps you see here accumulate at the base due to the action of the acid. In fact, I would like to make them in a large format, ten or fifteen metres, but nothing happens here, the only work that I could really make as I wanted to was the one in Japan. For example, this plaster sculpture is many years old and I didn’t finish it. The first version was in plasticine,17 and then we made it in plaster. And now I am modifying the plaster and then will cast it, if possible.18

Plasticine is a mouldable, thermoplastic synthetic polymer used in sculpture as well as an educational material.

The work was finally cast in bronze.

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PM: In the polychrome aluminium sculptures, is everything done by you? I mean the cutting, the polishing, the paint layer. Or do you perhaps use an assistant?19 MB: Yes. I can also tell you that you have to be sure to give them a primer coat so the final coat of paint has something to grip and doesn’t come off so easily. I used a French primer, Julien, that I bought in Paris. Here I use Wash Primer, from Alba. It is for non-ferrous materials. I always use it before painting these aluminium sculptures. In this case, it’s a red in different shades, because I don’t like it to be all the same red. PM: What are some of the problems that can occur with these polychrome aluminium pieces? MB: Sometimes the paint can come off on some of the edges, I think when it gets moved around a lot. PM: The flexibility of the aluminium sheets and the hardness of the paint can cause those issues. And the shade of the paint changes as it ages. MB: As you can see, this plane is a very different red from the others. And I have to accept that industrial paint changes a little when it dries, it darkens a bit. PM: Speaking of conservation and restoration, on the one hand, there is the European approach that seeks to stabilise the deterioration of a piece by addressing the causes, but does not accept any reintegration of the material or colour. Recently, there was a beautiful exhibition at the Museo Moderno that was a Luis Seoane retrospective. It came from the Seoane Foundation in Galicia20 and there were several works that showed previous problems of deterioration, in which interventions had 19

I can testify that it was only in his final years of life that Martín Blaszko had an assistant to help him with the more mechanical tasks, especially the cutting and assembly of the aluminium.

Held from the 15 June to 20 August 2000. Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires.

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only been carried out to stop the damage, but nothing had been reintegrated. So, it was a surprise for those who are not familiar with the subject to see a work of that quality with elements missing from the pictorial and priming layers, allowing the linen cloth of the canvas support to be seen. In other words, nothing had been added to it, which is related to the choices made by the conservation and restoration professionals and is a trend of the times, but does not take into account the tastes of another era, including those of the artist. It would be unimaginable to apply the same criteria to a concrete or Madí work of art. In perhaps the most well-known cases in the world, the colour reintegrations that are made to restore unity to a piece after an intervention are differentiated from the original. This is known as “chromatic abstraction”, a technique of reintegrating the colour using optical blending, which allows the viewer to discern at close range the work the restorer has carried out where part of the original has been lost. In mechanical terms, it is executed using hatching patterns or dots that are known by their original (Italian) names as tratteggio or rigattino and puntinato,21 with the understanding that, since pure colours are used to execute these techniques, it is impossible to reconstruct primary colours. Such treatments can be applied to works with so-called broken colours, which were more common in the first period of Inventionism and in your own paintings in general, since you have rejected completely homogeneous colour planes. You always employ a sensitive treatment of the colour plane. Of course, particularly in commercial circles, “imitative” techniques are the most common, where all missing elements are reintegrated using a mimetic method to make any type of damage imperceptible. 21

See end notes II and III in the “On the Work. From the perspective of conservation”, p. 99.

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Which of the two approaches do you find more convincing for your work? MB: The latter. Because the artist’s intention is a particular work, it has a character that has been given to it by the artist and the work is intended to be presented to the public with that character. So it is simply a matter of trying to maintain it. If there is something that is not working due to deterioration, I believe it would be necessary to intervene, to restore it to its previous state. In my opinion, I think that is the best thing to do. PM: While I think restoring it to a previous state is somewhat improbable, I take it that an intervention, whatever it may be, should be restricted to the damaged area, at least if we are talking about your paintings, since other alternatives may exist for sculpture. MB: Of course. In my own case, if a work deteriorates over time and exhibits damages, I think it needs to be intervened, restored, inasmuch as possible, to a state similar to the original, don’t you agree? Now, there are some collectors who take license and modify part of a work; for example, the frame that I told you about. PM: It is a bit traumatic. MB: Furthermore, an artist cannot restore his works from years past, because he is now at a different stage, he has modified his concept. A painter can paint in one way in the fifties and have another colour in the sixties or seventies. He may also have a different structure or sensation of colour vis-à-vis his work, which makes it impossible for him to restore one of his earlier pieces. Von Bartha was right about that; when he bought a painting in need of restoration, he would ask the artist not to touch it. He would send them to be restored and, in fact, he did so with many of our works. PM: I would like to talk a bit about the intervention criteria for sculptures from this period and with that execution 175

technique of the wood support with the layer of white paint. For example, this piece is one of many versions of Júbilo [Jubilation]. In fact, it is the first. MB: As you can see, there are missing elements down there. There are eight volume components that are missing. They were about eight millimetres high and were attached. They have been lost. PM: And there is no photographic documentation either. MB: No. They were squares, triangles … that is, they were all different. PM: Surely, one measurement of the form can be taken based on what is missing; what is needed is the height. MB: Yes. PM: In terms of an intervention of this piece, what criteria do you feel should be adopted? MB: I think a good cleaning, the replacement of the missing parts and, as for the colour, give it a chalky white, that is a white that is not very luminous, and give it another coat. PM: Would repainting the entire piece again be an option? Or would an effective cleaning and replacement of the missing elements be preferred and, in terms of colour, just a touch up of where it has been lost? That way, the historical integrity of the original colour could be maintained and the piece could retain all of its aesthetic and historical dignity. MB: I think that a well-executed, new coat of colour would not alter the essence of the work, because the work is based on a material structure that will not be modified at all and that is the essence of the work. PM: I understand. So, you feel that the historical nature of the layer of colour you applied in this series of pieces, whose functionality is very object-based, is not as relevant.

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MB: Exactly, what is important is that the colour is uniform, because it is not a painting, a picture. There is a language here, and it is the language of formal rhythms. The work makes its impact through the line, the formal elements. The white has to be neutral, so that you feel the dynamics of the rhythms. The white must be uniform. PM: What you are saying is very important, and that is what Von Bartha asked his restorer to do with a piece of yours from the period. He had him remove the overpainting that you had given it and had him apply a modified colour that was more closely related to its history, which is not very easy to discern, but with this one, there are those eight elements that are missing. MB: They would have to be reconstructed and reattached. They were just glued to the main trunk of the piece. Likely, the glue was not well-prepared and, with the help of humidity, they were lost. PM: Do you think it is possible to reconstruct them? MB: Yes, because they left a mark. The bottom of the missing bit shows the shape of the piece very well. The height of the pieces would be about eight millimetres. This other piece is 12 years old. To create the arch, I used an aluminium rod, which is embedded in the wood support. But, in addition, at one end, I glued another piece of wood to give it a curvature. PM: You added another piece of wood to shape it. I have noticed those subtle interventions in many of your works that add nuance to the shape; a shadow that breaks the regularity of the plane. MB: Yes, it was to give it a little shadow in that area. PM: The white shows the deterioration that is typical of something that rests on the ground and, due to household cleaning, suffers these issues.

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MB: Yes, that’s what it is from, the mop (laughs). In these other works, I used a very hard wood to save the form over the years, so that it wouldn’t deteriorate or alter. So I didn’t paint it, I left it natural; it is incienso. For Pórtico, from 1952, I made a repair, to which I applied colour for tonality; now it is quite noticeable. PM: As for the possibility of making changes to the accessories of your works in your absence, I suppose you have no objections, especially considering your polychrome aluminium sculptures. MB: Should one of the forms be lost due to an external impact or accident, I don’t think there would be any problem with replacing some of the pieces, as long as the visual qualities are respected. PM: In fact, when one of the works had to be restored when it was part of the exhibition 18 esculturas para la ciudad [18 Sculptures for the City]. So, we took the opportunity to position some small aluminium planes, like black accessories, that you had kept over the years and that, because of the urgency with which you had to deliver the piece, you had painted with enamel over the large white planes.22 MB: That is correct, it turned out very well and I think it is the right way to proceed with these types of works.XI There is a work, now in the Costantini collection at the Malba, that is made in wood. In 1947, I sent it to a visual arts salon in Mar del Plata (Buenos Aires province). The members of the 22

Conquista espacial was part of the open-air exhibition 18 esculturas para la ciudad, in 1978. At the close of the exhibition, Blaszko’s work along with those of the other participating artists (L. Badii; Davite; J. Gamarra; N. Gerstein; S. Giangrande; V. Grippo; A. Heredia; E. Iommi; N. Jiménez; G. Kósice; C. de la Mota; A. Puente; P. García Reinoso; E. Sabelli; C. Testa; M. J. Heras Velasco and L. Wells) were moved to the storehouses of the Centro Cultural Buenos Aires (now the Centro Cultural Recoleta) before being donated and transported to the Museo Moderno. All of the works were severely damaged and, in some cases, vandalised.

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jury included Lucio Fontana and Emilio Pettoruti, who had to fight hard for the work not to be rejected. Forty years later, Von Bartha came and purchased it. Then, in Switzerland, he sold it to Costantini. The piece was painted with a very common white synthetic enamel. When Von Bartha saw the piece, it was already old and the white was quite bad, but since he was interested, I repainted it before he came back to pick it up. When he saw it, he clutched his head in his hands and said to me, “No! This shade of white won’t do!” Then he had it repainted in Switzerland at his own discretion, because I had already left an area uncovered that could serve as a guide for the final tone. PM: He has been an important figure for the international development of concrete and Madí art. Are you still in touch? MB: Yes. On the other hand, he was the only collector to take a risk. He bought, paid and took the works with him. Of course, he made a lot of money doing it, he bought for six and sold for thirty, but he deserves it, because he took a risk, which is something that no one here did. Here they only show up when you already have a market (laughs). Now they offer me galleries, so anyone can be a marchand. They don’t take risks, they don’t care. Imagine, I had to earn a living for fifty years as a furrier as it’s only in the last few years that I began to sell some of my artworks. So they think, “Ahh! This guy is beginning to sell. Let’s go have a look …” As soon as it happens, they want a piece of the pie. So, let them! That’s what they are there for, but it should be a collaboration. Here these marchands want me to exhibit but they don’t want to buy anything from me. This year I had three offers, I turned them all down. I couldn’t reach an agreement with anyone. I said that if they want to do a show, at the minimum, they have to purchase a work from me, even if it is a collage or a drawing.

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Since they didn’t accept, there was no agreement. There was no Von Bartha here. The truth is, they are few and far between. Kahnweiler, for example. That’s why Picasso never abandoned him. When he was hungry, Kahnweiler bought from him. There was no collector here like that. For 40 or 45 years I didn’t sell anything, so I can survive another 40 or 45 without selling anything. PM: Now that you brought up the subject of the circulation of your works, have you found works that have been attributed to you that you have your own doubts about? That are fakes, to be precise? MB: No, at least not so far. It happens if an artist is very established in the market. PM: You are. MB: But a connoisseur will notice it right away. The problem is you have to have a strong knowledge of visual culture to notice. PM: You are almost the only one that remained in the country. Some settled abroad, others alternated between stays in Europe, the United States and Argentina for work. MB: I made some trips to New York, Paris, Washington and Japan, when my work was unveiled. But with the masters, sometimes contact leads to disappointment, because you idealise these common human beings who have the same defects, the same phobias, envy and jealousy as anyone else. So, I think I have better relations with dead artists than living ones. At least, they bring me more. For example, I admire African sculpture and yet I have never met any black sculptors. PM: I see you have several. MB: They have a great vitality. The material is just a piece of wood and yet they have made great works. The great painters of the 20th century were astonished when they discovered them. 180

Knowing them personally is not important, you have to know the work. PM: The work of yours that is in Parque Centenario, which has a somewhat similar composition to the work in the Museo Moderno that we restored, is very deteriorated. I have also noticed that there are some advertisements stuck to it that no one has removed.XII MB: Yes, the work has only two colours, black and white. It is conceived so that the white plays with the surroundings of the public space. For that piece, the indication to a restorer would be to give it a pure white, free of tonalities. PM: The fact that it is an outdoor piece suggests that it is an operation that will have to be repeated eternally, since there is no way to protect the paint layer from the weather, especially from direct sunlight and water.

Climate-controlled display cases

PM: I want to discuss a somewhat widespread conservation practice that is used for very delicate pieces. Not long ago, Luis Tomasello contacted me at the museum because he wanted an acrylic box for the purpose of preserving his work in the collection. As you know, his work is very pure in terms of its finish, it is based on the reflection of colours on a polished white background, which makes the work difficult to handle and highly vulnerable to sudden changes in relative humidity, since the support is made of plywood. All of this was the subject of a conversation with Stephen Hackney, who insisted that acrylic boxes are the most effective means of slowing the exchange of air with the environment, thus allowing the work to achieve a balance without undergoing stress. There are several ways they can be constructed to allow a good performance, and they also

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prevent any direct contact with the piece. The strange thing is that all the artists I have consulted with have been very resistant to the idea. Could they offer an alternative for your works? MB: I saw one of my sculptures that is in a large collection in one of those boxes, and what happened? The edges of the box cast a shadow on the sculpture that I had not planned. It is a distortion of the composition of the work. Those boxes may work for paintings, if the lighting doesn’t cast a shadow on the works. PM: Such is the case of a group of works by César Paternosto, known as “La visión oblicua” [“The Oblique Vision”], in which the artist restricts the work to the lateral planes of the piece, on stretcher frames that are of a greater depth than conventional ones, in which case the same issue would occur as in your sculpture. The viewer is forced to gaze at such an angle that it is blocked by the vertex of the box.

Lighting

PM: Lighting is an issue that can be a concern for artists, both when painting and exhibiting. Generally speaking, galleries and museums use spotlights with a very warm light, which in some manner influences the final result. From what I can see, you work with a very white daylight, both natural and artificial. MB: Here I have daylight fluorescent tubes. I have always preferred to work with daylight, a filtered light. Preferably, light that comes from the north so as to avoid strong reflections in the environment and have an even illumination. I realised that when you work with artificial light, you combine the colours according to the light that hits the canvas. If the light is yellowish or greenish, the intention of the artist is greatly altered. That is why I thought the best light is natural.

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Now, when it comes to sculpture, it is a different matter. I remember Rodin’s great advice in that fantastic book by Paul Gsell, Conversations with Rodin, which is a gold mine of reflections: “Give me good shadows and we shall have good forms”. Curatella Manes, a pupil of Bourdelle, also said, “… you have to build sculpture with the shadows”. A good shadow gives a sense of volume and energy. For example, at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes there is a wonderful work that is very poorly lit, Cabeza de Balzac [Head of Balzac], by Rodin. There is a light that kills the sculpture, with shadows so black, so deep, that the modelling in those areas vanishes, it disappears completely. And right in a work that is so full of subtleties. PM: In that case, it is the direct lighting that creates holes. As for Tomasello, his work is one of those cases in which the lighting must be planned so as not to eliminate the reflections of colour that are the foundation of his work. Direct light, typical in all exhibitions, would cancel out those reflections by casting shadows. In his case, a zenithal, ambient light is needed, as is the case of so many others, such as the head by Rodin that you mention. When Melé exhibited his relief works at the Centro Cultural Borges, in which he worked with reflections of colour, he made them turn off the spotlights and turn on the top lights to create luminance without using direct light.

Urbanism

PM: There are a couple of subjects that are fundamental to you that we have not touched on: the monumentality of your sculptures, beyond their real dimensions; and visual noise in the city. I have several catalogues of yours, some of them very old, and I have

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seen that you use a very low point of view when you photograph your sculptures, in order to accentuate their monumentality. MB: When I am in front of a new work, a sculpture or project dealing with volumes, I always imagine it in an open space. It is a great stimulus to achieve something Curatella Manes once pointed out to me when she said, “There is something in your sculpture that very few sculptors have: monumentality”. I recently had to give a talk on the difference between a large sculpture and a monumental one. The conference was in Dallas, United States, but shortly before, I was at an international conference in New Orleans listening to a round table discussion with the most important American sculptors, coordinated by Hilton Kramer,23 the New York Times critic. Each of the artists spoke about their sculpture and when they mentioned them, sometimes they said it was a large sculpture and sometimes they said it was monumental, they mixed the terms. At the end of the interview, I asked about the difference between the two terms, that is, I asked them to define what, at least in their mind, was a monumental sculpture. I should point out that Isamo Noguchi was there along with other very important artists. None of them could define the difference. Someone in the audience asked Kramer if he had an answer, and he said something like, “If someone makes a life-size head and then takes it to a size that is five or ten times bigger, then it becomes monumental”. I was down there in the audience and obviously didn’t agree with his definition. But a few days later I had to give my own lecture, so I expressed my own point of view on the issue. A sculpture can be big and not feel monumental. What is the characteristic, the ingredient it must have for one to feel it is monumental? Because there are small sculptures that we can feel are monumental. 23

American art critic (25 March 1928, Gloucester, Massachusetts, USA - 27 March 2012, Harpswell, Maine, USA).

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If a city does not emit an aesthetic pleasure, then it produces in the viewer a kind of alienation, hostility and indifference. That is why having emotional stimuli within the urban environment is so important. Currently, it can be seen that the authorities themselves are undermining the aesthetics of the urban environment by allowing indiscriminate advertising. PM: There are wonderful sculptures in the city and they are not located in the surroundings they deserve, so that people can have that aesthetic experience you are talking about. Earlier we were talking about the Alvear monument in Recoleta, by Bourdelle, and the invasive advertising. MB: I protested about it. When they erected the monument to General Alvear, they chose a place that had a lot of space as a backdrop; I think it was unveiled in 1924, there were no buildings in the vicinity. The same can be said of the suffocation of the San Isidro Cathedral. The phenomenon of urbanism cannot be controlled and managed by land speculators, people who buy and sell land, because it has to be managed by pure urban planners, who care about the beauty of the habitat, of the environment. PM: What is the reason behind it? Is it insensitivity? Lack of interest? Or is it simply that the damage is not perceived? MB: No, I think it is more of a question of conflict avoidance and a lack of social solidarity. There are things one should not remain silent about. I once wrote a note to the La Nación newspaper that appeared in the letters section, but nothing happened. However, by chance, a few days later, I met Peña, the architect, at a lunch, and so I remarked again about the billboards that were disruptive to the Alvear monument. He said to me, “Look, a criticism like that never falls on deaf ears”. Five weeks later, they took the posters down, but it so happened that they left the metal structure of the billboards behind (laughs). Ten years later, they put the advertising back up. So, I had the 185

opportunity to complain once again, this time to City Council. There was a meeting of the Asociación de Premiados Argentinos (Association of Argentine Award Winners, APA) and they asked me to raise the issue again. I gave the history of the monument, spoke about the negative aspects of the billboards, the need to remove them and to permanently remove the structure. They accepted the concern and now there are no signs or structures. What struck me most was that the art critics, architects, urban planners, historians and artists themselves all kept quiet, nobody protested. These are negative things that sometimes frustrate the sense of identity one should feel with the city. I arrived in Buenos Aires in 1939; a cousin of mine had been living here for two years and knew nothing about art in general, and even less about architecture and urban planning. He was a small-town boy with little education. Two weeks after arriving, he said to me, “Look, I am going to show you something very nice in the city of Buenos Aires”. We met that Sunday and he took me to see the obelisk. It struck me that a person with no visual culture could nonetheless be impacted by the urban environment in such an emotional way and in a way that predisposes the inhabitant to identify with the place where he lives. I think that a work should include in its measurements the internal rhythms and relationship that one has with the cosmos. These relationships can be set out in proportions and measurements that have to be included in the work. What is more, the self has to be diminished. We are very small compared to the universe. The sculptor who makes a very large sculpture and does not express these relationships in its measurements is simply a megalomaniac. One has to have a certain humility to be able to see ourselves in relation to the cosmos from our own smallness. The measurements and internal relations of a sculpture must reflect the sense of the humble man before the world.

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When Giacometti paints a head in a painting, you can see that the space around the head is very big in comparison, so, what does that mean? He, the one who is executing the work, feels lost in the world, because there is no relationship between the head and the surroundings, there is no link, the head is lost. I think that indicates one’s view of the world. Giacometti was lost in the world; he felt the world was a tragedy. It also occurs in his individual technique, in the placement of the coloured material with cuts and a lack of definition. He is clearly not an optimist in the face of the world, he has a tortured view of life. In Greek art, we see that the general laws of the overall structure are repeated in all of the segments or parts. In Fidias [Phidias] for example, there is a complete wisdom of the work, and that wisdom is repeated even in the smallest details. PM: The environment is very important for a good reading of a piece. Having a neutral background against which the piece is exhibited is vital. Although there have been great improvements in this aspect through careful curatorship, there are still many exhibition halls where the very works on display act as a kind of visual noise when you try to isolate a work to appreciate it. Though it must be recognised that in the case of sculpture, the fact that it offers different points of view from which it can be appreciated further complicates the situation. MB: For a work of art to reach the viewer, the immediate environment must be studied. There is that brilliant work, The She-wolf with Romulus and Remus.24 That work was made more 24

This is a piece donated by Vittorio Emmanuelle III, King of Italy (1869-1947) to the Ambassador of the Argentinian Republic, Dr. Roque Sáenz Peña, on the occasion of the Centenary of the May Revolution, in 1910. It is a copy of the original in the Capitoline Museum in Rome. The gifted work was originally placed at the intersection of Florida and Diagonal Norte streets but was later moved to the Botanical Garden. It was then removed to make two copies, one for the garden and the other for Parque Lezama, while the original gift was placed in the hall of the Buenos Aires Legislature. See: <https://www.buenosaires.gob.ar/jardinbotanico/obras-de-arte/4-la-loba-romana>.

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than two thousand years ago, it is a jewel of art, extraordinary, and yet the background has the same value, that is, the background is the same tone as the work. On the other hand, the pedestal or base is so overloaded with moulding and subdivisions that it distracts the eye from the sculpture. It is a Roman bronze that should have a completely neutral, plain pedestal so as not to distract the eye from the work itself. PM: It is what today we call visual noise. I remember a sculpture, a classic bronze head with a very low green patina, mounted on a wooden based in an incredibly saturated magenta that made it difficult to perceive the piece due to the disturbance caused by the colour of the base. The colour of the base for a sculpture or object is fundamental in how it gives prominence to the piece. There has been a trend for making museum supports very colourful, which makes them jump out visually. Obviously, it doesn’t work in all cases. MB: Of course. Care has to be taken because the eye sees both things, the form and the surroundings. The work has to combine well with the environment. It is a question of relationships. When I make a work, be it a painting or a sculpture, the measurements, the relations between segments, they are crucial. Sometimes I spend months adjusting the measurements between internal elements. PM: Humanity has spent centuries building these relationships, which are the foundation of the aesthetic experience. MB: Of course. All the great works, from the Greeks to the Gothic and the Renaissance, they all repeat the golden ratio. Le Corbusier wrote a book, Le Modulor [The Modulor]25 in which he analyses the golden ratio, because the whole of nature, the human 25

Between 1942 and 1948, Le Corbusier developed what we know today as “the modulor”. It is a system of measurements and proportions based on the golden ratio, working from the proportions of the human body, that is applicable to both functional and aesthetic design in architecture.

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body, our limbs, animals, plants, it is all built on this universal secret. That is why I do not work without the golden ratio. PM: Carmelo Arden Quin had something to do with it. MB: Of course, I didn’t know anything about it, I didn’t know anything. But he doesn’t work with the ratio now, that is why his current works don’t convince me as much. PM: It may be because he feels he is part of another historical moment. MB: I don’t know. There is one work that I like very much, which has a great aesthetic impact and wasn’t intended as such: the cranes that have been left in Puerto Madero. It is very important to observe how some urban planners and architects saw the attractiveness and value of those industrial structures within that urban space, which works so well. PM: And with that, we return to the subject of monumentality, with the vaulted sky or the buildings in the background, depending on where you are observing them from. MB: When I pass through there, it excites me to see those cranes. And the colour is very attractive, it plays with the grey of the surroundings, the green of the squares. PM: I think it has to do with some of your works in terms of the structure, especially the polychrome aluminium of the eighties and nineties. MB: Perhaps. Those cranes have a very organic construction. The most important works in New York, in the urban context, are the bridges. They are marvellous works that integrate very well into the context. They have fabulous compositions, obviously derived from the different engineering systems for construction, where every last detail is taken care of, where there is no room for error. PM: And there is also the aesthetic requirement. They must not disturb the surroundings; they must be visually integrated. 189

MB: In the public space, there is another work that excites many people: the old bridge at La Boca, which unfortunately is not as well cared for as it should be.

At the studio of the artist, Avenida Santa Fe, across from the Botanical Garden, 1999-2001.

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TECHNICAL NOTES I The work exhibits blistering due to the lifting of the canvas from the primary cardboard support, particularly in the lower area and edges. The cardboard was smoothed down and, after relaxing the canvas by means of controlled humidity (between 60 and 65% RH), the planar deformations were corrected and the original canvas was mounted on a 3 mm aluminium support (marouflage) of the same measures as the original cardboard. The aluminium was cut by Blaszko himself, who had worked with this material for decades. The adhesive used was Beva 371, a thermoplastic adhesive for relining paintings on canvas. The formula was developed by Gustav Berger in the 1970s. It consists of an ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA) copolymer, a ketone resin (polycyclohexanone), an A-C (EVA) copolymer, Cellolyn 121 (abietic alcohol phthalate ester) and paraffin. The aluminium support was interleaved with polyester monofilament. The work underwent a surface cleaning and no material or colour reintegration was necessary. It was then protected with Paraloid B72 (with 3% microcrystalline wax).

Paraloid B72: Manufactured by Rohm & Haas, it is a dry resin that comes in the form of transparent pellets or in a 50% weight by volume solution with toluene. It is an ethyl methacrylate/methyl acrylate copolymer. In the United States, it was previously known as Acryloid® B-72, until the summer of 1997 when its name was changed to Paraloid® B-72 to match its original European name. It first began to be used in conservation in 1950 as a coating for metals. It is used industrially as a flexible medium for inks and aerosol paints as well as for textiles and metallic furniture finishes, with or without pigments. It is considered to be one of the most stable resins for use in conservation. As a varnish, it remains unalterable and soluble for 200 years in the solvents with which it was originally dissolved (Feller, Curram and Bailie 1981). Apart from its use as a varnish, it is also used as a consolidant for the partial or total impregnation of oil or mural paintings. In addition, it is used as a medium for paints and as a consolidant for wood, plaster, stone and ethnographic objects, as an adhesive for ceramics and glass, and as a fixative for charcoal and pastels. II The work of Carmelo Arden Quin that belongs to the Museo Moderno was painted, according to the artist himself, using his muñeca technique. The colour planes are made using this application technique which sees the brush replaced by a pad consisting of a fine cloth that covers a cotton interior. The pad was dipped in the paint which was then applied with pressure to the chosen support, which he covered with cardboard as a means of creating a window or template to define the planes. This artwork was made at Blaszko’s house, who told me that Arden Quin made the lacquered frame himself. Certainly, he had received a traditional education during his figurative period and thus the use of the muñeca may have represented a change at a given time. One of the characteristics of his work in general is a great economy in the application of the pictorial layer. He was always attentive to everything industry had to offer, and also made use of the industrial spray paints used for cars, from Peugeot.

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III Blaszko is referring to a work by Arden Quin which he owns. It has a cut frame and is oil on canvas mounted on a stretcher, from 1945. It is one of the few I have had the opportunity to see of a cut frame that uses this technique. Seeing the complicated folds of the canvas at the edges and understanding the objective nature of concrete art, one can understand why the rigid support became the popular choice for their works, be it cardboard, plywood, hardboard or Celotex. See “On the Work. Towards solid supports”, p. 102. I had the opportunity to intervene in a piece in the same format by Carmelo Arden Quin. It was a canvas mounted on a stretcher that Martín Blaszko, a good friend of Arden Quin, owned at the time at the time of our interview. IV Ripolin paints were originally developed in the Netherlands at the beginning of the 1890s, based on the work of the chemist Carl Julius Ferdinand Riep. Between 1897 and the end of World War II, it was produced on the premises of the renowned manufacturer of fine arts materials Lefranc, in Issy-les-Moulineaux, a suburb of Paris (Pelgrim Egbert, De Ripolin verffabriek, Hilversum, Eigen Perk, 1994). See: <http://www.albertusperk.nl/ eigenperk-artikelen/1994.1%20Ripolin.pdf> V With respect to the degradation of these household industrial paints, I should mention that Blaszko has another work by Carmelo Arden Quin from those years at his house; it is a cut frame in wood with a white background (Ripolin synthetic paint, as Arden Quin himself assured me). The composition is organised based only on straight lines and circles of colour executed to a high level of perfection through the use of a ruling pen and a compass. The amount of oxidation that has affected the white synthetic background is remarkable, as it has taken on an amber hue and lost the reflective power of the original work; as Blaszko says, there is a loss of opacity which has seriously compromised the reading of the work. The piece is not varnished and there is little dirt on the surface. Everything seems to indicate a structural deterioration of the pictorial layer which, needless to say, is irreversible. As for the Ripolin enamels, Picasso used them during his cubist period for the typography that appears in many of his cubist compositions, as well as later ones. In spite of Blaszko’s remarks, over the course of the interview, he admits that he also used synthetic materials at some point. VI

As conservators, we understand the concept of permanence as something fanciful or abstract, since as soon as a work has been executed, the pictorial layer begins to undergo a series of changes as it goes through the curing process, and these are defined by the alteration of the original shades. The speed and magnitude of these changes depend on the materials used, how they have been executed, and the characteristics and thermo-hygrometric variations of the environment in which the works are situated. VII

One of the issues encountered with oil paint is its gradual loss of elasticity over the course of its life cycle. The elasticity typical of the first decades of its existence allows it to accompany the movements of the canvas as it seeks equilibrium with its environment, expanding or contracting as it receives and returns moisture to the changing environment. After a prolonged period of time, it acquires a hardness that causes that layer to give in to the movements of the canvas support, thus responding by cracking, which,

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depending on the degree of adhesion to the support, can generate different problems of deterioration that range from a simple planar deformation of the canvas support, to the loss of fragments of that layer. In the field of conservation, cracks from ageing are understood to be part of the natural ageing process of the work. A conservator will only intervene when there are indications of possible lifting of the pictorial layer. From this, it could be deduced that the appropriate support for an oil painting is a rigid one. While rigid supports have their own issues (for cardboard, deformations; for hardboard, expansion of the edges, because the boards are processed under pressure; and for plywood, the risk of lifting of the external laminars), they do not experience the axial movements of canvas, as described above. Hardboard (or chapadur, in Argentina) is a good support for oil painting. As for its care, as with any object or cultural asset, it must be protected from sudden changes in relative humidity or direct contact with water, but it is undoubtedly a very solid material. VIII

Sand casting is an artisanal process for the manufacture of aluminium or bronze pieces. It aims to obtain a metal piece that is identical to the original model but does so by working directly with it, without the use of intermediary moulds. It consists of making a mould of the piece to be cast, using two boxes filled with sand. Half of the piece is moulded in each box, where half of the negative shape is made in one box, and the other half in another box, creating the second half in negative. By positioning the two boxes face-to-face, a hollow is formed between them that is of the exact volume of the piece to be cast. This volume is then filled with liquid bronze, which is poured through channels made specifically for the purpose; there are other conduits to allow the gasses to be released. The process uses clayey binding material that provides the necessary plasticity and refractory properties to make it suitable. XI

Microcrystalline wax is obtained during the petroleum refining process and is a mixture of saturated hydrocarbons with linear and branched chains. Because its melting point is between 76 and 80° C, microcrystalline wax will not soften, even in direct sunlight, thus preventing the absorption of dust on the surface. X

The corrosion of metals can be active or inactive. Some objects can be corroded but stable, and therefore, inactive, while others may be actively corroding. Inactive corrosion appears in the form of stable oxide layers, a tarnish or colour change that forms slowly on metal objects and protects the underlying surface. These oxide layers are often considered to be a desirable patina, particularly if it has a pleasing appearance. Artificial patinas are often applied to the surface of metal objects to protect them and change their appearance. By contrast, active corrosion causes a continuous loss of material from the object. Measures must be taken to slow or prevent further deterioration. High relative humidity (RH) or pollutants can initiate many corrosive reactions. Stable surfaces on copper and copper alloy objects are characterised by a wide range of natural and artificial patinas. Stable patinas on these metals are generally coherent, adherent, and smooth. Active corrosion of copper and copper alloys is characterised by the rapid development of a light green powder that erupts like a stain on the surface and may surround an unaltered object.

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This type of corrosion is most common on archaeological copper alloys and is known as “bronze disease.” As with sweating and weeping, bronze disease occurs when the RH is high (i.e., 55% and above). The corrosion reaction is progressive and may rapidly cause extensive damage. Canadian Conservation Institute (CCI), Ottawa, Canada. CCI Notes 9/3, 1997. XI Conquista espacial, from 1978, consists of four large 3-millimetre-thick aluminium planes. Three of them are verticals and the other acts as a base or support for them. After assembling them mechanically, the artist painted them with synthetic enamel; white for the vertical planes, and black for the support and for the small planes executed over the vertical ones. Despite the poor state of conservation, it was possible to observe that the original paint had a semi-matte finish, which was useful in terms of the later decisions that were taken.

As for the small black planes, though the artist had originally planned to make these in aluminium of the same thickness and suspend them 5 mm from the larger planes, ultimately, due to the pressure of the approaching date of delivery of the work for the exhibition, he decided to paint them. Blaszko’s reflections on the restoration of his white Madí sculptures align with Lozza’s thoughts on the portable walls of his coplanars; that is, they are a clear example of the problem posed by the deterioration of these types of pieces, in which the authorship and historicity of the original pictorial layer contrasts with the functionality assigned by the artist to the coloured field or form. With the artist’s consent, the intervention consisted basically in the removal and reworking of the damaged paint layer and the mounting of those small missing modules that the artist had produced after the piece had already been delivered, having put them aside with the idea of mounting them should the opportunity arise at some point. Each of the planes, held together with bronze nuts and bolts, were dismantled and the paint layer completely removed. The metal was degreased, given a coat of primer appropriate for non-ferrous metals and two coats of epoxy paint (the original was an industrial synthetic enamel), and care was taken to give it the same final semi-matte finish. While the original coat had been a pure white, it was agreed with the artist to apply a white that was somewhat modified in value and shade, somewhere between the first pure white and the degraded white of the work prior to the intervention, which had been very yellowed due to the oxidation of the binder and its poor storage. The smaller aluminium planes that the artist had in his possession were positioned precisely in the locations he had originally assigned to them: floating, 5 mm away from the vertical planes. XII The piece is Homenaje al Día Internacional de la Paz [Tribute to the International Day of Peace] from 1986, though it was placed in Parque Centenario on 23 April 1991.

After an initial attack in which it was covered with graffiti and advertisements, it was res-

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tored by Monumentos y Obras de Arte (Monuments and Works of Art, MOA, a City of Buenos Aires government agency) and returned to the park in June 2006. Unfortunately, it was removed from the park in March 2009. What follows are some statements by Susana Blaszko, the artist’s daughter, made in an interview held in September 2019. “The sculpture was located in Parque Centenario until it was destroyed. They broke it, it was like it was looted, vandalised, it was an atrocity against an award-winning piece that had been made with love and affection by several Argentinians, among them, my father, whose idea it was. We had returned from Paris, where we had lived for a year and a half with my son’s father, in 1984. We didn’t have work, we were two struggling architects and my father said to me, ‘You don’t have any work?’ ‘I’m going to give you a job, you are going to help me make a sculpture’. He gave us a plan of the pieces, we would carry out the change of scale. Dad had drawn it at small scale and we would make the large format. We did it at Rocamora street, at my grandfather’s house, which was empty, he had already passed. It was a Casa Chorizo with an upper floor. It was a mess, filthy, but well … we put together some boards, we went to buy the aluminium he told us to buy. He gave the orders and we carried them out. We learned to cut with the jig saw and he would come and mark it up. I don’t remember when he put it together, but I do remember when he painted it. He had put black on some parts. I said I didn’t like it, and he would say, “That is how it has to be” (laughs). And that’s how it was. One day, the sculpture won a prize. It was placed in Parque Centenario, my dad chose the spot. The work was destroyed in 2001, Eugenio Monferrán told me about it. I was in Paris. I remember the sculpture was constantly under attack by people who mistreated it, painted it, stuck things onto it. Maybe it should have been positioned higher. They hung off of it, they touched it. There was a lack of culture and care. My father had a friend who had a paint shop at 700 Scalabrini Ortiz, who donated paint to him because he knew it was an award-winning work and needed to be fixed, so my father would constantly be picking up paint at his house. I think he once went with a little bench and he and his brother painted it. Later he took the paint to the park maintenance people because they told him they didn’t have the budget for it. I’m not saying this in anger, but with disappointment, because of the look on my dad’s face when I told him this. Then they broke it, only one of the three vertical planes and the base remained. The people from the MOA removed everything. I took up the fight to try and get the work repaired and returned to its place, the rightful place for a work that had been awarded by the Municipality of Buenos Aires. When Dad died, I logged onto his computer and found many letters of complaint written to the city government, when Macri was in charge. Of course, they never answered any of them. My father was insistent. I say this with sadness, sorrow. They never made anyone available to see how this award-winning work could be restored. I found those letters and contacted

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the parks people. I was in contact with a Mr Carlos Estévez, who was very generous and understood very well: how to continue on with it? I couldn’t believe that no one was willing to resolve and fix the whole situation. Talk about historical reparations! This is also a historical reparation, it is a prize that we have all paid for, from an artist who donated his talent. I insisted, I spoke with him, he sent me all the images he found. Finally, one day I went to meet him. I didn’t know the place either, and as an architect, I am very curious. I went to see the space where they work and, lovingly, he said to me, 'Okay, I have two parts of that piece, the base and one of the vertical planes', which is what Pino calls them, I call them ‘legs’ because that’s what Dad used to call them, the three legs of the sculpture. So, I went to get them; a friend lent me a lorry. I took them to my father’s studio, hoping that I would be able to solve the problem of the two missing legs. But it is not easy to copy a work if there are no frontal images; they are all taken from different, difficult angles, so I put it to one side until I had further news as to how to repair it, how to make the plans for the missing parts so they could be remade. I found no support from the people I communicated with. I didn’t drop it, because there is always a will and sometimes things can take years. I believe that at some point, we will get it done and I am happy to receive your call, and feel much affection for your concern about the history of the work. I think about how alone artists in Argentina are ... it's appalling."

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JUAN MELÉ

Pino Monkes: I’d like to talk about the materials you have used at each stage of your career, that is, have you subdivide your output according to the execution techniques and methods, with the assumption that your entry into the concrete art movement marked a turning point in your career. Juan Melé: My materials were wood, canvas, and artist’s oil paints, and I believe that was the same for most of the concrete artists, since almost all of us trained at the academy.1 Maldonado, Vardánega, Hlito, Molenberg, Caraduje for a bit; we were, in fact, a group from the academy. I’m not sure about Espinosa, because he was quite a bit older than the rest of us. PM: Espinosa also attended the Escuela de Bellas Artes, or what you call “the academy”. JM: My experience with concrete art began toward the end of 1945. Before that, we were working along traditional lines, painting on canvasses or on prepared cardboard. I joined the concrete art movement at the time the cutout frame was developed. The canvas stretchers and cardboards were useless to me by then, I had to change my materials. My first experiences were to take up the images of Mondrian and take them on as plan for an objective work. Like Mondrian, I used canvasses and painted with a paintbrush and a steady hand, without the use of a drawing pen and ruler. It is amazing to see how his originals are made. I made use of a style of workmanship that came from before him, you could say. 1

He is referring to the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes Prilidiano Pueyrredón which, alongside the Escuela Superior Ernesto de la Cárcova, was incorporated into the Instituto Nacional de Arte in 1996, and which then legally changed its name to the Universidad Nacional de las Artes in 2014.

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PM: Traditional. JM: It wasn’t yet all that new, because he evolved from being a more figurative painter, to a certain extent, with a traditional technique. I took Mondrian but applied it to solid material, so to speak. I joined the group at the end of 1945. As concrete artists, we were very rigorous about technique. The Madí group were more self-taught. PM: You are referring to the incorporation of industrial household materials? JM: I think that Blaszko may have used them as well, I’m not sure. PM: According to what he said when we spoke, he always used Winsor & Newton oil paints. JM: Going back to the subject of my education, I graduated as a professor around the same time I joined the concrete art group. I came from a very academic culture, easel painting using oils on canvas, preparing my own canvasses in the traditional way. But when I saw those works, they left such an impression on me, everything changed, not just in terms of the concept but also the materials that I was going to use. It was an experiment that began in the midst of the development of the cutout frame, which meant that the traditional canvas stretchers and cardboards2 no longer served my purposes; I had to change my materials and I began working with wood panels. Right from the start I was different, because I had stood in front of Mondrian originals only five or eight years after having seen them in print here. He followed a traditional technique, painting in oils with a brush on canvas. I replaced the rectangular or square canvas with a panel painted in white, generally 2

His rejection of cardboard is possibly evidence of his late entry into the group, as the rest of the artists agree that it was the first material they turned to for the cutout frames and coplanars.

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hardboard or plywood,3 reinforced with strips of wood. I didn’t paint the black dividing lines on the base. I took a square wooden strip, painted it black and then nailed and glued it to the white plane. In other words, it was a work in relief. After gluing the black strips, the colour planes that I introduced into the spaces, which were also made of plywood or chapadur (hardboard), were cut into the appropriate shape and then put into position once I had applied the colour with oil paint. I was “objectifying” the paint, embodying the concrete ideal. To that effect, in my own way, myself and others from the group in their own way have added elements to the concrete art process; we don’t take a canvas and copy it, we have contributed new things that didn’t even occur to Mondrian, he didn’t even reach the point of objectifying painting as we did. That is our own contribution. Maybe one day it will be recognised, who knows. My book aims to provide evidence of what we did.4 I then made some other pieces in homage to Mondrian, of which I only have two left, the others disappeared or were destroyed. I kept the two that are here. PM: They simply disappeared? JM: Yes. There was an earlier one, the first in the series, similar to this square, but rectangular. It was lost, I don’t know what else I can tell you. The thing is, I have moved many times, from here to there, and I was out of the country for many years. I left the works at a place someone provided me, but since I never made an inventory of everything I left, when I went to get the works, I didn’t always find the same number I had left behind. The fact is, I didn’t even realise if I left twenty and later got back nineteen. 3

In fact, they were hardboard; large sheets of plywood were not used in concrete art due to its tendency to warp. See technical notes I and II in the “On the Work. Abstraction in the Río de La Plata. Supports”, p. 101.

Juan N. Melé, La vanguardia del 40. memorias de un artista concreto, Buenos Aires, Ediciones Cinco, 1999.

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I remember there was a Venezuelan painter, Mimo Mena, who organised a show in Caracas for which myself and several members of the group delivered works. That was in 1948, right before I travelled. I don’t remember which I sent and since at that time we didn’t take any precautions, it didn’t occur to me to take a photo of it. It stayed in Venezuela; I don’t even have a sketch of it. Only the last decades of my output are well documented. There are other pieces I have lost because of storing them poorly, in places that were very humid. When faced with such significant damage, you end up choosing to throw them away. Other times, when faced with the same problem, you try to recover the canvas, taking off the paint, stripping it. Another thing that happened frequently is that I saw paintings that were in such a bad state, I would throw away the canvas and mount a new one.

The cutout frame

JM: After those homages to Mondrian, I began working with the cutout frame using the same procedure: hardboard that was reinforced on the back with wood strips, to which I would apply an oil-based primer layer. P. 239

PM: The Museo Sívori has a work of yours from the period, an oil in which you can still see traces of the paintbrush. According to my observations oil paint, as a single material, is gradually being passed over in favour of a more finished and objective surface. According to yourself, it was the material used by most of the concrete artists. However, according to the accounts provided by the other artists, they made great use of industrial enamels. JM: Yes, it is true, but we painted with oil. In that era, we used traditional oil paint, there was no other choice. I don’t remember 200

the items produced by national industry at the time, but there was Talens,5 Winsor & Newton,6 and Rembrandt,7 which was very expensive and I don’t believe I ever used it. They were all fairly expensive. We only prepared the white, which we used for the primer or to mix with the colours that came in the tubes. I used Lefranc,8 they were very good and less expensive than the other imported materials. I remember the decoration classes with Pío Collivadino in Pueyrredón, where we prepared the colours. He taught us how to do it, he had a cabinet filled with jars of pigments and I learned to grind them, add the essences, and prepare the final materials. I always enjoyed that course. When I switched to concrete art the materials changed, particularly in terms of the wood supports, although I continued using oil paint because acrylics didn’t yet exist. We would apply some varnish or sealant to the wood; we prepared them in the same way as you would prime a canvas for oil paint, and then we painted them. PM: Generally speaking, oil-based – not water-based materials – are used to prepare wood. JM: At that time, no other water-based materials existed, other than tempera or watercolour, which are dangerous materials because of their sensitivity to water once dry. Acrylic doesn’t have the same problem, but it appeared much later. The concrete art group worked in this way from 1946 until 1950. To be precise, I left the country for Paris at the end of 1948; up until then, I was focused on the group. 5

A company founded by Marten Talens in 1899, in the city of Apeldoom, Netherlands.

A company founded by the scientist William Winsor and the artist Henry Newton in 1832 in London, at 38 Rathbone Place. Reference: <http://www.winsornewton. com>

A brand of oil paint made by Talens since 1899.

Lefranc & Bourgeois. The company began its production in Paris in 1720.

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Coplanars

JM: After the homages to Mondrian and the cutout frame, we arrived at the coplanar, which began with the separation of the planes that constituted the work, using the same techniques and materials. Plywood was almost always used for the planes. PM: It is very sensitive to humidity; the surface layers have a tendency to lift. Despite plywood boards being made with an odd number of wood laminates, each of which are glued to the ones above and below them, and they are assembled from the middle to the outer layers, interleaving the fibres in a crosswise direction to balance the movement of the laminate structure, even so, they are at risk in humid circumstances. JM: If they are directly exposed to humidity or water, the glued plies suffer and can warp. It has happened to me; as you say, the external layer can move and even lift. PM: And yet, it seems it was the most commonly used material. JM: Yes, that’s correct. The other material, which we called hardboard9, is like a sheet of sawdust paste; it does not move as much, but it can also deteriorate if it gets wet. It is less likely to happen; at least, it does not have the same configuration of sheets that can become unglued. To assemble the coplanars, that is, to hold the planes together, we at first used a one-centimetre-thick wooden rod, but I preferred using a thick wire rod, because I wanted it to be as thin as possible, so that it would not influence the structure. No matter whether it was painted white or grey, I always felt that it had too much impact on the composition of the work. So, later on, I turned to a plain transparent acrylic rod, which I thought was better. 9

See technical note II in "On the Work. Abstraction in the Río de La Plata. Supports”, p. 101.

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PM: Like the work you just sent to Grenoble. JM: Yes, the coplanar from 1946, which is going to Grenoble, France.10 Others used the same material as well. When Von Bartha, the Swiss collector, purchased one of my works, he asked me for permission to remove the acrylic rods and mount it on a large acrylic sheet that would, obviously, exceed the size of the coplanar.11 A transparent acrylic sheet of more than one centimetre thick. He removed the rod and mounted it on that sheet, supported by bolts at the back, but maintaining the same separation the work had with respect to the background, because each plane had a peg behind it of one-and-a-half or two centimetres that separated it from the wall. He respected that separation, as several have; for example, the private collection that holds Molenberg’s Función blanca [White Function]. PM: The background or wall on which the coplanar is exhibited surely has an impact, being that the support is transparent. JM: For the coplanars, the background was determined by the wall on which it was hung, which was, generally speaking, white, though it could be any colour. Hence the dilemma that led to the use of a much larger wooden frame as a portable background that acted as a wall, to which we applied the colour we considered appropriate to the composition of the work as a whole. We wanted to protect the work from an unpredictable background. We did it for a while and then abandoned the practise. It is the method that Lozza continues to employ. He left the group for personal reasons. He continued with that practise, adopted it as his own, and called it Perceptism, but no one else in the group did that. 10

Melé would donate a copy of the original coplanar he sold to Grenoble, France, to the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires, correctly dated on the back, 1946/79. The pictorial layer of the reconstruction is acrylic.

He is referring to the coplanar Nro. 15 [No. 15], in the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, a Gift/Loan from the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, 2013.

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PM: He developed his own theory to control the colour field using a personal adaptation of the principles of science. JM: We used that mathematical foundation as well. Shortly before separating, a committee had been formed to find such a rationale, it consisted of Hlito, Lozza and myself. It didn’t continue any further after that, it ended there, but he continued. He got together with the critic Abraham Haber and they continued it and produced the magazine. He uses a large background and puts a coplanar in the centre of it. We all worked in the same way for a time. Then some members of the group returned to the canvas, myself among them, and we stopped working on wood for a time, as Maldonado and some others did. But, in general, we have varied our materials. We even went so far as to use sheets of glass on top of each other. I made a few sculptures in that period, always in wood, and among them there is one that includes a glass plane, not plastic, because it didn’t yet exist at the time. But it wasn’t very common in those days. I cut a sheet of glass and with it, I somewhat expressed colour sustained in space, in the wooden planes, with the idea of articulating colour in real space. Not simulating a colour in space, but making it work in space; you could say, putting colour in a three-dimensional space without it being a sculptural concept. PM: This is the 1947 work Colores en el espacio real [Colours in Real Space], property of the Museo Sívori, where, as you say, the colour planes are positioned in arrangements of certain depth. JM: Yes, that is the first copy, I made two versions.12

The work Melé is referring to belongs to the Museo Sívori, and is executed in acrylic, not glass. From a black and white photograph in the Melé archives, it can be seen that this is not the same piece, there are small but noticeable formal differences. The second version, which Melé refers to in the following paragraph, is in the Malba collection and is different from both the one in the photograph from the archive as well as from the Sivori piece, so they are undoubtedly inexact copies of a lost piece.

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PM: There is another work of yours dated from the same year; it is more voluminous and functions as a three-dimensional coplanar. JM: That work (Objeto espacial [Spatial Object], 1947, Museo Sívori) has been constructed on the basis of two wood forms joined by a metal rod, on a base that supports them. All of its faces are painted with oil. The original – that is, the preliminary idea – was a fifteen-centimetre model, approximately, that was made with kind of putty. I remember I showed it to the group; though we didn’t work as a team, we would meet to discuss ideas and show our works, we consulted each other. I was very unhappy with it myself then, I was about to destroy it, but... I remember I had Lozza next to me and he said, “No, don’t throw it away. Don’t throw it away. Why do you have to throw it away? You never know what you can get out of it”. And I kept it. Eventually I built that sculpture, which I had already given a colour form to and so on, which the other one didn’t have. The original had been made of a single colour form. I hadn’t yet worked out how the sculpture was going to look in the end. PM: Do you remember what metal you used to join the bodies? JM: The metal that joined the units was aluminium. As I said, we were all from the academy and the first thing we changed was the concept, not the technique. In any case, we have to recognise that the technique underwent an important period of change. We had a studio on Juan B. Justo and Avenida San Martín. We were a group of fine arts students and when the idea of concrete art came up, I wanted to get everyone on board with it. We had a meeting at the studio, there were about ten or eleven of us, but I set up the group inside of the studio with only two of them, my closest friends, Gregorio Vardánega and Virgilio Villalba. Since the space was fairly generous, we divided it up. We said to them, “from here to there, you can work with the models and we will work in the other half”. But since we were already working with wood, they got sick of the noise, of the cutting, hammering and banging, and they left.

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PM: Is that house in Juan B. Justo still there? JM: I think the house is still the same as back then, though it has been a few years since I have passed by. Once we were kicked out, they threw all of our things into the street because they were going to build, but they never did anything. The last time I passed by, I saw they had built a wall in front of it. I think the address was about the 4200-block of Juan B. Justo,13 at the corner of Avenida San Martín, but I’m not certain. So, I would say that those were days marked by big changes.

Techniques on canvas

PM: Later, like Maldonado and Hlito, you returned to the canvas support and a regular format. JM: Yes, and I also prepared the canvasses. I wasn’t taught to do so at the academy, in fact I learned by reading books on the great masters and trying to come to conclusions about how they worked. There are some oils on canvas from the concrete period that I prepared myself, often with linen canvasses, which I was able to get easily in those days. I cut the wood on a mitre, assembled the support frame, stretched the canvas, primed it with fish glue to waterproof it; in other words, I did everything. PM: This is the period after the cutout frame and the coplanars, right? JM: From about 1947 or 1948. I would wet the canvas to be able to stretch it better. Because it’s actually easier to tighten or accommodate a damp canvas. In France they sold very thick canvasses, like cotton canvas especially for artists, and I prepared them in the same way I told 13

The address was 4032 Juan B. Justo. The house was torn down and a new building is being constructed on the site.

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you. The primer was gesso,14 but there, painters still used linen canvasses. Berni once came to see me in New York. I was painting in acrylic on linen canvas, which was much more expensive, and he said to me, “Look, this is an unnecessary expense, because linen is good for oil paint because it can’t move, but acrylic is elastic, so it doesn’t make any sense to use linen”. PM: It makes a lot of sense what he told you, because it’s true that oil paint cannot accompany the movements of the canvas as it ages and that’s when the craquelure appears. In actual fact, the surface quality of a linen fabric, its texture, is different; it has another character that is maintained layer after layer of paint. That is why some painters prefer it. JM: I always prepared my canvasses. For a change, at one point I got a German paper, Wathman. It was fantastic, it had a canvas texture. Some of them were coloured. I would cover them in white to give them a base and then paint over them. I eventually used them for making marouflage, I would glue them on a wood panel. That was in the 1950s. PM: Is the technique described appropriately on the back of the work? JM: No, unfortunately I never did that. PM: Because it could be quite surprising to a restorer.

Painting techniques

PM: From what we have talked about so far, I take for granted that you haven’t made use of industrial household paints. JM: I have been very scrupulous about the craft, technique and materials I use ever since my first years in art. I analysed 14

See technical note IV in the “On the Work. Towards a new geometry”, p. 107.

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them as if it were, I don’t know, the Renaissance. I purchase linseed oil, turpentine and white zinc pigment from the drugstore. PM: Many acknowledge having used synthetic enamels, both national and imported brands; Ripolin is a name that comes up frequently. JM: Ripolin, of course. It was said to be a fairly good paint that didn’t lose colour over time, but with my own obsessions and everything I had read, I knew that a pigment or binder that doesn’t have a certain level of purity darkens over time, and the story always ends with the works no longer being the same. It was a colour that was used for several reasons, one of them being cost, since the oils bought in the paint shops, such as the wellknown Leidi, were very expensive. There were artists who could not afford to spend that kind of money or were not as interested in the permanence of their materials, and they bought ordinary paint from the hardware store. That’s why so many of those old paintings are in such bad condition; the materials were not high-quality. I never wanted to use them; I was always very meticulous. Perhaps because of my academic training, I had spent many years studying the subject. Proof can be seen in the work from 1947 and 1948, which are as good as new. PM: You seem to have relied exclusively on the brush as your tool for applying colour. It was the same for most of the artists from the concrete art group, with the exception of Carmelo Arden Quin, who told me that he applied paint with a muñeca [a pad] and not with brushes, and Lozza, who painted with a brush using a mixture of oil and synthetic enamel, and then polished the surface to obtain a particular final finish. I know the group sought out an application that would eliminate all traces of subjectivity. JM: I didn’t even use an airbrush. What I did use at one point, when I lived in New York between 1974 and 1986, were masking tapes, polyurethane foam brushes, and the traditional drawing pens used by architects. 208

In New York I began using a foam brush. Although you see them here quite often now, they are not of the same quality, so when I travel, I bring them back with me. I also alternated a roller and a brush, and the surface was perfect. Many believed I did it with an airbrush. In fact, these materials are used by painters on construction sites. I get them at the paint shops in New York, and buy the art materials, such as Utrecht acrylics,15 from the renowned shop, Pearl. As for what you were saying about Lozza, maybe that wasn’t in the first period, but now.16 I was referring to the 1940s, because we introduced new techniques, but in those years and until the 1950s, the material resources were much more limited and we ourselves were more tied to traditionalism. I personally received academic training and have a craft that I have maintained, though I applied it using new materials. I was no longer a member of the concrete group in the 1950s, not because it didn’t interest me, but because the group no longer existed. From the 1950s onwards, the group disappeared. Each set out on his own path according to what he felt was appropriate, some following the concrete legacy and others no. So I returned to painting on canvas, but continued to use oil paint as my colour medium. PM: When did you begin using acrylics? JM: Acrylic comes much later, in the seventies, on a return trip to Argentina, where I had been living for about three years. I got into acrylics almost by accident. I was using oil paints for some works with a black background, which was a lot of work because the black takes a long time to dry. I applied a black background and then I had to make lines of colour over top of it. I had to 15

A company founded in 1949 in the Utrecht neighbourhood of New York.

Lozza executed his works from the first years of the Arte Concreto Invención movement using his technique of enamel and oil followed by polishing; later, for the portable wall, he would execute them using satin varnishes because of the large amount of work involved in the execution method.

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wait many days and had to work on two or three pieces at the same time, so I had to give each of them a chance to dry. I had a certain amount of time. A collector came to my house and liked one of the works, he bought it and wanted to take it with him immediately. I thought that it was very dry, I had finished it maybe a month prior, not long ago. So I grabbed a piece of white paper, wrapped it and he took it away. A couple of days later he called me and said, “You know, I have a problem. When I went to unwrap it, the paper was stuck to the painting in many areas”. The black colour looked dry, but it was not really dry. For some reason, he had left it for a couple of days before unwrapping it. So I had to go to his house to get the work, try to wash it and remove the paper. Ultimately, I had to retouch all of the black background, with patience. That’s when it occurred to me to use acrylic. I already knew about it because I had seen it in the studios of my other friends, but I had never tried it before. I told myself that I was going to try it. Artists were a bit wary of acrylics. As soon as I began working, I thought it was fantastic, of course. I would apply a coat and in a short time it would be dry, ready for overlapping, so I could move forward with the work, which is so difficult with oil paint and had forced me to work on several canvasses at once, waiting for one to dry so that I could go on. From then on, I never touched oil paint again. I bought my own set of acrylic colours and I continue to use them to this day. The colours stay the same, it is an elastic material that does not crack. I have old works that are in good condition. I have rolled them up and remounted them on a stretcher several times because of trips, and I never had any issues. As for brands, Utrecht is the one I use most frequently, Warhol and other renowned artists used them. It has great pigmentation. The other big brand is Liquitex, but I prefer this one; it is more consistent and performs better.

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PM: I see that in some of the works with reliefs in the style of the coplanars, you use canvas planes. JM: It is marouflage, wooden planes lined with a fabric, usually a medium-weight cotton fibre canvas. It arises from a particular intention, because sometimes I look for a textured surfaced, with the added value that the mounted fabric protects the edges, which tend to be fragile to bumps. I buy large pieces of canvas here in Once17 and in Paris, in the Montmartre area. They are mounted using wallpaper adhesive. I first wet the fabric, apply the adhesive to the wood plane and then position the fabric, stretching it quite tightly and adjusting it with a palette knife or a rag so that there are no wrinkles and the folds are well done. It is quite the job. This is one of the adhesive brands I used, Wepel. I have never had problems with detachments with the brand, and some of the works are very old. PM: They are formulated to replicate the properties of starch paste, which is the adhesive paper conservators use because of the way it dries, it puts less stress on the support. JM: I also made sculptures that were covered in the same way and are more than twenty years old. It is all a question of how well you work with it. If the canvas to be glued is very large, I add a bit of vinyl glue to the wallpaper paste to reinforce its adhesiveness. But let’s go back to colour, it was the biggest change I made and since then, I have always worked with acrylics.

Restoration

JM: Von Bartha purchased some oil on canvas paintings from me that were very deteriorated after many years of neglect. They 17

A neighbourhood in the city of Buenos Aires.

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were stored in damp and warm environments, and the painting exhibited a lot of craquelure. He bought them from me anyway. I had retouched them with oil paint. I didn’t think to sell them, not at all; I wanted to have them in good condition. When he heard about the overpainting, he opted to give them to his restorer in Switzerland, who stripped off the layers of paint that I had put on. There were many years between them and the original; the work was from 1947 or 1948 and the retouching was from the 1970s. The edges of the canvas had ripped. It was surprising when all the original paint appeared with an extraordinarily clean colour. They then relined the canvas because it had deteriorated over the years, and they heat-glued it, I don’t remember which adhesive they used. PM: And he could remove the overpainting because the original oil layer was more stabilized than the overpaint above it, which offered no resistance to the solvents. There was likely an interface of the patina of time, that is, the accumulated dirt and atmospheric pollutants made it difficult for the new layer to adhere to the original one. JM: Yes, the overpainting came much later. That’s what I said to the restorer. “Look, you’re not going to have a problem because the first layer is from 1948 and the second layer from the seventies, thirty years of difference”. The collector told me how surprised he was to see the colour of the original work so enhanced. He relined it, adhering the original canvas to another with an adhesive and heat, and finally mounted it to a new stretcher. PM: He probably used Beva 371,18 a thermoplastic adhesive used in restoration. JM: On a trip I made two or three years ago, I was able to see the restored work hanging at Sotheby’s in New York. It has something 18

Beva is a thermoplastic adhesive for relining paintings on canvas. The formula was developed by Gustav Berger in the 1970s, consisting of an ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA) copolymer, a ketone resin (polycyclohexanone), an A-C (EVA) copolymer, Cellolyn 121 (abietic alcohol phthalate ester) and paraffin.

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to do with my interest in the materials, it was something that always concerned me, apart from the creation itself. I am perhaps a bit naive, thinking that a work has to last five hundred years, because you never know what its complete life cycle will be like. PM: Is there any work of yours that you have completely repainted after many years, for any reason? I mean any painting of yours that exists today, be it in a private collection or a museum, and in condition to be shown, of course. JM: On one occasion when I came back from New York – where I lived for many years – I found a number of damaged works. They were very old works, executed between 1948 and 1955. I don’t know exactly why, but I used a stripper to remove all the paint and keep the canvas to prepare it again. But it wasn’t painted again. It was a shame, I took everything off, nothing was left, and today I could have restored them. A couple of works that were also in very bad condition were left in the hands of that restorer. When I saw them later in New York, in a show at the Rachel Adler Gallery in 1992 or 1993, it was really incredible to see how well they turned out. It was impossible to understand where the problems were, there were many and they varied. It looked like it had just been made. PM: That phrase, “it looked like it had just been made”, It leads me to a question about certain decisions that are taken when restoring a work and which are based on different criteria for action. Though I believe I can guess what your answer will be, it is important to record your thoughts and reasoning in this regard, as a record for the conservator that may receive one of your works. In recent decades, there has been a trend that is justified from an ethical point of view and that applies particularly to historical work, in which interventions are made to stop the damage and its cause, but no reintegration is carried out, the existing original is stabilised, nothing more, and its historical instance fully respected. In other cases, if missing parts are replaced, the retouching of the colour is made evident at close range by using a type of differentiated

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retouching; in some cases, it is done by painting a pattern of dots or hatches known as trateggio, or stippling.19 On the other hand, there is another, more imitative trend, in which any missing part is reintegrated mimetically in order to make any damage imperceptible. Which of these two approaches do you believe a restorer should follow if they receive one of your works? In particular, I’m thinking about historical works destined for a museum. JM: I would hope that a restoration would bring the work back to its original state, I believe that is the best thing to do. When you make a piece, it is a concept. I am a perfectionist, though I am not yet as much of a perfectionist as I would like to be, but I try to make my works the best they can be. When I see a work such as this one (Relieve N° 37 [Relief No. 37]), for example, from 1948, I prefer that it be left as it was. I am much happier if it is restored to its original state, of course, without any changes being made. I am not talking about repainting it, but restoring what is wrong, because when painters restore their own works, sometimes they completely repaint them and, in doing so, lose the warmth of the work, the passing of the years and the nuance that appears in the colour with the passing of time. In general, collectors like Von Bartha do not accept the corrections an artist makes to his own works. I don’t know why, but they want the work to be done by a professional restorer, and that includes that any changes be properly documented and accompany the work. According to him, artists are very poor restorers because they do not restore but repaint, whereas the restorer respects what has been done and will add only what is missing, and carefully. If given the opportunity, the artist will see a plane that is not quite right and will repaint it, so then the work is no longer the same. I don’t really restore anything else, I did so on the occasion I have already mentioned, but I no longer do it. 19

See technical notes II and III of the “On the Work. From the perspective of conservation”, p. 99.

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On another occasion, Marta Nanni, then curator of the Blaquier collection, called me by phone because they had a piece of mine from 1954 or 1955. A geometric work, not really concrete, and painted with some planes in oil with sand, which I had sieved to obtain the finest grains and then washed it. I was looking to achieve different surfaces through the addition of sand. The reason she called was because they wanted to know how the work was constructed, as it was in the process of being restored. PM: What about the possibility of carrying out reintegrations of your works if you are not present. I am thinking about the coplanars in particular. Do you think it would be possible, in the event one of them were to suffer some sort of irreversible accident? JM: If there were no other possibility, a restorer could carry out the work, that is, were the artist not present. A sample from an area that remained intact could be taken as a reference for the shade and the finish. Then, the restorer could make a new form or, if not, if the artist were still available, he could make the new piece himself. However, strictly speaking, one could say that it would detract a certain value from the work. PM: But it could also be said that the work would be lost if the plane were not replaced, especially if we consider how weak an incomplete work is when it is part of such a rigorous approach as concrete art. On the other hand, however, in the early years of the AACI, you were the one who most preserved the trace of the brushstroke. JM: In that case, perhaps we could consider that the restorer redo it according to his own criteria. Now, there is the case of a work by Vardánega that was owned by the same collector. It was executed on a wood panel on which a glass plane, about seven or eight centimetres wide, was suspended vertically, where he painted some coloured lines that appeared to be separated from the space. During transport, the glass broke and Von Bartha asked the artist himself if he could remake that part. I was surprised, because he could have given it to his restorer, and yet he gave the 215

piece to Vardánega. So the artist had to cut another glass and repaint those lines; he redid it and put it back in place.20 PM: You have to take into account that the artist is alive and that, in that situation, much of the visual discourse had to be reworked. In that case, I agree that it was up to the artist himself to resolve. Looking at this coplanar from 1948 (Relieve 33 [Relief 33]), I notice that there is evidence of colour retouching of the background in the area around the signature.21 JM: The white background was retouched a little and I added the signature to the front because, since it was framed in such a way that the signature was on the back, you could not see it.22 It is a derivative of the coplanar but, really, it takes on a different character, because it complicates the structure a little, with smaller parts that would have been difficult to construct were it a coplanar. As you can see, this permanent background allowed us to work more freely. P. 237

This other work (Construcción N° 37 [Construction No. 37]) uses a similar technique as the previous one, a coplanar, but it also includes something different, which is that the planes are at different levels. It is also executed using wood and oil paint. PM: Perhaps you can provide some relevant information about a very particular technique used by a very important artist. Beginning in 1948, you were in contact with Vantongerloo, for example. JM: He worked so much on the surfaces. When I visited him, he showed me a series of works. The surfaces were enamelled, like 20

He is likely referring to the piece in the Malba, Relieve [Relief], from 1948, which was acquired by Von Bartha and later sold to that museum.

Construcción Nª 37 [Construction No. 37] and Relieve 33 [Relief 33], both from 1948. They were both in the artist’s studio at the time of the interview and appear to suffer from the same issue.

Melé felt the white of his portable walls was kind of a “non-colour” that could be renewed without major compositional conjectures, whereas in Lozza’s case, the colour of the wall is one of the compositional elements of the work, together with the colour of each of the planes and their formal character (their extension and angles).

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porcelain. He applied a large amount of colour with a palette knife, big knobs of artist’s oils, several coats of white, and then he sanded between coats with a water sandpaper. His surfaces were highly polished. Then, on that surface, he would draw lines of pure colours. PM: Might it have been an industrial material, rather than oil paint? JM: From what he told us, he used oil paint.23 He did not use industrial material. PM: We have eight works by Vantongerloo at the Museo Moderno. Two of them are paintings on hardboard that appear to have been executed in the same manner, polishing the white background and with lines of pure colours traced over imperceptible circular incisions, which likely served as a guide for the brushstrokes. JM: He went through many stages. Lozza worked in the same manner, painting and polishing with water sandpaper, and I believe Arden Quin was doing the same when I met him in Paris. He had a period of working with lines and dots on a white background. It would have been around the 1950s, approximately. PM: The Museo Sívori even has a couple of pieces by Gregorio Vardánega that were clearly influenced by Vantongerloo,24 with incisions in the background. JM: I admired him, but sometimes I had my doubts about his work from the point of view of what we considered concrete art. I was more scrupulous, I mean, this breaks away … he began to make blends, dots, right? That is not something I consider to be concrete.

Lozza added varnishes and enamels to the oil paint because of the drying and hardening time that would otherwise be required to polish it; were he to have used oil paint as his only material, he would have had to wait months for it to cure and acquire hardness to be able to then polish it. Hence my own doubts that Vantongerloo used only oil paint.

Desintegración cromática [Chromatic Disintegration] and La línea melódica del radar [The Melodic Line of the Radar], both from 1950.

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Of course, it is a personal matter. I spoke about it with Vardánega. He was more accepting of it than I was. To me, it seemed he was violating the principles of concrete art. Vardánega was more interested in it than I was. I was more finicky and thought these works were far removed from the concrete ideal. PM: Do you feel the acrylic boxes used today to reduce the variations in hygrometric fluctuations could be an option for your works? At international art centres, they are taken into consideration, particularly in the case of geometric works, because of the impact that any kind of damage can have on such homogeneous colour surfaces. JM: They could be. I remember a work by Víctor Magariños that was part of the show Plástico por plásticos [Plastic by Plastic Artists]. It was large, with a tremendous wood frame and protected by acrylic. The problem at the Van Eyck gallery was how to hang it; the hanging system had to be reinforced because of the sheer weight of the whole thing. Perhaps in terms of conservation, it is beneficial for the work, because it insulates it from climatic variations. But, from another point of view, it interferes a lot in the work itself, because it creates a visual disturbance. While it is good in one sense, it is not so good in the other. I’m not sure how rigorous they have to be, because in museums such as the Louvre, there are works by the Italian Primitive artists from the 13th or 14th centuries, which are kept in those boxes and are in perfect condition. PM: What happens is that many institutions invest a lot of money in climate control of the gallery environment. The idea is to make it inert, to make certain that there are no major fluctuations, particularly in relative humidity. On the other hand, many of the works that we believe have a frame that consists only of a glass panel at the front, are actually a climate-controlled box with the work inside. The best ones are made of glass, where the work is hermetically protected. JM: It’s true, I’ve seen there are instruments that constantly measure the climate. 218

PM: Yes, they are thermohygrographs, they provide a record of what is happening in the environment at different time intervals through graphs. But back to the subject, in terms of aesthetics, you don’t like them. JM: Aesthetically, I don’t like them. From the perspective of conservation, perhaps it is interesting, so that people don’t have the opportunity to come into contact with them. Many museums frame the works with an acrylic sheet at the front, but all it does to a certain extent is add a visual or physical distance for the viewer. I can also say that at the MoMA there was an important collection of works by contemporary artists that could be rented by week or by month. As an artist, you could loan your work. The interesting thing for the artists was that often the people who rented a work became attached to it and ended up buying it, but the important thing is that they demanded the works be mounted in acrylic boxes to avoid damage, since they passed through many hands. PM: Yes, that is logical, since the main factor that results in damage is handling. They also hamper sudden changes in relative humidity. JM: Yes, particularly for plywood, where it is very dangerous. PM: The larger the size of the plywood board, the further the issue is accentuated. JM: I remember something Spilimbergo, my drawing teacher for my last year at the art school Pueyrredón, said to us, and it really stuck with me. Plywood was not very common in those years. He had made a painting on the material, which is like a sandwich of wooden sheets. With the humidity, the last layer of wood lifted completely. I was warned, and even though I made a few works on plywood, I tried to avoid it and replaced it with hardboard.25

Despite what he says, almost all the planes of his coplanar works are made of the material.

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Varnishes

PM: Did you varnish your works? JM: Yes, I varnished my productions in the 1940s and 1950s with Dammar varnish. PM: You are the only one who admits to having varnished your pieces. Did you buy it ready-made? JM: In the old days we used to buy it ready-made. Now I buy the stones and the turpentine and prepare it myself. This one is from Utrecht, though sometimes I buy it from Pearl, the art supply shop in New York that I told you about. Of course, over the years, they have vanished, and then they have been given other coats of varnish. Of course, you have to wait a while. I waited at least a year, because if you varnish as soon as you paint, the varnish penetrates the paint layer and then it is very difficult to remove later. PM: Was it a question of protecting the work or did it have to do with the final aesthetic of the painting? JM: On the one hand, it is a matter of protection, on the other hand, it’s also a finish. Over time, oil paint sometimes dries unevenly, leaving an uneven finish, so the varnish can give it all some unity. PM: Is it your wish that whoever receives a work of yours to give it a similar finish? JM: It depends on the case.

Reliefs

PM: Your reliefs from the mid-1990s, works that fall into the category of optical art, are executed according to a technique that is very similar to that used in concrete art: homogeneous colour planes and rigid supports, though the surface finish is of a higher degree of perfection, thanks to the new materials that are used. The three-dimen-

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sional planes are reminiscent of the coplanars, but the effectiveness of the piece lies in the coloured reflections of the lateral planes which, with their closed angles, project their colour onto the flat support on which they are hung. It is an approach that, like Tomasello’s work, requires a very particular type of lighting. As for the materials... JM: In that case, I used fibrofácil,26 a medium density fibreboard that is highly ductile. There is a lot of carpentry work because you first have to make the support frame, the sheet that is the background of the work – a panel, let’s say – and then you have to make each of the forms. You make separate boxes and shape them to achieve the different profiles. Shaping them is a meticulous job, cutting the wood at angles and making the corresponding curves. They are the outcome of the reliefs of the 1940s. PM: What about your piece that won the Trabucco Prize, now owned by the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires (Pintura N° 524 [Painting No. 524], 1994, 150 × 150 cm), is it made using this same technique? JM: Yes, but in this latest period, I worked with PVC sheets.27 I can show you several works I have produced as part of this new technique, a different material. I build the structure using PVC adhesive and it means there is a new requirement for the painting. I am always researching different materials, although I never publish or comment on that fact, this being an exception. Recently I was invited to participate in a show of artists working with 26

Fibrofácil is a compact fibreboard, known in English as MDF (medium density fibreboard). It is made from small wood fibres (85%) and synthetic resins, which are compressed, giving it a greater density than traditional agglomerates. It has a highly uniform surface.

PVC is the product that results from the polymerisation of a polyvinyl chloride monomer to polyvinyl chloride. PVC is the abbreviation for polyvinyl chloride. In Buenos Aires, Melé used imported PVC sheets made by the internationallyrenowned Germany company Simona, established in 1857 by Carl Simon Söhne as a leather processing company. Following the collapse that resulted from the world wars, the company founded new lines of business in the plastic industry.

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plastic materials, Plásticos por plásticos (March 2000), where I presented this material. I discovered it in France and used it in small works, but it wasn’t available here, so I had to find contacts to be able to get it. There are two ways to cut PVC: with an electric saw or by hand; a good blade will give you a very clean cut. The advantage of PVC is that it cuts easily and is very ductile. The work involves patience, first cutting the panel, then the strips that act as a support frame, gluing, polishing, painting. But I never achieve a mechanical finish, it isn’t industrial, I don’t want it to be that perfect, I think the artist’s hand should have a presence. Acrylic paint doesn’t grip the PVC very well, you have to give it several coats and, even so, when you look at it, it doesn’t look even, it looks patchy. I have works from 1992, for example, that are just as I made them. I use an industrial PVC adhesive by Lösung, it is the same used by construction companies. At times, I also used another system. For example, after cutting the sheet that served as the surface, I would glue it onto telgopor [polystyrene]28 and protect the reverse side by gluing it to another thinner sheet of PVC. I completed it by running a rod around it for finishing, and, on the whole, it was very light. PM: From what I can see, they are all painted in acrylic. JM: Yes, it is all acrylic. PM: Carmelo Arden Quin was telling me about a German material of the same kind that he worked with in Paris. JM: Yes, I gave it to him in Paris. That is where I began using the material. On one occasion, when I was working in that city for three years, I saw a workshop that was using the material to make displays, advertising, and they had a container outside where they threw out the offcuts that were no longer useful. We were in the same street, about 28

In Argentina, telgopor is the brand name used for extruded polystyrene foam, also known as polystyrene or Styrofoam. It can be found in other Spanish-speaking countries under a variety of names, such as porexpan, porespan, aislapol, espumaflex.

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two hundred metres apart. It caught my attention when I saw it, and I took the largest pieces to start making something with them. There was also an interesting aspect to them that could be taken advantage of, which is that the materials were from different factories and the whites turned out to be different – colder or warmer – so I began to play with the difference in tones, though there were also greys and other colours. I remember the Venezuelan painter Octavio Herrera, who also worked with cutout wood planes, visited me one time and immediately became interested in the PVC. He wrote them and they sent him some samples.

Lighting

PM: Is lighting important to you when painting or exhibiting? JM: I actually have a problem with the galleries, because they like a kind of theatrical lighting, they darken the room and shine a spotlight on the painting, whereas I prefer ambient lighting. For an exhibition I did at the Centro Cultural Borges they wanted to use a special type of lighting, very expensive, but I refused. What I did was the complete opposite of what Roger Haloua wanted to do.29 Because you would enter and see the paintings individually, and that wasn’t what I wanted. I prefer ample light so the painting can be seen, not in an artificial way as if on a stage, but as part of the architecture, working naturally with the environment. So I asked them to turn on all the top lights they had turned off and some of the angled lights. Even in my series of reflections, in which you can see the differences in tonalities as you move around, the fact is that as the light changes over the course of the day, the harmony of the reflections also changes. I gave Diéguez Videla a small 20 × 20 cm work that he had 29

The then director of the Centro Cultural Borges, Buenos Aires.

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hanging in his studio at home, and the cleaning woman – a woman who didn’t know anything about art – said to him, “You know, when I look at it from one side it is one thing, I walk, I look from the other side and it is something else”. She was struck by it; that is the importance of light. The series of reflections needs ambient light, otherwise instead of reflections of colour, you would have shadows projected on the main plane. Because I position it in a certain direction with respect to the light, it looks as if it were neon. So it’s very important to take advantage of the light, because if the light hits it straight on, the effect is ruined. Ambient light, on the other hand, makes better use of the reflection and is less powerful, but softer. 30 PM: In these works, the type of lighting they receive is very important, as it can invalidate the artist’s perspective. JM: It changes a lot, doesn’t it? There you can see the light, there is a reflection that looks like neon. PM: In museums, particularly group shows, these very specific pieces are not properly lit because there is the problem of the interaction with other pieces that require a different type of lighting. For a retrospective, it can be better planned. In your work with neon, from 1994, the problem is the opposite, it needs a certain amount of semi-darkness. JM: It’s important to make the most of light, but it is very rare that it is lit like that. PM: In those first concrete works there was likely no concern, among individuals or as a group, about the importance of proper lighting. I’m thinking not only in terms of the reproduction of colour, but also in the projection of shadows on the coplanars. It is something you and I talked about earlier. 30

Melé would confess that Luis Tomasello had been annoyed with him due to the similarity of their optical approaches, which came late in his oeuvre, but were recurrent in the other artist’s investigations. Lighting is a fundamental part of Tomasello’s approach and he directed light beams in different ways for different effects: direct, to create formal sequences of shadow, or zenithal lights, to create different reflections of colour on the support.

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JM: No, we were looking for natural light, because we were of the idea that artificial light changes the colour, yellows it. Here I have good natural light, so I work during the day and I don’t continue when it gets dark. PM: You probably have some experience you can share about damage due to transport or mishandling when loaning works. JM: Yes, usually at the National Salons. I remember a terrible incident with a relief I sent to the National Salon. It was a work I had mounted onto a larger panel to protect the piece. However, it arrived in such a bad state that Julio Sapolnik, the director of the National Salons, called me personally to speak about it, but didn’t go into detail at the time as to what had happened. Instead, he took me to the warehouse and showed me the work, it was as if it had been trampled. PM: What had happened? JM: I don’t know, but it was if a herd of animals had run over it. He didn’t know how to apologise to me and assured me that it had left there very well packed. It was at the time when the Salon was held in the provinces, now it is held here in Buenos Aires. I brought it back to the studio and completely redid it, since it was not a question of simply cleaning it. It had to be washed, but the stains wouldn’t come out. It had been so damaged, I ended up spackling over everything and replacing the paint. I also remember at the Fundación Banco Patricios, I asked the boys who were working there to wear white gloves; luckily, they did. But when the works came back, since they are very pure white, there were also quite a few marks and, once again, I had to retouch everywhere. I don’t know what the solution is, other than to put them under glass.

At the home and studio of the artist, Villa Crespo neighbourhood, between 1999 and 2001.

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MANUEL ESPINOSA

Manuel Espinosa: I am a graduate of the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes, which at that time was directed by the sculptor Cullen Ayerza,1 the author of several works located in Palermo. We knew absolutely nothing about him, in our minds, he was a very respectable man with a big beard. He was like a very rich patriarch, like all of those who have been educated here, be it in medicine or in other professions. He came from a wealthy family and had studied abroad. We did not know who he had studied with, but his works had a certain prestige. It was a four-year program and we graduated with the title of Professor of Drawing. After that, I was at the Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes for a short time, about a year and a half, because then my life fell apart and I could not continue because of things that happened in my family. Pino Monkes: That affected you emotionally. ME: No, financially. I couldn’t afford it any longer, so for a while I stopped working, painting. PM: We are talking about the lead-up to your participation in the Arte Concreto Invención [Concrete-Invention Art Association]. ME: Yes. Later, the situation began to improve and I had more time to paint. Sometime after that, I met Tomás Maldonado and his wife, Lidy Prati. I had a great friendship with them, as well

Hernán Cullen Ayerza, (Buenos Aires 1879-1936). Argentinian sculptor, lawyer and diplomat; sculptor of the monument to the engineer Emilio Mitre and the aviator Jorge Newbery, among others. He founded and directed the Escuela de Artes y Oficios, now the Escuela Nacional de Arte Manuel Belgrano.

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as with the people around them, of course. You could say that it was him that led me to concrete art. PM: I must admit that I have not personally seen much of your work from the concrete art period. In fact, I have seen only one, which I know very well from having worked at the Museo Eduardo Sívori. It is a piece with a cutout frame in yellow and white, with two triangular openings, very similar to one of the two works of yours that were reproduced in the Arte Concreto Invención magazine.2 Do you remember how those works were made? Especially the one with the cutout frame, owned by the Museo Sívori. ME: I wouldn’t know what to say, I really don’t remember. As for the concrete works, they were executed on cardboard, no other material was used until it was replaced by wood. It was thick cardboard that cut perfectly, without any issues, to which a rod was attached to protect the ends. Later, as in the case of the first work with the separate planes that Molenberg made, (Función blanca) [White Function], the rods were no longer used, and the planes were presented much as can be seen in the work of Lozza that we know today. I don’t remember much about the technical procedures that were followed for cutting and adhering the supports, because I gave them to Bodó and he framed them up, so I don’t know what he used. I had a lot of work and a large amount of work in the studio, because I produced a lot, but it didn’t sell. PM: You agree with Molenberg on the sales issue then. ME: Of course. I don’t have many paintings from the time. In those years, I took a study trip to Europe and when I came back, the house where I had my studio was gone and all of the work had been thrown out. I lost everything. I recovered those two works 2

The work Sin título [Untitled] (55 x 60 cm, 1945/73), entered the collection of the Museo Sívori on 5 May 1981, a year after the show Vanguardias de la década del 40. Arte Concreto Invención, Madí, Perceptismo [Vanguards of the 1940s. Concrete Art Invention, Madí, Perceptism], held at the same museum and organised by then director, Professor Nelly Perazzo.

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and recently recovered another that was also badly damaged. In fact, it was in such a bad state that it went in the bin. PM: What year are we talking about approximately? ME: 1954 or 1955, about then. PM: Tell me about Bodó. ME: Bodó was a framer who worked at the corner of Juncal and Suipacha streets, I think. He held exhibitions and had a framing studio. He made a fortune selling paintings and then moved here, across the street from this building, where the shops are. A few years ago, he left the studio to his employee. PM: What kind of treatment was used on the supports to prepare them for the colour? ME: To protect the cardboard, I simply gave them a coat of paint, the same enamel I used for painting. Although I have always worked with oils, in those days they always said not to use the standard colours, particularly in oil paint. I remember that was a change that happened with the concrete art movement. I began painting in my twenties, so when I joined concrete art, I was older than many of the others. I had been painting for years and with oils, of course. But at that time, it was more like painting with colours, with cans of paint that you used to paint furniture, objects. PM: And when you returned from Europe, you also returned to the canvas as your support, in a regular format, on which you developed a series of works that anticipated the visual elements that would come to dominate your compositions from then on: the square, the circle and the line. In the Museo de Arte Moderno we have a pair of your paintings from a later period, executed using an overlapping motif that, in the case of Illetas (1967, oil on canvas, 100 × 100 cm) is a circle, and in Aazvere (1972, oil on canvas, 100 × 100 cm) is a square. They are all based on a sequence that progresses through

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P. 242 P. 243

a gradation of transparencies. In this period of transparencies, you returned to the traditional canvas as a support. ME: Yes, I would buy the Tandil brand frames, I think they were very good quality. PM: Good, and with a range of qualities. Here, I can see the canvas fabrics are quite solid. ME: Yes, and a range of prices. I would never really think about all those issues, but then again, it is your speciality. PM: From what I’ve seen, the material you used for the colour in that series of transparent works marked a turning point, a shift from oils to acrylics. ME: I’m not really the most reliable person to be able to tell you the date or name of each work. PM: Of the pieces from that period that are in the collection of the Museo de Arte Moderno, one of them, Aazvere, was part of the Pirovano donation, which could be called a “collection within the collection”. ME: Well, that work from the Pirovano collection may be acrylic,3 but the previous one most certainly must be oil. In 1973, when I participated in a show at the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris,4 I began working with acrylics. I had to present twelve large format works and there was no time for oil paint to dry, so I had to add it to my working method. From that moment on I worked with acrylics, but prior to that I had always used oils. There are many people who worked in oil and found it difficult to switch to acrylics, they had to adapt. But I began working with it, and it worked perfectly right from the start. As for my way of working, I have always begun with sketches, even for those works with the transparencies. I arrange them, I 3

It is in fact oil.

Projection et dynamisme. Six peintres argentins [Projection and Dynamism. Six Argentinian Painters], held at the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris.

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work on them in pencil and, after making a few of them, I keep the ones that are of the most interest to me and discard the rest. PM: Is lighting a concern for you? Either when painting or when it comes to exhibits? The other artists I have asked provided their points of view about the impact it can have on their work. For example, Raúl Lozza, given the objectiveness in his search for an exact shade of colour, said that it is of great concern to him. Juan Melé requires a certain ambient luminous flux for his recent series of “Reflections”, for example, while for others it is of little relevance. ME: That might be the case for Lozza, whose planes project and could cast a shadow that may be a nuisance, but in my own case, I don’t give it any importance.5 PM: Thinking about the concrete works, particularly the one in the Museo Sívori collection, a cutout frame with two triangular perforations, did you anticipate the eventual impact the colour of the wall on which it was mounted would have on the work? Did you reflect at all on how the background should look? ME: No, no. PM: Simply put, you developed an idea that materialised in the work. ME: Yes, just like that. PM: Although, by all accounts, little evidence remains from the concrete art period, how have the works that remain stood the test of time in accordance with the techniques used? ME: I have a shelf here to keep them in order and try to prevent damage, which in my works is very noticeable. There is one in the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes that is from that period of the transparencies. It is a work I delivered in perfect condition, 5

Espinosa considers the impact of lighting more in terms of the shadows that may be projected by the planes on the supporting wall than how the colour temperature of the beam of light cast on the work may alter the original shade of colour, which was the perspective from which the question was asked.

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clean, because in general I keep my works very tidy and very neat. And when I saw it, it had hundreds of fingerprints on the canvas. I thought to myself, “How can a museum exhibit a work in that state?” I didn’t go to speak with the director, to say, well … “Why don’t you clean it?” No, I wasn’t really interested in doing so. Then, on another visit, I saw that there had been an intervention in the work, and then it disappeared, it was no longer on display. I haven’t been to the Museum for years because I don’t go out, I don’t go to see any exhibitions.6 PM: The handling of pieces is often an issue in museums. In general, works suffer from a series of deteriorations owing to improper handling. The biggest problems tend to occur at the edges, where dirt and abrasions appear. Unfortunately, many institutions do not have the habit of using the appropriate gloves. In the case of acrylics, the problem is further complicated by the high amount of static in the pictorial layer, along with such a low softening point that in summertime in Buenos Aires, if many pieces are resting on top of each other, they can cause marks and sagging of the pictorial layer, and they can even stick to each other. In general, the most visibly damaged works are the geometric and concrete ones, because of how visible the damage is on such a homogeneous plane of colour. ME: In this case, the marks were not on the edges but on the entire plane of the work. In fact, you have to hold the work behind it to move it, to not touch the canvas, especially in a piece that has a white base where fingerprints immediately leave a mark. When Di Tella organised the exhibitions, the works arrived in crates with the gloves inside. PM: Do you feel that it is important to use varnish on a piece for the final finish, or no? 6

A few years after this interview took place, the work Espinosa is speaking about, Pintura [Painting] (1966) is shown regularly in the Hall of 20th Century Argentine Art. Although the website of the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes states that it is acrylic on canvas, Espinosa began using this material only in the early 1970s.

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ME: No, I never varnished. I once had to varnish for an exhibition I did. There were about fourteen works and I don’t know what happened to the acrylic but it was very opaque. But that is the only time I did it. In the end, they were very glossy. PM: Maybe the problem was that the base was very absorbent. ME: It was the base I always use, so I don’t know what the problem was. PM: Speaking of restoration issues, while it may not be something that the artist has in mind when painting, there are different proposals regarding how to recover deteriorated works. In general, they are guided as much by the aesthetic as by the material structure of the work. The final decision can also be influenced by the owner, be it a public institution or a collector. You have had the opportunity to travel and see the museums of the world and their treasures, and you will have observed different types of deterioration and intervention criteria. From your own point of view, and considering a possible intervention of one of your own pieces, what criteria do you believe should be adopted? ME: My position is that the work must always be as the artist created it, in its original state. If time ages it like a cognac, I don’t know, but I see that everywhere, in Europe for example, what I have seen is that they clean the works and they look marvellous. PM: A series of conservation or restoration parameters have been established for traditional painting that include very specific criteria that do not apply to a large part of 20th century production, hard-edge abstraction in particular. ME: In the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice there is a Tintoretto showing the transport of the body of Saint Mark.7 It is a really large work. At the centre is the body of Saint Mark being 7

Jacopo Robusti (Tintoretto), The Removal of the Body of Saint Mark, oil on canvas, 397 × 315 cm, Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice.

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carried. They cleaned it and left evidence in the corners of how the old paint appeared through the varnish and, in the centre of the body, they left a sample of the aged varnish. It is such a dark work for a Tintoretto, with a brushstroke that is so loose, in the style of Franz Hals, it is astonishing, like it is a different painter. Anyway, the same has happened with the Sistine Chapel. PM: I had the opportunity to speak with Spanish restorers in Madrid, and they told me how traumatic the cleaning of Velázquez’s Las Meninas by an American team had been for the Spanish people who are interested in art.8 For many years, everyone spoke of the mystery that emanated from the work. Once it was cleaned, the image regained much of its legibility. One of them said to me, “If the mystery was the oxidised varnish, off with the mystery!” ME: I think that the work has enough mystery without having to add mystery to it, because it is sensational in itself. The idea he had, of himself in the middle of the canvas, in the environment, is amazing. PM: Do you know of any restoration of a concrete work, that you remember for some reason, whether it was satisfactory or not? ME: I remember many works that were going to be restored. For example, Von Bartha came, he didn’t buy from me because I didn’t have anything, but Lidy Prati brought her works. She also showed him some works by Tomás Maldonado that she had. He had worked on them all night with varnishes and who knows what else, to be able to show them the next day.9 The entire background had fallen off. Only parts remained. The guy 8

The professional who was selected for the restoration of Las Meninas in 1984 was John Brealey, the former head of the Restoration Department of the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

The use of enamels and varnishes within the group provides some idea of the materials that Maldonado, according to Espinosa, added to the oil paint in order to speed up the drying process, which is perhaps one of the reasons for the craquelure commonly seen in his works executed on canvas.

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bought it because they were going to restore the work perfectly, although I never saw the final result. PM: Do you believe that painters should restore their works, or should they delegate them, as in this case, to a professional? ME: No, in general, everyone turns to restorers. PM: One last question, about an issue that is very dear to modern art conservation: climate-controlled acrylic boxes. The aim is to provide the works with a micro-climate to prevent the support from responding to abrupt climatic changes, in particular, relative humidity, and they also serve to protect them during handling. A very well-known case is that of the Pirovano collection belonging to the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires, which all arrived at the museum mounted in acrylic boxes of this type, completely sealed. Among them was one of your own works. The works that were taken out of the boxes because many of the directors did not like it that way suffered the consequences. What is your opinion? ME: As an aside, I will tell you that Dr Ignacio Pirovano wanted to set up a foundation and his sister did not agree with it, she did not give him her support. The one who was in close contact with her was Guillermo Whitelow,10 who encouraged her to donate the works that arrived in boxes at the Museo de Arte Moderno. The subject doesn’t hold much interest for me, but perhaps the acrylic produces some reflection that disturbs the view of the work. PM: What happens is that the boxes are made of acrylic because of the ductile properties for their manufacture and the weight; it is lighter and less dangerous than glass. Martín Blaszko told me that they can be used for paintings but not for sculpture, because in one of his shows he saw how a line of shadow was projected by the edge of the glass case onto the work. In the case of paintings, the series of works by César Paternosto, called Miradas laterales [Lateral Gazes] create a similar problem 10

An art critic and former director of the Museo de Arte Moderno.

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in terms of being able to have a clean reading of the colour on the side edges. ME: Honestly, I have never seen a box for paintings. If it is for conservation purposes, I think it is an excellent idea. The Mona Lisa is in a box of that type, gigantic and protected by glass.

At the home of the artist, Uriburu Street, Buenos Aires, June 2000.

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Juan Melé (Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1923-2012) Construcción N°37 [Construction No. 37], 1948 Oil on plywood and wooden rods 75 × 51 × 3 cm Collection of the Centre Pompidou

Detail of the wooden rods

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Detail

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Marco recortado N°3 [Cutout Frame No. 3], 1946 Oil on hardboard 85 × 55 cm Collection of the Museo Sívori

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Manuel Espinosa (Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1912-2006) Detail of the work executed with a ruling pen and compass

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Sin título [Untitled], ca. 1950 Tempera on black paper 65 × 50.5 cm Collection of the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires

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Illetas, 1967 Oil on canvas 150 × 150 cm Collection of the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires

Aazvere, 1972 Oil on canvas 100 × 100 cm Collection of the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires

Detail

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Alberto Molenberg (Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1921-2011) Función blanca [White Function], 1946 Enamel on plywood On a portable wall of 112 × 120 × 6 cm Private collection

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Alejandro Puente (La Plata, Argentina, 1933 Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2013) Pintura [Painting], 1961 Oil on jute canvas 195 × 172 cm Collection of the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires Detail of brushstroke

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Mancapa, 1979 Acrylic on canvas 85 × 125 cm Collection of the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires Transmitted halogen light photography

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Quipu, 1971 Dyed cotton yarns afﬁxed to a MDF panel 52.1 × 65 × 8.3 cm Collection of Estrellita B. Brodsky

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César Paternosto (La Plata, Argentina, 1931) Detail of impasto

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Pintura [Painting], 1961 Volcanic sand, painting paste, synthetic varnish and oil on canvas 118 × 97 cm Collection of the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires

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Díptico II [Diptych II], 1966 Oil on structured canvas 217 × 278 cm Collection of Eduardo Constantini Photographs of the restoration process of the work

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Sin título [Untitled], 1965-1966 Oil on canvas 178 × 173 cm Private collection

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Sin título [Untitled], 1971 Acrylic on canvas 120 × 80 × 7 cm Collection of the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires Detail of deformation of the textile in response to the climatic environment

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ALBERTO MOLENBERG

Alberto Molenberg: Over the years, one of the members of our concrete art group became a restorer. Perhaps you have heard of him, Caraduje. He is still alive, but he went to the countryside with his children. He went to Orense. Pino Monkes: Close to the sea, in Buenos Aires province. AM: Yes. It is a typical rural town, 17 kilometres from the sea, in the Tres Arroyos area, close to Claromecó. Here he did a lot of restoration. PM: I only know what was reproduced in the Arte Concreto Invención magazine. AM: He learned his trade from a Frenchman who is probably dead by now, because he was much older than him. I once went on holiday to the farm he had there and watched what he was doing. I’ll soon be eighty two years old, and it’s been almost fifty years … PM: Since you last painted? AM: Of course. Much to my dismay, I did not achieve continuity with my work in concrete art. I come from a working-class family. My grandfather was a stevedore, here in the port of Buenos Aires. My father was a minimum wage employee, in the customs office. And I earned a living as an illustrator between 1943 and 1945. In those days, they used to ask, “What experience do you have?” I had a lot of material from what I drew at the Bellas Artes and, of course, I used to draw female nudes. So then they would say to me, “Yes, they are all very good but … You know what? I need a clothed woman, to see how the cloth drapes, how the fabric wrinkles. You are not showing me any of that”. That was when I discovered they had taught me many things at the Bellas Artes, but they didn’t help me to earn a living.

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So I later became a graphic arts illustrator, something that no longer exists, I’m sure. That’s how the years went by, because I lived in Lanús and then in Longchamps,1 and so I spent two hours going to work and two hours coming home. After working eight hours, I never could have a studio, in fact, I never had one. The few things I made were liked and they sold. PM: And at that time, were you selling works? AM: No, that was many years later. At that time, nobody sold anything, of course. When I got married, things got worse; with a family and children, I had to keep doing the work for the clients at the printer. They would say to me, “Make this”, for example, a sketch with a blue background and the client would come and say, “It’s very nice but I’d like a red or yellow background”. Whatever you did was subject to the client’s wishes, who would start drawing a mental picture and you had to follow along. If concrete art was not a success, you would have to keep on making the crap the clients wanted. PM: That’s what you have been doing all your life. AM: Yes. P. 244

He shows me a photograph of his most well-known work, Función blanca [White Function]. AM: It is a white work; it has no colour. The white was perfected and the background disappeared. PM: After joining it together with rods, as shown in the AACI magazine, was it given a portable background? AM: Yes, the shapes were cut out and mounted on a background. The background lost its colour over the years, it didn’t look good. Marta Nanni called me and asked, “How do you think the background has turned out?” She suggested mounting it on a thick sheet of acrylic, which I agreed to, because when I 1

Towns in the southern outskirts of the city of Buenos Aires, in the province of the same name.

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made the work, acrylic didn’t exist. Later, it was sold at an exhibition that was held in the galleries of the Teatro San Martín, which was the location of the Museo Sívori and the Museo de Arte Moderno. PM: That is to say, they used it as a support. AM: Exactly. Since I could not afford it, they financed it themselves, they just wanted to know if I agreed to it. I think they gave it to a sculptor, Eduardo Rodríguez, who did a lot of work with acrylic. He positioned the forms on the acrylic sheet exactly as they had been distributed on the portable wall.2 PM: Can you describe the first portable background? Because in this work, the formal aspects go beyond the issue of colour, it is a coplanar work where all of the modules of the composition are white, which was entirely new. AM: Perhaps, but I didn’t want a grey for the background, and I didn’t want a vivid colour either. I finally decided on a medium grey, somewhat lilac.3 PM: Then the colour relationship between the forms and the background was lost. AM: Generally speaking, what happened is that you hurried [to complete] work for an exhibition; you had to exhibit on such and such a day, so you had to get it done. In that first period of concrete art there wasn’t much time to work. PM: How did you work and what materials did you use?

Just as Von Bartha would do with the coplanar No. 15 (1947), by Juan Melé.

According to Melé, the new background made for the 1976 show Homenaje a la vanguardia argentina de la década del cuarenta [A Celebration of the Argentinian Avantgarde of the 1940s], held at the Arte Nuevo gallery and curated by Nelly Perazzo, was blue. See Juan N. Melé, La vanguardia del 40. Memorias de un artista concreto, Buenos Aires, Ediciones Cinco, 1999, p. 133. A photograph from the period, kindly loaned to us by the artist’s daughter, Claudia Molenberg, shows the work on a medium value lilac background.

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AM: At that time, I was single and living in Lanús with my parents. I would sketch until I thought I had found something. Then I would begin to develop it, to give the content a strict geometry, seeking a balance of masses, harmony of lines and, once I felt that it worked, I would make it. I would work at the kitchen table at home after my mother had cleared it. In this case, I took a thin cardboard, worked out the shapes and cut and assembled them in small pieces. PM: A prototype. AM: Yes, like a mock-up. When I was happy with it, I would transfer it to a thicker, larger cardboard. The first version of this work was made in cardboard, primed with a synthetic paint so that, in principle, it wouldn’t absorb as much material, and then I had to sand it well between coats. PM: A priming layer. AM: Yes, a white primer like the one painters use before painting wood. I got it at the hardware store. PM: Wood primer. AM: Yes, and very well sanded. Then I painted the work with white synthetic enamel. It stayed in the same condition for many years until, at one point, the cardboard deteriorated quite badly. People would come to the house and say, “How nice!” And I thought, “Why did I go through all that trouble?” because nothing came of it. He shows me a photograph of his work, Función blanca [White Function]. Handwritten on the back it says, “Función blanca, año ’46. Esmalte sobre madera engrampada sobre contraplacado,4 110 x 130 cm” [“White function, year ‘46. Enamel on stapled wood on plywood, 110 x 130 cm”.] and is signed on the back: “J. A. Molenberg, 1946”. 4

“Contraplacado” is a synonym of “contrachapado” or “terciado”, all of which translate to “plywood”.

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AM: Here are two more works that are left. As I said about my social condition, it’s very difficult for someone who comes from a working-class family to work in the arts, that’s the thing. For example, Alfredo Hlito was the son of a powerful businessman, they could travel to Europe and come back whenever they liked. If I left the country, it was only to go to Uruguay. It was the same with Lidy Prati, her father was a cotton dealer, she could paint from the top of the Himalayas if she wanted to. It was quite different in my situation, which did not make things easy for me. When the time came and things got going,5 I remade the damaged work on a 5-mm thick plywood and enlarged it a little more. The only version of this work, the definitive version, is in a private collection in Buenos Aires. I think that after the primer, I painted with white oil paint and also polished it after, but so many years have passed, I am not certain.6 PM: What was used for the assembly and mounting of the parts? AM: To assemble Función blanca on the acrylic, a perforation was made at certain points in the material that coincided with the work, and then a tube was inserted that goes from there to the acrylic base. When it was mounted on the wood panel, there were several 5

In his book La vanguardia del 40. Memorias de un artista concreto, from 1999, Juan Melé remarked: “Around 1974 […] when I was having dinner with Lozza at my studio, I proposed that we organise a large exhibit of the works made in the 1940s and publish a catalogue or illustrated book to document the work that was carried out then […] up to that point, no one had published anything in our milieu about those avant-garde movements in Argentina. Fortunately, as if via some telepathic act, Nelly Perazzo had the same idea”. From what I can glean from these conversations, things began to reactivate in the 1970s, especially in 1976, with the exhibition at the Arte Nuevo gallery, Homenaje a la vanguardia argentina de los cuarenta, curated by Nelly Perazzo, who later, in 1980, as director of the Museo Municipal de Artes Plásticas Eduardo Sívori, would republish the show with a catalogue that would be the first to document concrete art in the country.

It is difficult to believe it would be polished oil paint, though it is not impossible. It requires a long curing time (years) and remains soft for a long time before it can be polished. This is why Lozza began to add varnish and enamel to the paint.

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pegs that were glued to the back of the planes. The space separating it from the portable wall depended on the size of the peg. PM: That was the usual procedure for mounting the coplanars to the portable walls. What kind of glues did you use back then? AM: At that time, it was one of those hot glues used for carpentry. PM: Then you would prime the wood and sand it down until you smoothed the grain. How interested were you in hiding the texture of the material? AM: This work is from the beginning, when we agreed that it should be polished, clean, impeccable. Tomás [Maldonado] had a saying, “The ‘white function’ is an aesthetic function of straight lines and white planes”. This work is based on that. We were so extreme that, for a long time, we abolished the curved line. Until one day, I did the work with the circles. PM: They were looking for something untainted. AM: Yes. That seems to have been the pursuit of those who initiated this art in Europe.

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PM: Vantongerloo used that polishing treatment between coats of paint for the final finish as well, upon which he developed his argument using strokes of primary and some secondary colours. We have a couple of pieces by him at the Museo Moderno, from 1942 and 1946, which have clearly been executed using this technique. After the cutout frame period, you and Lozza were the first to make the space penetrate the work, which led to one of the group’s achievements, the coplanar. Tomás Maldonado wrote about it in the Arte Concreto Invención magazine.7 AM: Well, there was a theoretical basis and a great theorist, Tomás Maldonado. Perhaps he didn’t paint much, but he was one of the great theorists of the movement. Not only did he have a 7

See footnote 16 in “On the Work. Abstraction in the Río de la Plata. Supports.”, p. 38.

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great theoretical and cultural background – as did his brother Edgard Bayley – he was the soul and driving force of the movement. PM: Like most of the group, he had received academic training. AM: I graduated as a teacher from the Escuela de Bellas Artes Prilidiano Pueyrredón. Tomás Maldonado also attended, but dropped out in his first year. As did Alfredo Hlito. They left with a manifesto they distributed at the annual exhibition held there. It stirred a lot of controversy, a lot of debate at the school. PM: You didn’t have a fixed studio space then? AM: No, as I said, I worked in the kitchen. PM: Were all of the works from that period made with the same materials and execution technique? AM: Generally, yes, but we realised that thick plywood was the most suitable. PM: Another piece that was reproduced in the Arte Concreto Invención magazine appeared to be an assemblage. AM: An assemblage of rectangles and circles. It is all cut plywood and the background is the wall where it hangs. And there is another one with orthogonals that has a Mondrianesque influence; it was made with a thick acrylic.8 I sold it to two Argentinian women who were accompanied by a young Brazilian guy who had a gallery in Brazil. After becoming interested in the development of my work in concrete art, they asked the prices and took it. It is likely in some publication. A few months earlier, the Swiss collector Von Bartha had been to my house. He saw my works, had a coffee, and left without taking anything. Since he was not interested in my work and I 8

He is referring to a piece that today in in the MoMA in New York, donated by Patricia Phelps de Cisneros through the Latin American and Caribbean Fund, in honour of Eva Luisa Griffin-Cisneros. In actual fact, it is mounted on glass, since, as the artist himself acknowledges in the interview, acrylic was not common in those days.

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was so poorly off, as I have been all my life, the first people who showed up got to take it away. PM: What do you think is the best intervention criterion to adopt for your work in the event of damage or an accident? AM: As far as non-figurative art painted on canvas is concerned, I think the principles applied to antique restorations should be followed: replace the missing parts and paint it as accurately as possible, using the colour left behind as a sample. Now, with these works, if one of the pieces is damaged, I have to cut it again, because it is very simple, there is no sensitivity of the brushstroke. However, you may tell me that a new white will not be the same as an aged one. PM: The unanimous response of the artists with regard to paintings from this time is that it is possible to renew the accessories. For the conservator/restorer, who is always interested in the historical identity of the work, it is more traumatic. Not long ago, Luis Tomasello told me that he wanted his work that belongs to the Museo Moderno to be protected with an acrylic box. At a seminar on modern art conservation, I had the opportunity to meet Stephen Hackney, the conservator of the Tate Gallery in London, who insisted that acrylic boxes are the most effective means of avoiding, or better put, slowing damage. Especially in modern art, which is very difficult to intervene without leaving evidence. The boxes isolate the work from its climatic environment and there are several ways of constructing them to achieve good performance. Could they offer an alternative for your works? AM: I don’t like them, I find them to be very artificial, unless they are works that are of a certain value. PM: Yours are. AM: That’s all well and good for whoever bought them, but I was paid peanuts.

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PM: None of the artists from the time were interested in the option, but many of their works are protected by this type of container. For instance, some of Raúl Lozza’s works. And the wife of Víctor Magariños is protecting his works by this means. But you don’t like the idea. AM: I don’t know, it’s like locking away a thing of beauty. But I understand it is a matter of care. I remember I took that first work – the first version of the work made with cardboard that later got damaged – I took it under my arm onto the bus in Lanús, onto the train to Constitución and all the way to Galerias Pacífico, where the first exhibitions of concrete art were taking place on a sort of folding screen set up in the central space. It was exhibited there, under the paintings of our masters Berni and Spilimbergo. That show was before the one at the Peuser gallery.9 At some point a few months earlier, Maldonado, Lidy Prati and I don’t know who else had shown their works here in La Boca, but I wasn’t yet part of the movement and I don’t remember exactly where it was. Then, sometime before travelling to Europe, Melé and Vardánega, who were also fellow students at the Bellas Artes, became interested in the AACI’s proposal. They were interested but were a little removed from it, they didn’t get fully involved in the movement. It was as if they were asking you to join the communist party when you were only a sympathiser. Later, Melé got fully involved. PM: From what I understood, he did not work anymore after 1948. AM: Yes, approximately. I will tell you frankly, I am retired and have a 500-peso pension, and I have this flat because I was able to afford it during the Arturo Illia administration. When I 9

The first exhibition of the Asociación Arte Concreto Invención was held at the Peuser gallery and, according to the cover of the catalogue (a bifold and a loose sheet), ran from the 18 March to 3 April 1946.

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graduated, I wanted to go into teaching. During the first Perón administration, the national Ministry of Education advertised in the papers for teachers of different subjects. I went to the Ministry, where they took my details and gave me a card with a recommendation on the back. The person who made the referrals made sure those he recommended agreed with the tenets of the national government; that is, you needed to be endorsed by a Peronist strongman. My father and I had done a lot of work for the Unión Democrática, which wasn’t exactly a wonderful party either, but at the time, they were the only ones opposed to Peronism. So, which one of these Peronists was I going to go and see? There is one thing that was and is still alive in many people: dignity. That’s why I have remained a labourer to this day. I discovered much through poetry, which I have always liked. In the company of Edgar Bayley and Juan Jacobo Bajarlía I became very interested in the subject. Given my social situation, I couldn’t paint. But, one day, I discovered I could use fewer materials if I dedicated myself to writing. PM: It was less costly. AM: Yes. PM: Is your poetry related to the concrete art aesthetic? AM: I would say no, it has very little to do with it. I could not rid myself of the fact that the word says things whose content we understand. PM: How do you evaluate the “poetic inventions” in those early years of the group’s activity? Bayley talks about the invented concept as the basis of the new poetry.10 AM: Yes, but Kosice was the first one to try it. In terms of language, Edgar Bayley was without a doubt the most cultured, he was a lord of the word. The idea was to bring invention to poetry, not to invent a new form of poetry. The thing is, if it 10

Arte Concreto Invención magazine, p. 13.

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does not convey the certainty of sincere emotion, poetry cannot achieve but a slightly higher generality. I am influenced by Bayley, García Lorca, and Martín Fierro, so to speak. At the end of the interview, Molenberg talks about the political and social situation in the country in June 2001. M: We are living in the chaos that comes before the end state, because I don’t believe it will just end like that. This is one of the many cyclical crises of capitalism, but this time it is quite tremendous. Globalisation has brought the globalisation of conflict. It is a systemic crisis that takes everything with it. The homeless, big and small, come every afternoon and go through the bins. That is the outlook I have of Argentina today. I am happy to have met people like Maldonado, Bayley, Lozza and so many others, but I cannot be oblivious to this. That is why I always write about things that move me.

At the home of the artist, Catalinas Sur, Buenos Aires, 2001.

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CÉSAR PATERNOSTO

César Paternosto: I was self-taught for my first years of study. I audited Professor Héctor Cartier’s classes at the Faculty of Fine Arts in La Plata. It was at that time that I began painting in oils. I had learned as a child on my own by watching a friend. I painted with oils and with gouache on paper and cardboard. I began showing my work publicly as part of the Informalist movement, which at the time was influenced by Antoni Tápies. I recreated a little of his working technique, using references or from reading. I remember my first purchases of sand, sometimes volcanic, which was a lighter material and which I would bind with synthetic varnish, usually marine, which were the strongest binders available on the market at the time. I added oil paint and sometimes painting paste to the mixture.I I thinned the painting paste with turpentine, as the paste was prepared with an oil similar to linseed oil, and I would then incorporate the synthetic varnish and the sand. Pino Monkes: We are talking about the period when you were part of the Grupo Sí, from La Plata. How have those works survived over the years? CP: Quite well, I have two from the period, one in New York and another that is here, and I think they are in acceptable condition. Some fragments lifted from one of them, I think because of how I portioned out the material or, to put it better, because of its homogeneity. Very likely there were more problems where there was less synthetic varnish, though I’m not sure. PM: The work from the period that is in the collection of the Museo de Arte Moderno is in very decent condition but has a few missing elements, especially at the bottom where you applied the 265

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material in a very similar way to how you would in a kitchen with a piping bag; that is, it is a surface application with less grip. The rest shows the logical issues that derive from the heavy weight of the large material load on the canvas. It was likely executed with the work positioned on a horizontal surface, as Tápies didII CP: Yes, that’s right. Then in the 1962 compositions, I started to make something like archaic symbols, and that was when I turned to hardboard as a support. I prepared it on the textured side using Albamate.1 I would apply several layers: two, three, sometimes four. I did it that way because I would apply the material and use a sgraffito technique, scraping it with a spatula, that is, I drew by scraping it. That is why I needed a hardboard that was well-prepared, solid and that had many layers, so that it could withstand the scraping. I did the same with marine varnish, sand and diluted painting paste. At the time I was influenced by pre-Columbian art, especially by the ceramics of La Aguada and Santa María,2 so I worked in white on black. But I gave that a rest; I dropped it quite suddenly, it just wasn’t the right time. It was the era of the Instituto Di Tella3 and I felt a bit false, out of date, you could 1

A synthetic enamel with a matte finish produced by the Argentinian company Alba.

The La Aguada culture emerged in the Argentinian provinces of Catamarca and La Rioja between 600 and 900 CE. It corresponds to the middle agro-pottery period of northwestern Argentina and is considered the high point of pre-Columbian art in the region. The people of the Santa María culture settled in the Yocavil or Santa María valleys of Cajón (Catamarca) and Calchaquí (Salta) around the year 1000, and their lands stretched as far as the snow-capped Acay, and from there, the magnificence of agropottery culture spread through northwestern Argentina. They worked with metals such as copper, gold and silver, and achieved remarkable levels of development, especially in terms of shields and ceremonial axes. They produced large, highly decorated ceramic vessels. Their funerary urns for infants are characteristic of their production.

The Centro de Artes Visuales within the Instituto Di Tella (1963-1969) provoked a major renewal of the artistic discourse in Argentina. Its director, Jorge Romero Brest (1905-1989), was an authority on art and in charge of the experimental centre, which would become a paradigm of the avant-garde and provocation in the 1960s.

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say. I gradually returned to geometry, but not in a way that was synonymous with concrete art. It was at a time when we began doing all sorts of experiments; I went back to oil painting and worked on hardboard and canvas. 1963 was a year of searching, in which I did some expressionist things in between and then turned to geometry. The following year, I continued to work with oils and I remember an event that left an impression on me: a Josef Albers exhibit that took place in Buenos Aires. He worked by applying colour directly from the tube, using a colour register, an immense palette, and all the resources you could find on the market in the United States. Here, there were two yellows, two reds, three blues and two greens. So I began to work directly from the tube, but at a certain point I began making collages, adhering metallic papers. It was a series I called “De los globos mágicos” [“On the Magic Balloons”]. Generally speaking, it consisted of a circle divided into vertical bands, some of which were metallic paper and others that were oil paint, which resulted in a very unstable image because part of it was reflective. But because I wasn’t very careful with the glue, over time some of them began to show some issues. You could see little bits of fungus through the metallic paper and little spots began to appear on some of the canvasses. PM: Puente said the approach that inaugurated the so-called sensitive geometry was basically a reaction to concrete art. He spoke of a romantic spirit of investigation that led you to experiment with new materials and expressive freedoms. CP: The journey from Informalism to so-called “sensitive geometry” was not very well defined in my own case. I look at it more from a technical point of view, from the “kitchen”, as we used to say. Thinking back to those years brings back many memories. At first, as young artists, we rejected the hegemonic art of the time, which in the field of abstraction meant concrete art, or to be more 267

precise, the memory of it that lingered in the mid-1960s. And even though the “pope” [of the movement], Maldonado, who was dedicated to design and teaching, was no longer in the country and no longer painted, and Hlito, the other notable concrete artist had already abandoned the ruling pen, so to speak, the “Concrete Art Model” as derived primarily from Max Bill, carried an enormous weight in Argentinian art. That’s leaving aside the other variations of generative art and derivations of the concrete model. At that juncture, we sought to simplify the geometric language and distanced ourselves from the use of the ruling pen or the compass, instruments that provided the rigorous execution seen in concrete art. We sought more elementary geometric shapes and the colour planes were no longer uniform. While Puente modulated the colour by applying it with sensitive brushstrokes, I did so with a palette knife; but, as I said, it was not in a uniform manner, because the backgrounds became transparent. In that regard, I spoke of the influence of the Josef Albers exhibition at the Di Tella in 1964. Curiously, in my own case, in order to distance myself from the concrete artists I took refuge in the influence of Albers, who embraced geometric abstraction, in which his geometric language in particular was also more economical. The fanatical minimalist Donald Judd was an admirer of Albers, and in some way, that defines him. An economic geometric language became an enduring approach in the work that was to come. The catalogue in which we presented ourselves at the Galería Lirolay in 1964 spoke of the “New Geometry”, but it was Aldo Pellegrini who coined the term “sensitive geometry”. PM: Are the works from that period in any collection in the country or abroad? CP: In fact, there is only one that was in the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Marcos Curi, here in Buenos Aires, and I believe it was bought by a collector. It is a red canvas with metallic paper. I destroyed many of them because they were in such a deplorable state. 268

As a matter of fact, there is another factor that artists don’t generally confess to, and that is the market. If nobody asks you for them, if nobody seeks them out, they end up destroyed, it’s a fact. The ones I have kept are the gouaches with the same metallic paper technique. So I can document that period with the gouaches on paper, which was like a counterpart that used the same image as the works on canvas. I must confess that there are also spots on the paper.4 PM: Contact between metal and paper is never good. The spots may be caused by micro-organisms produced by prolonged exposure to humidity or, perhaps, by metal residues from the processing of the paper, which oxidise.III CP: It occurred in works from 1964; by 1965 I had already abandoned the use of metallic paper and began to develop a more defined image of undulating bands, of which there is a very nice example in the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Marcos Curi and another in the Museo Provincial de La Plata. The colour was basically oil paint, but I began to mix it with Albamate to obtain a matte finish in very thin layers that I would saturate little by little. The planes were first traced out using a compass. The canvasses for those works were commercially prepared. I began to prepare my own canvas supports later, not in Argentina.5 So, when I was working on regular stretchers, the canvasses were bought ready-made. I used a compass I had purchased from a stationery shop on 1st and 47th streets in La Plata, then opposite the Faculty of Engineering, where they had all of those professional instruments.6 4

This answer corresponds to an email communication from Paternosto on the 6 October 2016.

With the exception of his time with the Grupo Sí, where the domestic workmanship of his support and frame can be seen in the canvas owned by the Museo Moderno.

This statement and the following three questions and answers correspond to a short conversation we had in a gallery of the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, where a solo show of Paternosto’s works was being held between 8 October 2019 and 2 February 2020. The conversation took place at 8 pm on the opening night of the show, standing in front of Sin título [Untitled], 1965-65, oil on canvas, 178 x 173 cm, private collection.

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It was a metal rod with a gadget on the end that would hold a pencil or pencil lead and, at the other end, there was a needle to stick into the paper, or in this case, into the canvas. So I would stick it in there to make the curve. PM: So, the perforation of the compass must be there.

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CP: I think so … Here it is! From this point, I would trace the curves. The thing is, I would have resolved everything earlier, on paper. For these curves (on the upper edge) I positioned a panel, because the centre of the circle lay outside of the work. PM: It was a beam compass. Eduardo Mac Entyre made great use of them when the measurements of the circles in his compositions exceeded the size of an ordinary compass. Is it the same colour medium? CP: It is very diluted oil paint, the same as the others. Because it is a transitional work. At the end of 1965, 1966, I used very diluted oil, as if to dye the canvas. On the other hand, this one (Climax III, oil on canvas, 180 × 180 cm, Museo Provincial de Bellas Artes de La Plata Emilio Pettoruti), which is the mother of that one, was oil with Albamate, an enamel that I used to give it a more matte finish. The work Planiformas en azul y ocre [Planiforms in Blue and Ochre], 1966-1967 (acrylic on canvas, 214 x 277 cm installed) was made after a trip to New York in April 1967, and I brought the acrylics with me. I applied Liquitex on the back.7 PM: It is a material brought from the United States, because it wasn’t yet manufactured here. It wasn’t produced here until the 1970s. CP: Exactly, that is correct. PM: I imagine that the support frames for the works that are chronologically subsequent to the undulating bands were quite complex in terms of their manufacture. Did you make them yourself? 7

In an email, he confirmed not only the brand but also the pigment: cerulean blue.

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CP: That is the period of the shaped canvas, where the corners were generally rounded. At first, I was forced to use a carpenter, but then I made the structures myself. I began to use duck canvas8 because it was easier to manipulate for the assembly, particularly for the curves. I made the curves of the support frame using three layers of plywood, bending it. So I would put on a strip, glue and nail. Then I would position the other two and tighten them with clamps to hold them in position. The whole thing became very rigid. I would then attach it to a template, a skeleton, as if it were the hull of a fuselage. It really held together well and had a good finish. Then came the canvas that covered everything. But when I worked on the curves, I had to cut it, that is, I had to make small cuts in the sides for the folds, which resulted in different thicknesses. Because of that, I then had to mount a strip of canvas along the sides, very neatly, so that the side, which was already quite thick and gave an impression of being imperfect, was not visible.9 I would glue the factory-finished edge of the canvas, the selvedge, and that part went to the front edge of the canvas. I used vinyl glue to adhere it. In general, the canvas worked well with the vinyl glue because, since it is porous, it adapts well. In that period, I began to imitate acrylic using oil paint, but first I would apply a diluted glue to the canvas as a primer. PM: Without an inert load or the white. CP: Exactly, just the vinyl glue. Then for the colour, oil paint thinned with turpentine. PM: Besides that, you began to give depth to the supporting frames, which give a tangible character to the piece, but always 8

Of the many pieces that I have had the opportunity to work on, in most cases the canvas was a 10-ounce fabric from the Alpargatas company.

The work Naranja, magenta y azul [Orange, Magenta and Blue], 1965, oil on canvas, 135 × 135 cm, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, is a good example of the technique.

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maintaining that final finish.IV Is that what led you to turn your attention to the edges? CP: Yes indeed, the shaped works with their robust frames were the forerunner to my turn towards the edges. What is difficult to explain is the mystery of your unconscious mind that pushes you to take the leap. Because it was not a rational, deliberate decision, “Now I am going to paint the edges”. It came as an idea, like a shot to the imagination that was not unrelated to the dominant art of the time: minimalist sculpture and its drastic, stripped-down approach. There was also pressure hanging over me to take the medium to its full potential. Instead of moving towards sculpture, I went back to easel painting, to rework it at a critical level, so to speak. That is, painting only the sides, which were now deeper. I forced the viewer to move, something one does not have to do when faced with a traditional painting.V The fact that I used a lot of thinner and little pigment ensured a very matte finish. One or two coats of paint, depending on how much they covered, until I achieved the saturation and finish I desired, which was very flat; I didn’t want any brushstrokes or “shine”. PM: Completely objective and with a matte finish; that is what set apart your “group of two”, as you told me you were known in those early years on the Buenos Aires scene. It was a group that would begin to dissolve as a result of the Guggenheim grants that Alejandro Puente won in 1967, and you in 1972. CP: The group of two broke up after the last show we did together at Bonino, in 1966, when Aldo Pellegrini invited me to participate in the American Biennial of Córdoba. And, as you say, with the grants. Alejandro was awarded the Guggenheim in 1967 and we both went to New York within weeks of each other, at the end of that year.

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There, while I was discovering my “lateral” or “oblique vision”, which was unprecedented in modern art – and something which I still hope will be said loud and clear in this country – Alejandro began to flirt with conceptual art. One day I confronted him rather harshly and our relationship became very tense. There was another factor: our wives had a polite hatred for each other. After our respective separations, we recovered our friendship in all its candidness. In 1971, he returned to Argentina. In 1967, I went to the United States. There I began working with acrylics, which I had never used up to that point. I continued to work along the same line of those shaped structures, and applied the acrylic directly from the tube or pot, without water and without priming the canvas, which was again duck canvas. I later abandoned the shaped canvas and began to work on the edges or lateral gazes, back in 1969. I continued painting with acrylics, but I began to prime the canvas better, giving it one or two coats of diluted gesso10 to make the colour more uniform, which I applied in several coats. PM: These are the pieces you just showed at the Museo de Arte Moderno (2001), based on your 1971 show at the Carmen Waugh gallery in Buenos Aires. CP: Yes, it is the same technique that I used here to reconstruct some of those pieces that had disappeared. There was a time when business began to take off, because the truth is, there was a cost issue. Those were very hard times, so it was more economical to buy the canvas and prime it yourself; a prepared canvas was really expensive. Things began to take off and I worked with industrially-prepared canvasses. They were sets of three or four panels that were hung together, like a polyptych. Always acrylic on a primed canvas.

See technical note IV in “On the Work. Towards a new geometry.”, p. 107.

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P. 252

PM: So, the show at the Carmen Waugh gallery was made with commercially-prepared canvasses?11 CP: Yes, that’s right. As for that little work you have in your studio, the linear route, as you call it, which takes place on the edges and passes to the interior, is nothing more than returning the elements from the oblique vision of the edges towards the interior.VI The oblique vision was a limited art, difficult to sustain over time. I gradually returned to the frontal plane, something I now call the “integral vision” of the painted object. “Front plus sides”, instead of the traditional exclusive front display. It is something I began with tentatively in the triptychs I presented at my show with Denise René in 1974. Then there was another period that came after the trip to Peru, in 1977, when I began to use terracotta colours. I mixed the colour with marble powder – what they call modelling paste – it is a fine marble powder. Generally speaking, I worked with monochromatic colours, dividing the work vertically into two halves. It was the same colour and shade, where one half was mixed with the marble powder and applied with a palette knife, thus providing a very subtle differentiation between the two surfaces, because one was very matte and the other had the semi-gloss of the acrylic. This was all at the end of the 1970s. At a certain point, in the mid-1980s, I returned to oil painting, but it’s a period that I prefer not to remember, I began doing things that I later disliked very much. PM: Perhaps you can share some technical detail of importance, for anyone who may receive a work from that period. CP: I doubt it, but in any case, I will tell you that the primer was acrylic mixed with modelling paste (acrylic modelling paste) to create a more absorbent surface for the oil paint. 11

On the back side of the lateral edge of one of the surviving pieces from that 1971 show, which arrived from Chile for the exhibition at the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires in 2001, there is a stamp with the inscription “FR1429”, which is there because it had been removed from the frame for a small intervention.

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PM: Is your denial of this period due to a question of aesthetics or deterioration? CP: Aesthetics, but the oil layer is lifting in some of the works from that period, who knows why, perhaps because of my own lack of expertise. PM: It could be due to the acrylic base. Being homogeneous and impermeable, it is not a good primer for oil paint, which needs some absorption to anchor the colour. In fact, the earlier surfaces we talked about, where there was a lean primer on the canvas, would have been a better choice for the oil paint. There are many industrially-prepared canvasses, acrylics in most cases, where the oil paint often lifts after a few years and the perfectly white canvas can be seen underneath the lifted flake of paint, which means the oil paint didn’t penetrate into that priming layer whatsoever. CP: Perhaps, although there were no issues with the others; they worked very well. The only difference between them may have been the amount of turpentine used to dilute the colour. What is important is that period finished in the early 1990s. Then came those structures that you saw at the Rubbers gallery, where I returned to the technique of mixing acrylics with modelling paste. What is new in the series is that I began mixing dry pigment into the acrylic medium. PM: I’m certain the result was something different than prepared acrylics. CP: It allowed me to be more emphatic about something that always interested me, the matte finish. There are very few works that you will see with a glossy finish, especially from the oil painting period. I have always liked a matte finish. So, with the dry pigment I could calibrate that finish even more, and in some works I even applied the pigment in a more spontaneous way: I had the bottle of pigment, I would put the brush with the matte medium or binder into it, and take it to the palette to mix it. In this way, I achieved an even more matte finish, it was like velvet. 275

PM: How have these works evolved in terms of the stability of the pictorial layer, which did not go through the grinding process that ensures each pigment particle is bound to the acrylic emulsion, so as to avoid a certain brittleness of the colour material? CP: Up to now I have yet to notice anything significant. PM: In line with the ethical/aesthetic needs of your close friend Alejandro Puente, from what you are telling me, I deduce that you have never been interested in varnishing your works, not even with a matte varnish. CP: No, sometimes, in works from the period of transitioning to oil painting; but if there are varnished works, they are few. The reasoning may be due to the absorption of colour in some areas, which is why I varnished them then. I think it may also have had to do with the poor quality of our oil paints. PM: Is lighting an issue that has caused you any concerns, both in terms of exhibiting as well as painting? CP: In this regard, I have long felt that light is crucial, especially since I began working with terracotta and grey tones. Change the light and you change the colour. In fact, that is the case with any colour, but the subtlety of those colours in particular requires that my decision to work with tungsten be respected, because that is the light that galleries use. On the other hand, it is very rare nowadays for any gallery to work with natural light or any other kind of cold lighting. PM: Another problem encountered in terms of lighting takes place in one of the most important museums in Buenos Aires, where a beam of light projected on a certain segment of contemporary works creates a circle around the centre of the work, thus generating a difference in values from the centre to the edges, where the centre is emphasised and which, in a way, invalidates the planimetry. It could be said that they falsify reality, since the

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gradation of values produced by the light operates as an addition to the planar work. CP: Yes, it’s true, I often see that same problem with different works of this type. In my studio,12 I have ambient exterior light, but in the work environment I have tungsten. And I also have tungsten spotlights where I hang [works] for observation, on a well-finished wall. PM: What restoration criteria do you believe should be adopted for your pieces? Obviously, the few remaining works of yours from the Grupo Sí may have very different issues than those that might be encountered in your oblique gaze period, or in works where the fabric played a highly significant role. CP: The type of intervention we performed on these kinds of pieces for the show at the Museo de Arte Moderno (2001) is correct.VII I think that if there is visible damage at the centre of a work like my own, it would destroy everything I aspire to: clean, neutral surfaces. Now, in the case of an intervention in which a minor scar may remain, perhaps it can be concealed somewhat by means of the lighting. PM: Lighting is very important. A lot of time is usually spent in the gallery to establish a luminous flux that bathes the works in light, either to achieve a certain colour temperature or angle of incidence, or to conceal the topographical issues of the works, which are generally due to deterioration. CP: Behind the concrete aesthetic, or that of abstract art in general, there is an extremely rigorous aspiration to achieve an absolute colour because it represents the almost ideal state of the material and, therefore, it is impossible to show a work that has been repaired. Look at the case of Rothko, who has the same aspiration but whose treatment is more sensitive in terms of the materials. Perhaps the most difficult case is that of Ad Reindhart. He 12

When this interview took place, he was living and working in New York

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removed the oil from the oil paint on paper or cardboard and applied it with just a little turpentine. It gave the surface a velvet-like appearance, which would be irreparable in the event of any problems. He also has such incredible subtlety, with blacks of different shades, it cannot be matched. For his exhibition, they mounted it in an enormous frame without glass, otherwise it would have been impossible to see anything. The frame was used to handle the work, it was quite a distance from the piece. It was like a box without a lid, so it was undoubtedly made with conservation purposes in mind. PM: It is a good decision, not everything can be repaired or concealed. At the Museo Moderno, we often use “L-shaped” frames just for handling, mounting them on the back of the frame in order to leave the sides of a piece free. Sometimes they can be left on display, as they have a very simple, neutral aesthetic. CP: A Reinhardt with a fingerprint is irreparable. PM: A frequent topic that comes up in modern art conservation is the use of climate-controlled acrylic boxes. The aim is to protect the work from mechanical alterations caused by sudden climatic changes. Admittedly, I see how their use may be complicated when I think about your oblique gaze period. What is your opinion on the matter? CP: In principle, I don’t like it, I see it as a disturbance. If, with time, a work passes into private hands, the owner will have to decide. Especially in the works of the oblique gaze period, the vertex of the acrylic would cause a very large interference in the painting. It all depends on how it is done. I think a huge box could avoid the issue, I don’t know, I definitely think it would cause a disturbance. For a frontal work, I don’t know. I mean, generally speaking, I don’t like it. It almost gives it the character of an anthropological object. PM: That is somewhat inevitable.

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CP: When I was making the multiple panel works, there was always a problem. If someone came into the gallery and wanted to see Paternosto’s works and they were made up of four panels, you had to find walls and mount them together. At the time, I was working with Denise René in New York, and she had the entire line of multiples; there was also Le Parc. At the time, I came up with something that wasn’t multiple per se, it was a variation on it. I produced some plywood supports at scale, on some very nice plywood backgrounds that I painted white, about half an inch thick, they were in relief and lined with sheet fabric, which was the thinnest fabric available. I finished them well with gesso and painted the edges. PM: Like a model of the associated larger works. CP: Exactly, like a model of the larger work, but mounted on a background. Those works could be mounted directly to the back of an acrylic box. It could play an important role in protecting them, because of the delicateness of the white. I only have one in my possession; those works sold quite well. In their case, I would accept a box, because it is attractive, like an object. Because the four-panel works were large, their widths varied, but mounted on the wall they took up two metres of space. Regardless, I think the viewer should see the work without interference. Paper is a different story; it needs more protection because it is so fragile; but it is still a disturbance. Something that bothered me was when I went to see the work of the American abstract artist Agnes Martin at the Whitney Museum; they were very subtle, almost minimalist works, but were exhibited with aluminium frames that made the lights from the spotlights almost blind you. PM: What we call “glare” in installation. CP: Seeing that, one painting after another; it is the kind of disturbance that must be avoided, especially with abstract works that are so subtle. 279

PM: At many shows, conservators and curators don’t take it into account. CP: It also happens with traditional painting, when a glass is placed in front of an oil painting. Between the gloss of the oil paint, in the event it has been varnished for protection, and the glare of the glass in which you sometimes see your own reflection, you end up looking at a painting that is like a mirror, since you see yourself instead of appreciating a work of art. I think museums have a responsibility to the public in these cases, like being more vigilant. As for works that are in private collections, the owner is responsible and will know what to do if he wants to protect it. PM: Do you remember any restorative intervention that for some reason, positive or otherwise, stands out in your mind? CP: From the time of the 1965 undulating bands that were made with Albamate; one was exhibited at a show curated by Raúl Santana, Siglo XX argentino. Arte y cultura [20th Century Argentinian Art and Culture], held in Recoleta in 2000. The colour retained its original freshness. Unfortunately, there is a three-centimetre-long tear in the lower corner, although I don’t know if it was restored. It was from the Museo Provincial de La Plata. I’m finishing, modifying or fixing – however you want to call it – acrylic works in which I mixed the pigment with acrylic resin. I almost always worked vertically with the canvas, with the exception of the period with the “pastones”, in my Informalist days (1960-61), because of the heavy material load. In fact, Tápies also had to work horizontally for the same reason. Lately, I have been working with very diluted materials and with the work in a horizontal position. Of these, there are two or three that I have treated with a final layer of very diluted oil paint, using what is there as yet another layer, and using the oil for

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transparencies, to let the background show through. They may be a bit more complicated because of the technique. PM: It depends on how toothy the acrylic layer is for the oil. If the acrylic base is lean, perhaps the oil will be anchored, although acrylic bases are not the most recommended for oil painting. Regardless, it is very good to know. CP: Also, I do usually write it on the back of the work, though I don’t always work that way. Here I have been doing a couple of them, small ones. In fact, my wife complains about the smell of the oil paint, because I have a loft in New York where we live and work; though I have to admit that I like the smell of turpentine. Now I’ve started using an odourless mineral turpentine. Yesterday I bought an Argentinian one, very expensive but very good, it has almost no smell.

Defensa Bar, San Telmo, Buenos Aires, 19 December 2001.

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TECHNICAL NOTES I

See technical note III in “On the Work. Two pieces from the period.”, p. 106.

This information was communicated by Paternosto when discussing a lecture he presented together with Dr Fernando Marte, “El uso de la pintura en pasta en tres pinturas del Informalismo argentino”, at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, in February 2015. In an email he sent me on 22 April 2015, he wrote “Dear Pino, The truth is that I am a little amused, or nostalgic, I don’t know quite how to express it, by the fact that painting paste has given rise to so much, or had so many scientific consequences. It reminds me of the Odriozola hardware store on 47th Street between 7th and 8th where I used to buy it. I think it was the only one that carried it … Reminiscences of an old man …” E-mail dated 22 April 2015. II

Communication via email.

P. M.: “How are you, my dear César, I hope all is well over there. I wanted to ask you something; if you come in March, we can talk about it then. I am sending some images of your “pastón” [heavy impasto]. Something is happening and I am trying to figure out the origin of it, though it is almost imperceptible. It seems there is a layer of shiny, elastic material under the surface of the work. Looking at the images, do you think it might be the marine varnish you told me about? The work seems to have a hard surface layer over top of an elastic one (the opposite of the old tenet, fat over lean) that is continuing to move and causing very fine craquelure in the upper layer. It is quite imperceptible to the naked eye. It was quality photography that brought it to light. Maybe when you pay us a visit, we can recall more details. A hug and kind regards ... P” C. P.: “Regarding that ‘geological landscape’ you sent images of, at this moment, more than half a century later, I don’t know quite what to tell you. I don’t believe I can provide any more information that what you already have about that time. It must have been, as you well guessed, a varnish, that very strong marine varnish that I used as a binder. The proportions were off, perhaps, in a work that is from my very beginnings. I don’t know what else to say. A bit of gossip from the time: at a conference, Romero Brest spoke about the deterioration that was already visible in some of Tápies works (he invented the ‘pastones’) and theorised that it was part of the ‘end of painting …’. And of course, those theories pissed us off because it implied, quite the opposite, our support of his company”. 17 January 2017. III

There is a broad consensus among experts that foxing can be interpreted as the stains that result from the oxidation of iron particles in the paper. The iron can have many different origins: it may be integrated into the natural fibres through absorption from the soil, of chemicals or additives included in the manufacturing process, or through contact with ferrous instruments during the production process.

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IV When working on Paternosto’s works from this period, I have noticed that a simple cleaning treatment with distilled water lifts a little of the colour. The significant addition of turpentine has meant that the pigment particles are not properly bound by the oil. V

Communication via email.

“On the other hand, the shaped works, many of which are diptychs, were also the driving force for the vertical multi-panel works, which are spaced at fixed distances and incorporate the interstitial spaces of the supporting wall. In that regard, recently I have been thinking (about something that never occurred to me before), that these works are related to a very specific precursor of ours: the original coplanar painting, that great contribution of the Concrete Inventionist artists, which they later renounced (with the exception of Lozza), to move on to paraphrasing the concrete art of Max Bill. C. P.” 22 April 2015. VI

Paternosto is referring to a work by a certain individual that I have in my personal studio. Later, in an e-mail, he would comment on it: “That little work is undeniably mine. But what continues to intrigue me is how it left the studio without a signature. Did some “sharp” character from La Plata ‘slip’ it by me? I had completely forgotten about it. I know that De Souza had it for sale and he tells me that he had bought it from a collector (?) known to him. I don’t know how Whitelow figures in all this. But in any case, it is irrelevant because the work is authentic. In fact, not only was I surprised, I liked it so much that I fantasised about buying it myself! It seems to be in good condition, doesn’t it? Apart from those little marks that I can’t quite make out. They’re strange because, as you’ll see, it’s from the time of the dyed canvas. There was no layer of oil that could be skipped. I date it to 1965-1966, like the last one you worked on and which, in fact, has just been sold (!!??) Anyhow, I look forward to your comments and diagnosis. Big hug. César”. Communication via e-mail, 7 July 2016. VII

The work from the period of the “oblique gaze” that was part of the 1971 show at the Carmen Waugh gallery, and which I had the opportunity to restore for the exhibit at the Museo Moderno, had suffered a tear at the front of the support that I was able to correct and reattach. We opted to perform a mimetic reintegration of the colour, reduced to the edges of the tear, which were presented correctly. VIII

There were other email communications with César Paternosto after the interview.

I was thinking about it, I don’t know if I clarified for you at any point the technique I have been using as of late. It goes like this: first I apply a base colour, which is off-white. Then I apply the “stucco”, as Inma [his partner, Inmaculada] calls it, which is a mixture of gesso and modelling paste with titanium white, which gives me that area of pure white, with a slight texture. Then I cover everything with an application of white oil paint, diluted, which somewhat attenuates the different values of the two base whites, and finally, when the white oil paint dries, I apply the oil of the coloured areas in two or three layers. Obviously, this doesn’t avoid having to deal with the acrylic base, but I wanted to tell you

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about it in case I hadn’t done so before, and also for your records. How far we’ve come from painting paste, haven’t we? Ha ha! Hugs, C. 15 October 2015. When I revealed my ignorance of the term “off-white”, he wrote: To Pino Monkes I thought you knew the English term, which is also very common in industrial wall paints (of course, in NY, where I have lived half my life …). It is white, barely tinted with drops of ochre and/or natural earth tones, which is precisely the area where the canvas was damaged in my work. On its own, it appears to be white; it is only when you put it against a pure white that you can see it is not pure, it is “off”, that is, it is “outside” of being white. You understand, don’t you? Bye-bye, best regards C 15 October 2015.

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ALEJANDRO PUENTE

Alejandro Puente: I have no official academic training, I only audited classes at the Escuela de Bellas Artes of La Plata, particularly the class offered by Héctor Cartíer,1 whom I consider my teacher. Sometimes I went to other painting and drawing classes, but since I was not a regular student, I would just organise with the teachers so that they would allow me to participate. The knowledge that was most valuable in my career, in my opinion, was Professor Cartier’s class on Vision. Pino Monkes: We could say that your first works in the Informalist spirit, made as part of the Grupo Sí, were quite traditional in terms of the concept and execution technique, considering the production of the avant-garde movement, which at the time was at its peak. I am thinking of the 1961 work that belongs to the Museo Moderno, which has a hessian (jute) textile support that is made of two pieces joined by a vertical seam. AP: Of course; it was hessian. I thought it was a fabric that would hold up, that it would last for a while, even if there wasn’t a clear awareness of its durability or an ideological mandate of conservation, but there were those characteristics and intentions. I saw how Pacheco prepared the canvasses.2 PM: The piece in the Museo de Arte Moderno is very well preserved; it has some minimal cracks, especially in the red, which 1

Héctor José Cartier (Chivilcoy 1907- Buenos Aires 1999), Argentinian painter, writer and art critic.

Carlos Pacheco (La Plata, 1932-2009), painter and engraver, was one of the founding members of the Grupo Sí, and a point of reference for the other members of the group on technical issues and the preparation of supports and stretchers in particular. He was awarded the Braque Prize (painting) in 1963 as well as the First Avant-Garde Prize of the Contea di Bornio (painting) in Italy, in 1969; and First Prize, Salón Manuel Belgrano de la Municipalidad de Buenos Aires (engraving).

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P. 245

is part of the large central stroke of the painting –so gestural – and it has suffered no loss of colour. AP: Yes, and imagine … we had so few resources. Some of the works from that time have disappeared, or were destroyed. I have even destroyed some of my own. PM: There aren’t many works left from those days? AP: No, absolutely nothing. PM: At the show in La Plata that was curated by Cristina Rossi, Carlos Pacheco remarked to me about the widespread use of painting paste in those years.3 AP: Yes, many used it, like Antonio Segui. Especially in the Informalist period, because you would make the background with painting paste to achieve a certain texture and, although it had a slow drying time, the surface would be sufficiently dry to be able to paint it with a lot of turpentine, a professional oil paint, and you were left with a pictorial effect that was artificial, not very academic, but it was economic and very visually attractive. PM: When I was a child, the shops that sold paintings of mountains and deer would use big cans of that type of paint. AP: As far as I know, it was produced in white,4 although I didn’t use it very long. The painting by Antonio Segui in the Museo de Arte Moderno5 is likely made with painting paste. I have had some disappointments with it. I was raised with a certain ethics of painting, even in how to paint. To me it seemed that dyeing that paste created an artifice that gave it a sensation of relief work. Then you 3

See technical note III in “On the Work. Two pieces from the period.”, p. 106.

Some time later, Santiago Lancillota, a house painter in the San Telmo neighbourhood, showed me some half-empty buckets of blue and green Pan Namel brand painting paste, produced in the province of San Luis and exported to many countries abroad in the 1950s. Lancillota confessed that when he was a boy, he used to take different colours of painting paste to the painter Raquel Forner, who resided in the neighbourhood.

He is referring to De un corte [With a Single Cut], 1960, oil on canvas.

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would apply the diluted oil paint and that gave you a texture that was very attractive or mysterious, but for me, as they say here, it was a bit of a cheat, a bit exaggerated. It didn’t seem ethical to me. You were speaking about the Grupo Sí exhibition that took place in La Plata. For that city, it was a revolution, so to speak, because we were such young artists. We were part of the Informalist movement, an international trend at the time, which allowed most of us to practice with different materials. We used sawdust, cardboard, in short, all kinds of materials. PM: What interests me about that moment in painting is that artists made use, like never before in the history of art, of everything offered by household industry, that is, materials that were not specific to art making, as well as waste products. However, concrete art also made use of the first synthetic alkyd resin enamels and found in them a material that was already prepared to be spread over a surface, albeit for a different aesthetic purpose. AP: Of course. I don’t know about the historical context – because in Informalism there are always adjustments to be made – but one of the characteristics of the group was that it was a reaction to concrete art, with a romantic spirit of investigation, of exploration, which, fundamentally, enabled the approach to new materials as well as new freedoms with respect to all kinds of discoveries, which led to a large international following. PM: At the Museo Moderno, we have that great work of yours, that is like a large symbol made with two strokes that appear to be oil paint applied with a palette knife on a background with just a slight texture of vertical brushstrokes. AP: Now that I’m looking at the detail of the background in the photo you are showing me, I can see that I did it with a large brush, using two tones to achieve a background that vibrates. Around that time, I had made myself a wooden knife and used it to apply two loads of oil paint to the canvas over the background

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colour that was made with the brush; in this case, it was a red and a bit of white applied directly from the tube. That knife made me feel like a Zen Buddhist, I would draw the stroke from top to bottom, establishing a kind of rhythm, which gave me the material stroke. We had begun reading about Zen Buddhism with Cartier, it was a bit fashionable at the time. There was a group of girls who studied dance with him from the same perspective; at the time, corporeality was very important in all these subjects. PM: The gesture, it is like slicing a carcass down the middle with a sabre; it has to do with a common physicality seen among some of the Informalists of the time in terms of how they approached the work surface. The entire body is involved in the act of painting. From what you have said, the background was basically painting paste and the symbols, professional oil paint. AP: Yes. As for these works, let’s just say that I didn’t know of any other paint other than oil paint or, in some cases, painting paste. I think that acrylic paint came on the market roughly around 1965 in the United States, or about the middle of that decade. I don’t have the specific date, but I believe it was about then. PM: Yes, at the Museo Moderno we have works in acrylic by Rómulo Macció6 from 1967, although I don’t know that the technique is described correctly in the catalogues from the time, but it certainly came into widespread use from then on. The material was brought from abroad, since it only began to be produced here in the 1970s. And then you adopted it for good. AP: Exactly. The thing is, symbols have always attracted me. Informalism tended towards an accumulation of symbols on backgrounds that have little contrast, that are barely developed, shall we say. The immediate process that I followed, in reaction to the hyperabundance of Informalism, sought to reverse the 6

Rómulo Macció (Buenos Aires 1931-2016), Argentinian artist.

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situation: to work on the backgrounds and gradually close in on the symbols. And of course, that eventually transformed into elementary geometric shapes. But always with a fluid, diluted paint. Puente shows me photographs of works from the 1961-62 period, during his activities with the Grupo Sí of La Plata. AP: I made a big mistake with these paintings. There is one that I gave to a friend who was studying architecture and who helped me design my studio in City Bell;7 he passed away a long time ago. I don’t even know where the others went. Works from the 1960s for which I had no records are now showing up at the auctions and it is possible that I had given them away. I don’t remember the exact date; it must have been around 1963 or 1964. A fellow member of the Informalist group of La Plata, Carlos Pacheco, also lived in the studio I had in City Bell. He had built a sort of double frame. It was almost a very large square that had perforated edges with through bolts and butterfly screws. It was on that big frame that he taught me how to prime the canvas with fish glue and ground chalk for oil painting. PM: That’s where you prepared the canvasses. AP: Yes, the double frame was used to prepare the canvas so that it would be well-stretched. On one occasion, he lent me his apparatus and I put a thick cotton canvas onto it to prime it later, and one day when I felt like painting, I began working on it. And then what happened is that the paint was absorbed by the priming layer. I kept thinking about that effect a lot. I went to see Romero Brest in Buenos Aires because I thought I had discovered something really important, and he thought about it a little. He told me that it was a very similar result to that obtained by fresco painters;I that is, that the paint blended into the priming layer. 7

A town close to the city of La Plata, in the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

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But, in fact, I thought about it over time and it has nothing to do with that. It is as if I were to say that what Sol LeWitt8 does is the same thing that has been done for millennia: painting a wall. But they are different concepts, different times and different methods. Anyway, I have always been attracted to an aesthetic which does away with the gloss. I remember when César Paternosto and I began coming to Buenos Aires to exhibit, Yuyo Noé, struck by what we were doing, asked us, “Why do you two always paint like that?” To generalise, it came out of that experiment I had made. These are random things that sometimes happen and you adopt them. It was simply oil paint that had been extremely diluted with turpentine and absorbed by the priming layer. Later, in New York, I did a series of works on square frames with primary and secondary colours brought to white. Let’s say I prepared enough colour and applied it, and it was as if I were staining the support, the canvas soaked it up. In 1964 I had a show with César Paternosto at Galería Lirolay. That presentation was as novelty on the Buenos Aires art scene. It was there that Romero Brest and Samuel Paz spotted us. In 1966, Romero invited us both to participate in the Di Tella National Prize and, before that, we had a show at the Bonino, which was when I left painting, or rather, the plane, and intervened in the space. At that show, Romero Brest made an introduction. We both did something like a shaped canvas, especially César, because he had used curves a lot and I made a first work where I included the floor as a support for the piece. PM: This was the period before your modular works. AP: Yes, it was an earlier work, more basic. For example, there was one work hanging and others below, so the whole thing was unified by bands. Later, in the months that followed, I made 8

Sol (Solomon) LeWitt (Connecticut, 1928 – New York, 2007), an American artist linked to minimalism and conceptual art.

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other structures at Di Tella that also involved the floor and the wall. They have a relationship with certain things that are being done today, in terms of their use of the architecture. PM: As for your modular works that advance into space, how are they made, technically? Are they industrial supports or did you prepare them yourself? AP: No, I did everything myself because the most complicated frame was the one that was lined on both sides, it was like a sheet. In fact, I could have made it out of wood, but because I was interested in the texture of the canvas and had the idea of something sensitive, I used canvas and applied the colour with diluted paint. PM: In technical terms, there are lots of parallels with Paternosto’s works. Since he worked with oils, the paint penetrates the canvas even more than an aqueous medium, especially in the canvasses that were poorly primed for such purposes. Had you already begun using acrylics? AP: No. I told Pacheco that I was tired of waiting for these first paintings on large planes to dry. He had a house in Gonnet9 where some of us artists had worked. I remember he had a pump that he used to draw water to wash his hands and brushes, it was really complicated. In my imagination, I thought there had to be a better way. I said to myself, “This needs to be solved in another way”, but at the same time I was somewhat reluctant to give up the pictorial, where the use of a brush is a given. Before I went to the United States on the Guggenheim Fellowship, in June or July 1967, Romero Brest offered my wife, who is an architect, the chance to go to a meeting of architects and designers in Denver, Colorado, at the invitation of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. There I bought a number of acrylics and that was when I learned I had won the grant, so a few months after returning to Argentina, I left again. 9

A town close to the city of La Plata, in the province of Buenos Aires.

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Acrylics solved the problem of having to prime the canvas, which I learned at the time from Salvador Stringa, an Italian restorer and painter who worked for the Museo de Bellas Artes of La Plata, which was run by Emilio Pettoruti. In the museum’s workshop, he showed me a painting that he had turned upside down on his table, and the canvas had holes in it. It was a painting by Victorica.10 He said to me, “Look, this is because he didn’t prime the canvas properly and so the oil, which is still alive, eats the cotton”. He wanted to explain to me that when you paint with oil it is important to prime the canvas well so that this doesn’t happen.II PM: What he told you is correct. The size, or the impregnation of the canvas with animal glue, and the later white priming layer are applied for this purpose, so that the fatty acids in the oil do not come into contact with the fibres of the canvas. AP: However, this was not the case with the acrylic polymer. For me, the matte result was a phenomenal option. Nowadays, I apply a liquefied white primer to the canvas because otherwise you have to repeat the colour process several times. PM: In other words, if you do not prime the canvas a little, you will not have a good response in terms of how it takes the colour. The sizing of the original canvas and the surface tension of the water itself favour the tendency to form drops rather than wet the substrate, in this case, the canvas itself. AP: That’s right. I made paintings directly on the canvas without priming it, but when I applied a colour, it rejected the paint, so I began to wash the canvas: I soaked it well, took out some of the folds and stripped the sizing. Conceptually, it was interesting to soak the canvas and it came back to the issue of blending the paint into the primer. There was a knock-on effect, if I did not prime it, it made everything slow and heavy. With time, I discovered the solution of washing the canvas and giving it a primer of 10

Miguel Carlos Victorica (Buenos Aires, 1884-1955), Argentinian painter.

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liquefied white. There are many paintings that I ended up discarding, because if I insisted too much on the material, it acquired a gloss because the paint layer is thicker. PM: The polymer takes shape and things go beyond your intentions in the final finish. AP: Yes, it gains body, acquires a gloss and that can be detected. So I try to maintain that matte surface; it created a constant tension with other painters in the artistic medium, as it was something that set me apart, as it did César. PM: You use it throughout your career and, as in so many other cases, it represents a challenge for whoever wants to intervene in the works without altering the qualities of the final finish, so characteristic of your production. On the other hand, the absorption of the support can be a big issue for many interventions made in restoration workshops, minimal as they may be. A simple fix using an animal glue, common and innocuous for a painting, could leave a mark on your work that is then difficult to solve. AP: Yes, exactly. The fundamental thing for me was that aesthetic link to the dry. I always rejected artifice. I have an interest in the ethical, shall we say, quote unquote, in “the real”. So, if there are artifices, it ceases to be real, doesn’t it? On the other hand, Paternosto and I, along with some others, are still in need of a historical exhibition that puts a spotlight on so-called “Sensitive Geometry”, because lately there has been a recognition of concrete art, which was fundamentally influenced by the Brazilians. Paternosto and I had an exhibition at the Galería Lirolay in 1964, which I told you about earlier. It was called Nueva Geometría – Una geometría sensible [New Geometry – A Sensitive Geometry], which was the name given to it by Aldo Pellegrini. Twelve years later, I think in 1976, a Brazilian critic, Roberto Pontual, held a show of Latin American art call La geometría sensible [Sensitive Geometry].

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At that time, we were trying to recover what César and I termed “the humanistic”, because concrete art eliminated the sensitive/emotional, what they called “the psychological accent”. That has more to do with Anglo-Saxon cultures, because of the dominance of technology. It is a culture that does not express its emotions very much. Ours responded more to a Latin culture. We place a lot of value on the emotional, on the human. PM: Yes, in concrete art, there is a kind of valorisation of the industrialised surface. You inaugurated techniques that until that point had been very domestic, such as polishing. Nevertheless, I see a certain contradiction in the works you did around 1965 and 1966. You used dyes that were absolutely flat, which hid the brushstroke, although, at the same time I see the sensitive-emotional-human thing you are talking about lingering in the texture of the support material, the canvas, which concrete art abandoned at its initial stages for aesthetic and practical reasons. You spoke of the warmth of the canvas support, the fabric; you never cover it, you let it interact, communicate its nature, it is something that can be seen in all of your work, that possibility of allowing the different materials that you have used as backgrounds to interact. On the other hand, with the projection of the modular structures into their environments, it made more sense to opt for a less sensitive application, since the concept was essentially spatial. AP: Yes. A few years ago, I repainted the modular works that expand into space with acrylics. The red one you mentioned to me was bought by the Austin Museum, Texas11 and another in green with red lines was purchased by the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation.

Estructura [Structure], 1966, Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, USA.

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PM: What you are saying is important, because oil is the least advisable primer for an acrylic. What is more, in terms of your aesthetic, the texture of the support becomes saturated if you repeat the operation. AP: At first, I had them in storage at City Bell, where I had a small house. Then I took them to [my place] on the corner of Sánchez de Bustamante and Melo, then to the studio on San Martín, and finally, they came here (Avenida Caseros, City of Buenos Aires). Then the paint had several issues, so I repainted them. The stripe has the same meaning in both of them. It wasn’t decorative, because I also intended it to be a kind of symbol that moves. I gave both pieces a coat of acrylic on top. Because I did those works in 1966. At first, I did the red one in oil paint and it ended up with stains, you could say, something that was almost impossible to correct. Then I resorted to the acrylic over top to see if I could repair it, and it didn’t work, you can tell. So I left it, I said to myself, “This is how it is, this is the real thing”. PM: So the original layer is oil and then you applied a coat of acrylic over top. AP: Yes, although I applied the acrylic very recently and understand that the coexistence of acrylic and oil is lethal. I made a bet with a young painter; I said the paint would crack and he said it would not. I think that, in this case, no cracks have appeared because the amount of paint is minimal. PM: Acrylic is elastic, it doesn’t crack, and the way that you paint, you leave a lot of the grain of the canvas, giving it a surface that has a bit of tooth. However, it’s something that should be considered in the future, in the event of a possible intervention, as after so much time there is surely an interface between the layers of several products from the environment, which makes it difficult for the new layer to have a good grip. It is a very common problem, even in repainting and also in the case of oil on oil, when there have been many years

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between the first and the last layer. Juan Melé told me about a work he sold to Von Bartha that had been repainted after 30 years, and that the collector believed would be easy to remove for the same reason. Many artists reuse works that for different reasons they are no longer interested in modifying or repainting. I have seen it in some works by Bernaldo de Quirós, in particular, a large-format work in the Museo Sívori. We will have to see how these modular works stand the test of time. AP: In my case, I always used highly liquefied colour, even with the oil paints, because they were neutralised by the turpentine. I began incorporating all of these things in the United States. PM: Beginning with your stay in the United States and taking into consideration the works that were part of your concept of systems art, what variations were there with respect to materials?

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AP: Actually, I was already working with the concept of systems art here, before I left. For example, I took a communication system that was used by the Inca, the quipu,12 where knots and colours function to transmit messages. This other work, for example, is dedicated to a musician, the Russian composer Alexander Scriabin,13 who worked with a colour wheel. I considered this to be an option within the colour systems because, at the same time, when I applied the primaries and secondaries or interchanged them, I was also working with something similar, it’s just that this man had begun to use it to change the traditional sound system. Of course, it is an “intervention”, as we would say now. To me, it was like a copy but put in another context, that is, it made sense with what I was developing, which allowed me to 12

Quipu: Each of the knotted strands of string, with their different knots and colours, were used by the natives of Peru to compensate for the lack of writing and were therefore used to communicate histories and news, as well as for accounts in which numerals were needed. Diccionario panhispánico del español jurídico (DPEJ), at <https://dpej.rae.es/>

Alexander Nikoláievich Scriabin (Moscow, 1872-1915).

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have something very wide-ranging, especially at that stage, the beginning of conceptual art. Being in New York at that time meant that Kynaston McShine was able to invite me to participate in the show he was curating, Information, which was held in the 1970s. I can show you this and it is like being at an art show today. It was an introduction to the public of all of that art, which included conceptual art, land art, and others. I made a piece for the show that I later exhibited at the Fundación Banco Patricios (1994), in the show 90/60/90.14 There were information sheets with an explanation of how the colour system works, taking into account the linguistic aspects, since, from the point of view of the history of knowledge, linguistics was quite important at the time. Puente indicates the canvasses that have been removed from their frames and set on supports. AP: This is what I am telling you is soft; these are canvasses and those other ones are metal. These are jars of liquid paints, primary and secondary colours brought to white, and these are pigments. Next to that panel is the information about how the system works; the language with the code.15 I took the colour wheel and worked from it. As you can see, the complementary colours are taken to black and to white. When I finished applying the colour, the small rectangular crosses appeared to me. When I visualised all of it, it spurred my interest. Soon after, I saw an exhibit of pre-Hispanic textiles and I saw a connection between them, I fell in love with them. It was not for nothing that I hung the map of South America in that work.

He is referring to Todo va. Los colores primarios y secundarios llevados hasta blanco [Everything goes. Primary and secondary colors brought up to white], 1968-70, from the show Information, 1970, MoMA, Nueva York.

The work was acquired by the MoMA (Museum of Modern Art, New York) in 2008.

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Then I began to ask myself how I had overlooked it. I began to go to bookshops to see pre-Hispanic art and I went to Teotihuacan, Mexico, where I climbed the stairs of the pyramids. It all had such a big impact on me, it’s something that has stayed with me. PM: I see something like a diagram of pre-Columbian textiles in the orthogonality of the scales of values and shades, obviously knowing the later development of your work. I would be interested if you could tell me a bit more about the material used for the colour in the L-shaped metal objects from the colour system series. AP: Synthetic enamel. I fixed these ones, because they were damaged from the moves. I sanded them and applied acrylic on top, which is surely risky since the acrylic and the oil may work differently. PM: Of course, perhaps it helps that it is a rigid support, which doesn’t expand and contract as much as a textile, but it is something to keep in mind, like in the case of the other modular works you have intervened in the same way. After these works in series, you began a body of work that the public here has patronised more frequently in recent years. On your return from the United States, you began to define what Fermín Févre called a “metaphysics of matter”.16 You established a kind of workmanship and visual quality of your surfaces that sets you apart, as you yourself remarked, and that you have maintained to this day: the absorbent priming of the base, generally canvas, and a lean colour medium, to avoid any shine. AP: Yes, basically, I prime the canvas with diluted white as I told you; I apply it with this (he shows me a compact polyurethane foam for apply paints). It allows me to do it quickly. If I had this at that time, things would have turned out better, because if I apply the white with a brush, it leaves marks. If, during the application, I reach a point when some part of the canvas, one of the sides, if there are 16

Fermín Fevre, Pintores argentinos del siglo XX, Buenos Aires, Centro Editor de América latina, 1981, No. 57, p. 4.

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spots that are drying, then when I go to paint, to overlap it, that dry stain appears, even if I apply a very diluted colour over top of it. PM: Of course, the fast-drying acrylic medium means that the white primer coats overlap, that is, you cannot blend one brushstroke with another, so the overlay takes on the colour above in a different way. AP: Exactly, so this tool allows me to apply the paint more quickly. If you used a paintbrush, you would have to trim the hairs because the longer the hair of the brush, the more paint it deposits. PM: That’s why in restoration workshops that don’t have a compressor with an atomiser to varnish the paintings they use very used paintbrushes with very short hairs. The short hairs allow for a more precise application of material with just the right load. In traditional painting, recently applied varnish (dammar or copal) is translucent, which is why differences in build-up during application are not evident. When the varnish darkens due to the natural ageing process, all of the errors in the application of the varnish become clearly perceptible. Then, in your works, there are a series of variations, though limited, in terms of supports, such as feathers, cork and fibreboards of different characteristics, all featuring the same matte finish quality and always communicating their natural texture. AP: I was quite interested in the textures they generated, which is different from what I have been doing in recent years. Seeing the production of pre-Hispanic cultures and the feather cloaks in particular allowed me to reflect on what these works produce in terms of meaning. For example, the Europeans who researched the pre-Hispanic cultures for years were educated people, with artistic training in representative figuration, and heirs to a legacy that had a certain aesthetic concept. So for them, a feather cloak was a decorative element, they didn’t perceive it as something that integrated or formed part of a work of art.

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Modernity, in developing broader linguistic, research or exploration experiences, began liberating or opening up these concepts. My intention in the work with the feathers was to use that medium to reach the same heights of artistry as any other work of art. It was also a way of questioning the limited thoughts, assertions, and statements of the people who had undertaken the work on pre-Columbian art. I only produced three pieces using that technique. They were shown for the first time at an exhibit I had at the Ruth Benzacar gallery, Pinturas y materiales [Paintings and Materials] (1988). With that interest in mind, I went to the zoos in Buenos Aires and La Plata to find out how to get the feathers. After that round of questions and information, I learned of a house in the Once neighbourhood where theatre people buy that type of material for sets and costumes. PM: They are materials that can suffer from what is known as “photodegradation”; some colours are very sensitive to light, particularly low-cost industrial items that use less permanent anilines. AP: It was an industry of materials already impregnated with colour, but I was able to get some neutral items that I painted with acrylic, according to the colour needed in each case. With regard to the feathers, since they were processed, they were somewhat resistant to the paint, and the same thing happened with the unprimed canvasses, so I had to be insistent with the paint in order to dye them. PM: You also used other materials in these works, so as not to lose the qualities of the support and to allow it to interact as just another visual element, which is a recurring theme in your works. AP: I worked with fibreboards because I was interested in the texture they could produce. It is a cheap material that was practically never used for that purpose. Now you cannot find different variations, it has been replaced by medium density fibreboard. Before there was only one chipboard that had similar characteristics.

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PM: It had a high concentration of tiny wood fibres; I think in the 1970s it was called Guillermina. AP: In those works, you can see there are different qualities of fibreboard, some of which are more ordinary, with a coarser texture, though they were more expressive for my interests. The other concept was how to use colour in a material whose qualities interested me. I was really interested in making works that involved tactile communication as well. There is very little art that includes tactile communication. I had thought about it from the perspective of a textile, which produces an incentive to tactile communication. There is almost an impulse to grasp it, to touch it. PM: The different materials and production processes result in the different visual qualities that are of such interest to you. AP: Of course, now the concept of communication has been reduced to information. You don’t produce anything if you don’t say it or write it; that’s why it ends up being so boring sometimes. In the history of art, even when there is a narrative or things being told, a big part of the attraction of painting is that it is always transmitted through the senses. PM: Certainly you have done the woodwork yourself. AP: Yes. In most cases, contact cement is the adhesive and the use of paint is based on transparencies, precisely so as not to obscure the texture, which is what interests me. Other artists do not respond to the material, for example they use wood and then cover it over completely. It’s not that it’s not the right thing to do, but if you think about it, it could be seen as a mistake. At any rate, I’m interested in thinking about the material in that way, to understand what it means. PM: Not much can be said about the works on cork; the problem is the same. AP: Of course.

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PM: There are others where you seem to turn to a technique that is similar to an inked and printed wooden block. AP: They are pieces made on wood, but they have been primed with spackling paste and several coats of paint to cover it up. Then I made an incision with a gouge so that the white would show through. PM: There is a theme of communication between the artist and a certain material or process. When I participated in a seminar on the conservation of modern and contemporary art led by Stephen Hackney, the conservator of the Tate Gallery in London, I brought with me a piece by María Juana Heras Velasco, Taurus, from 1978, owned by the Museo Moderno, as a project to develop there. It was a piece of iron painted using a similar technique to that used for painting cars. After many years of being exhibited outside in a square in the city of Buenos Aires, the iron corrosion process had provoked serious alterations: perforations in the iron sheet and a lot of damage to the pictorial layer because of oxidation. Since we had plans and colour samples, there was a consensus among the seminar participants and Hackney himself that the best solution was to make an aluminium replica of the piece and recover the original to keep it in storage. On my return to Buenos Aires, the artist did not accept the proposal whatsoever, stating that her material was iron and everything that it communicated, and that it was the duty of the institution to ensure the piece stayed outside. Beyond her complaint and the impossibility of efficiently insulating it from inclement weather, I came to understand her point of view when, I few months later, I installed an aluminium window, painted bright white, in my house. It is a completely different material and, despite the colour coating, it really communicates something else. Moreover, what really counts is the opinion of the artist, in this case, María Juana.

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You have always worshipped sensitive issues, so thinking about their permanency, I would like to know your opinion with respect to an issue that comes up frequently in contemporary art conservation. Not long ago, Luis Tomasello was telling me about his wish to make an acrylic box to protect one of his works that is owned by the Museo Moderno. The boxes have been conceived as the most effective means of slowing deterioration, and also as a protection, particularly in cases where it would be very difficult to intervene in the event of damage without disturbing the reading of the piece, as would be the case for works by artists such as Eduardo Mac Entyre, Miguel Ángel Vidal or Ary Brizzi. The boxes isolate the work from its climatic environment and there are several ways of constructing them to achieve good performance. Do you think they could be an alternative for your works, or do you feel they alter the aesthetics in some way? AP: I do not agree with the concept. The only thing that could make sense about using such a box is preservation over time, because, as I said before, it makes no sense from a conceptual point of view. PM: It would alter your aesthetic a lot. AP: At the same time, a painting on paper that is framed with a glass panel in front, in some way, it is something that functions as a container. Instead of glass, it could be acrylic. I don’t know if it’s because it is a painting on paper, but I have never contemplated a glass, a frame, etc. as an aesthetic or artistic issue. In general, I have never used frames, though I have some frames there that I want to put back on because of the problem of protecting them, to avoid abrasions and other issues. PM: The edges of the canvas are the first thing to be damaged. In fact, it is the most common type of damage in exhibition venues, often due to incorrect handling. It is very serious in the case of modern art in general and in geometric or concrete art 305

in particular, because of the visual purity to which they aspire. Some good results have been achieved using “L-shaped” frames, mounted to the work from behind in order to free the sides of the piece, which in contemporary art are often left exposed. AP: Yes, I have a few. In actual fact, I don’t like frames; I like the painting to be painted on the sides. What happens is that over time, the works come to belong to someone and the institutions or people can preserve them in different ways. To go back to the subject that you brought up, I have some doubts about the possible alteration of a work if it is enclosed in an acrylic container, due to the formation of a microclimate. PM: That is precisely what it is about: generating a microclimate that allows a slow exchange of humidity with the environment. It prevents sudden changes inside of the box, which can be very traumatic for organic materials, especially wood, which expands when it takes on moisture and contracts when the climate is dry; in other words, it looks to balance itself with the new environment, and the stress of doing so can lead to warping or cracks. The same thing happens with canvasses; they contract and expand, and after many years, the oil paint hardens and cracks in response to the movements. Since the materials do not breathe, the only danger that can occur [with an acrylic box] is a sudden drop in temperature, which is relatively common for the external walls of museums, particularly those that function out of historic buildings. In such cases, condensation may form inside the box, though it is a rare occurrence. In addition, perhaps the most important thing these boxes can ensure is the prevention of any direct handling of the piece. In fact, the fantastic pieces that are part of the Pirovano donation to the Museo de Arte Moderno arrived in solid acrylic boxes. The pieces that have never been removed from the boxes are in a perfect state of conservation. 306

Another important issue is lighting. What are your own criteria in this respect, both in your work space and wherever your pieces are shown? AP: In general, I work with daylight because for some time now artificial light has tired me out, which means my performance is insufficient and I lose interest. I’m also not that interested in how colours react to light. PM: Have you had any experiences with the issue that have troubled you? AP: Yes, the thing is that these are issues for which there are often no alternatives. I once saw at a surrealist exhibition with a work by none other than Giacometti; it was a flat work. If you looked at it from the front, a diagonal appeared, and you would think to yourself, “Wow, Giacometti used a diagonal!” But it turned out that it was a projection of the light that had been created by the person in charge of the lighting. Whoever did it was subverting the work! As far as possible, you must try not to subvert it. PM: Yes. When it comes to a work like your own or César’s, which one assumes is sensitive, the lighting may not be a very decisive issue; but in the case of a work like Lozza’s, whose concepts involve precise shades, it can create a substantial alteration, since the colour depends specifically on the colour temperature of the light illuminating the work. AP: In this respect they may be ideological realities, so they have a high level of concentration of the imagination. Lozza may believe one thing, Paternosto another, and I may believe something else. But when you give, lend or sell a work, someone will come along and alter the light value, and the same happens at the place where it is exhibited. I’m not interested in being so strict, artistically speaking, because it is also a bit of an artifice. We are human and we are imperfect.

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PM: What are the damaging factors that cause you the most concern? AP: Humidity. I had a studio in the centre of town, on San Martín (Buenos Aires), and once there was a water leak from a pipe that generated a lot of humidity. Some of the paintings I had there were full of fungus on the back. Thanks to that incident, I am more aware of the care that needs to be taken in such a situation. PM: Have you found that acrylics have any specific sensitivities to this problem that would compromise colour stability or permanence? AP: No, I’ve noticed that it’s pretty much unchanged, at least up to now. PM: There is little pigment involved in your works, so photodegradation is more likely,17 which is not as significant in a painting with more load; it is more likely to occur in works with a low concentration of pigment, such as your own. For the same reason, watercolour is a very sensitive material to that type of situation. AP: Of course. In 1967, before going to New York, I painted some works with a very flat colour, less rough, practically without texture. When I returned from the States with those paintings, I left them in my studio in City Bell. One day there was a flood, and it just so happened that I had taken the works out to clean them, I had placed them on a strip of wood. The water got in and left a substantial mark. So I washed them with white soap and they were practically fine. There was a cadmium red that hardly changed, but that paining had more coats of paint than the others. PM: Of course. But in general, since you use a highly diluted paint and a low concentration of pigment, it is to be expected 17

Loss of pigmentation of a colour due to its sensitivity to visible and non-visible radiation (ultraviolet and infrared).

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that it could be lost more easily. In this case, what happens is that due to the poor priming of the canvas, the diluted paint impregnates it, it sucks it in and it may be more loath to come off. Yours is kind of a dyeing of the fibres. I was once brought a small acrylic painting by an artist who worked with an airbrush. It was a painting of Venice with a red background that was almost impossible to clean. With just a swab moistened in distilled water, the colour, applied on an industrially-prepared canvas support, would lift. Like in your own work, the colour was not incorporated into the canvas fibre and it would lift easily. Hence, anyone who paints in acrylic with an airbrush should varnish, obviously with an acrylic varnish, so as not to leave the surface so sensitive to water. AP: I have been working with American Liquitex acrylics for many years now. On one occasion, I was invited by one of the provincial houses18 on San Martín almost at the corner of Paraguay to give some teleconferences for different provinces, and with me was the woman who runs the artists’ paint department of a well-known local art supplies company. She was asking me questions to see if they needed to correct anything. The only thing I said is that I found there was a difference between the nationally-made material, regardless what it was, and the American paint I was using, which had a high concentration of pigment. You may have noticed that the phthalos and blacks are not very physically homogeneous, you have to keep stirring them all the time. The problem was much more evident in the national colours, and the colour was, to use common parlance, “arratonado” [“uneven”]. It isn’t that the Liquitex doesn’t have the same problem, but it is more homogeneous, so I think it is a technical problem. You apply a cadmium red and it is a powerful red, whereas you can apply a national red over and over and 18

Institutions that function as cultural and social representatives of the provinces of Argentina in the City of Buenos Aires.

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you will never get the level of saturation you want. I don’t know if they have improved since, as I haven’t used national products in years. I have been reading articles for some time now that discuss whether or not acrylics last. I see it as a struggle of economic interest, because it always seemed to me that if the Americans were to go onto the market to dispute the hegemony of oil paint in Europe or the rest of the international market, they couldn’t do so without a highly competitive product, and one of the issues at stake was permanence. They have acceleration technologies to study the materials.19 At the studio of the artist, Avenida Caseros, Buenos Aires, 2001.

Puente is referring to the ageing acceleration tests that materials testing laboratories carry out to infer the future behaviour of a material under normal exhibition conditions.

TECHNICAL NOTES I

“Fresco” is a term used to describe the traditional buon fresco process, which consists of painting on a wall prepared with wet, fresh plaster and using pigments mixed only with water. When the lime and sand plaster mix dries, it sets and hardens like rock and the pigments become an integral part of the surface. See: Ralph Mayer, Materiales y técnicas del arte [The artist’s handbook of materials and techniques], Madrid, Blume (Ed.), 1985, p. 293. II “Priming is considered absolutely necessary; oil paint should never come into contact with the canvas fibres or they may rot, becoming fragile and brittle. This has been known by artists for centuries and the first examples of oil paint were already glued”. Ralph Mayer, op. cit, p. 225.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

BOOKS AA.VV. Chemische Färbungen von Kupfer und kupferlegierungen [Chemical staining of copper and copper alloys], Berlin: Deutsches-Kupfer Institut, 1962. BALDINI, Umberto. Teoría de la restauración y unidad metodológica, vol. 1 y 2, Madrid: Nardini-Nerea, 1997. BALL, Phillip. La invención del color. Madrid, Turner, 2004. BRANDI, Cèsare. Teoría de la restauración. Madrid: Alianza Forma, 2007. CASAZZA, Ornella. Il restauro pittorico. Florence: Nardini, 1981. CASTILLA, Américo, compiler. Arte contemporáneo en (sala de) guardia. Dilemas y sistemas para la conservación de las obras de arte. Buenos Aires: Teseo, 2015. DOERNER, Max. Los materiales de pintura y su empleo en el arte [The Materials of the Artist and their Use in Painting]. Barcelona: Reverté, 1989. GÓMEZ María Luisa. La restauración. Examen científico aplicado a la conservación de obras de arte. Cuadernos Arte Cátedra. Madrid: Instituto del Patrimonio Histórico Español, 2000. HACKNEY, Stephen. On Canvas: Preserving the Structure of Paintings. Los Angeles: Getty Conservtion Institute, 2020. LÓPEZ ANAYA, Jorge. Informalismo, La vanguardia informalista, Buenos Aires 1957 – 1965. Buenos Aires: Alberto Sendros, 2003. LOZZA, Raúl. Teoría estructural del color. Buenos Aires: Talleres gráficos Córdoba, 2004. MACARRÓN MIGUEL, Ana María. Historia de la conservación y la restauración. Madrid: Tecnos, 1995. MALDONADO, Tomás, María Amalia García and Alejandro Crispiani. Tomás Maldonado en conversación con María Amalia García. Buenos Aires: Fundación Cisneros/Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, 2010. MATTEINI, Mauro and Arcángelo Moles. Scienza e Restauro. Metodi di Indagine. Florence: Nardini, 1984. . La chimica nel restauro. I materiali dell’arte pittorica (Arte e restauro) [Chemistry for Restoration. Painting and Restoration Materials]. Florence: Nardini, 1989. MAYER, Ralph. Materiales - técnicas del arte [The Artist’s Handbook of Materials and Techniques]. Madrid: Herman Blume, 1983. 313

MELÉ, Juan N. La vanguardia del 40. Memorias de un artista concreto. Buenos Aires: Ediciones Cinco, 1999. NAUDÍN, Laurent. Fabrication des vernis: applications à l’industrie et aux arts. Paris: Bouret, 1908. PATERNOSTO, César. La piedra abstracta. La escultura inca, una visión contemporánea. Buenos Aires-Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1989. PERCHUK, Andrew, Tom Learner, Pia Gottschaller, and Zanna Gilbert. Purity is a Myth. The Materiality of Concrete Art from Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute/Getty Conservation Institute, Getty Publications, 2021. PERAZZO, Nelly. El arte concreto en la Argentina. Buenos Aires: Gaglianone, 1983. THOMSON, Garry. El museo y su entorno [The Museum Environment]. Madrid: Akal, 1998. TOMASINI, María Cecilia. Una revisión de la relación arte-ciencia en la obra de Raúl Lozza. Buenos Aires: Talleres gráficos Córdoba, 2002.

CATALOGUES LAURIA, Adriana, María Amalia García, et al. Yente / Prati. Buenos Aires: Fundación Eduardo F. Constantini, 2009. Catalogue for the exhibition held 21 August - 5 October, 2009, Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires. MARCHESI, Mariana et al. Alejandro Puente: Abstracción y tradición latinoamericana. Buenos Aires: Fundación OSDE, 2015. Catalogue for the exhibition held 21 May - 25 July, 2015, Fundación OSDE, Buenos Aires, Argentina. NOORTHOORN, Victoria et al. Legado Pirovano: La colección Ignacio Pirovano en el Moderno. Buenos Aires: Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires, 2017. Catalogue raisonné of the Ignacio Pirovano Collection at the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires. ROSSI, Cristina, et al. Grupo Sí – el informalismo platense de los ’60. La Plata: Secretaría de Cultura de La Plata-Centro Cultural Borges, 2001. Catalogue for the exhibition held in May and June, 2001 at the Centro Cultural Borges, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

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. Manuel Espinosa, Antología sobre papel. Buenos Aires: Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires, 2003. Catalogue for the exhibition held in 2003 at the Museo de Arte Moderno, Buenos Aires, Argentina. SANTANA, Raúl, Raúl Lozza and Abraham Haber. Raúl Lozza, retrospectiva 1939 - 1997. Santiago, Chile: Fernando Arce Ediciones, 1997. Catalogue for the exhibition held in 1997 at the Museo de Arte Moderno, Buenos Aires, Argentina. SUÁREZ, Osbel, Fundación Juan March, et al. América fría. La abstracción geométrica en Latinoamérica (1934-1973). Madrid: Fundación Juan March, 2011. Catalogue for the exhibition held 11 February - 15 May, 2011, Fundación Juan March, Madrid, Spain.

PAPERS, RESEARCH AND INVESTIGATIONS ESTÉBANEZ Marta Pérez, Pino Monkes, María Florencia Castellá, Noemí Mastrángelo and Fernando Marte. “Estudio de los pigmentos blancos utilizados en la pintura concreta en Argentina”. Conservación de arte contemporáneo, 18ª jornada (February 2017), pp. 245-254. FERNÁNDEZ, María José and Mirta Bonnin (Eds.). III Jornadas técnicas de Conservación, educación, gestión y exhibición en museos. Museo Jesuítico Nacional de Jesús María. Córdoba: Ed. Brujas-Red Jaguar. 2005. GOTTSCHALLER, Pia and Aleca Le Blanc, Making Art Concrete: Works from Argentina and Brazil in the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros. Los Angeles: Getty Trust Publications, 2017. HERRERA, María José. “Alejandro Puente: Geometría sensible”. 2das Jornadas de Teoría e Historia de las Artes. Buenos Aires: CAIA (Centro argentino de investigadores de arte), 1990. KEENEY J., T. Leamer. “Characterization of alkyd paint media by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry”. Studies in Conservation, 49:sup2 (2004) pp. 197-201. DOI: 10.1179/sic.2004.49.s2.043 <https:// doi.org/10.1179/ sic.2004.49.s2.043>. MARTE, Fernando and Pino Monkes. “El uso de la pintura en pasta en tres obras pictóricas del Informalismo argentino.” Conservación de arte contemporáneo. 16ª jornada (February 2015), pp. 107-116.

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MONKES, Pino. “César Paternosto / Alejandro Puente: El grupo de dos. Las definiciones de la materia en el contacto con el artista”. Anuario tarea. Revista de Estudios sobre el Patrimonio Cultural, No. 4 (2017). PLANTE, Isabel. “Kinetic Multiples: Between Industrial Vocation and Handcrafted Solutions”. Rachel Rivenc and Reinhard Bek (eds.) Keep It Moving? Conserving Kinetic Art. Symposium Proceedings. Getty Publications, 2018.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The words, concepts and opinions included in this book emerged from the thesis I wrote for my Bachelor’s Degree in Visual Arts at the Universidad Nacional de las Artes, “Arte Concreto en el Río de La Plata. De los materiales al ideal concreto” [“Concrete Art in the Río de La Plata: From the materials to the concrete ideal.”], which I defended in 2008. I would first like to thank the artists Raúl Lozza, Martín Blaszko, Manuel Espinosa, Juan Melé, Alberto Molenberg, César Paternosto and Alejandro Puente for their generous participation in this project, for welcoming me into the intimacy of their workspaces, and for sharing, over the course of unforgettable conversations, their experiences and memories about producing their oeuvre that has such a fundamental place in the history of the Latin American art. I would also like to thank Victoria Noorthoorn, María Amalia García and Gabriela Comte, for their inspiring initiative to publish this material, and to the editorial team: Soledad Sobrino, Martín Lojo, Eduardo Rey, Pablo Alarcón, Julia Benseñor, Leslie Robertson and Guillermo Miguens for their commitment, willingness and competence. Thanks also to Carmelo Arden Quin, Tencha de Sagastizábal, Susana Blaszko, Claudia Molenberg, Ana Espinosa, Espinosa Collection, Carlos Brasero, Antonia Belizán, Carlos Lozza, Carlos Malvestiti, Hilda Abelleira, Nicolás Puente, Liliana Crenovich, María José Herrera, María Calcaterra, Carlos Estévez, Museo Provincial de Bellas Artes Emilio Pettoruti, Museo de Artes Plásticas Eduardo Sívori, Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, Maman Fine Art, Getty Conservation Institute, Gustavo Teller, Ariel Aisiks, Fabio Miniotti, Otilio Moralejo,

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Eugenio Monferrán and my dear friend and colleague Carlos Melo, who introduced me to the world of conservation. I also extend my thanks to the Museo de Arte Moderno photographer, Viviana Gil, for her tireless commitment to fulfilling each request from the museum’s conservation/restoration department, as we are always eager to receive the revealing images that trigger our investigations into new spaces and processes; to the Instituto de Investigaciones sobre el Patrimonio Cultural [Institute of Research on Cultural Heritage] at the Universidad Nacional de San Martín (Tarea-IIPC/UNSAM, Buenos Aires, Argentina) and, within that internationally-recognised institution, my friends Dr Fernando Marte and Néstor Barrio, and to all the excellent professionals who work there. I also thank Tom Learner (Head of Science at the Getty Conservation Institute) and Luiz Souza at the Laboratório de Ciência da Conservação [Laboratory of Conservation Science] of the Escola de Belas Artes, Universidade de Minas Gerais (LACICOR, UFMG) in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and, through them, all of my colleagues participating in the Concrete Art project in Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, with whom I have been able to share such fruitful exchanges at the meetings held in Buenos Aires, Los Angeles and Belo Horizonte. Pino Monkes Buenos Aires, May 11, 2022

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BUENOS AIRES CITY GOVERNMENT AUTHORITIES

Head of Government of the City of Buenos Aires

Horacio Rodríguez Larreta Head of the Cabinet of Ministers

Felipe Miguel Minister for Culture

Enrique Avogadro Director of the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires

Victoria Noorthoorn

Printed in Akian Gráfica Editora Clay 2972 Buenos Aires, Argentina

COLECCIÓN DESPIERTA DEL MODERNO BENEATH THE SURFACE PINO MONKES DANCE TODAY FRANCISCO LEMUS (COMP.)

A WORK OF ART IS NOT AN IMMUTABLE OBJECT THAT SITS WAITING FOR THE VIEWER’S GAZE TO FALL UPON IT, BUT RATHER A PRODUCT OF THE ACTIONS OF THE ARTIST PROJECTED OVER TIME. THE MATERIALS CAN REVEAL HOW A PIECE CAME TOGETHER, HOW IT HAS CHANGED OVER THE YEARS AND WHAT KIND OF CARE IT REQUIRES. PINO MONKES, HEAD OF CONSERVATION AT THE MUSEO MODERNO, IS A MASTER OF UNTANGLING THESE SECRETS, AND HERE HE DISCUSSES SOME CHALLENGING HYPOTHESES AND HIS OWN RESEARCH ON THE MATERIALITY OF WORKS FROM A PIVOTAL PERIOD OF ARGENTINIAN ART. HIS OBSERVATIONS HAVE BEEN GATHERED OVER THE COURSE OF A PROFESSIONAL CAREER THAT SPANS MORE THAN THREE DECADES AND, IMPORTANTLY, THROUGH HIS PERSONAL CONTACT WITH ARTISTS. THIS BOOK BRINGS TOGETHER INVALUABLE INTERVIEWS WITH ARTISTS IN WHICH THEY BRING TO LIGHT THEIR WORKING METHODS AS WELL AS THEIR OWN IDEAS ON HOW TO CONSERVE THEIR WORKS IN ACCORDANCE WITH THEIR AESTHETICS.

ISBN 978-987-1358-97-7