The pre-Columbian period
The first peoples left many exceptional archaeological remains in Patagonia, in the province of Santa Cruz, such as the Cueva de las Manos
. The visit of the cave combines perfectly with the Piedra Museo and the site of Los Toldos. The famous Cave of the Hands is one of the oldest sites of rock art. These paintings, created over several thousand years, between the 12th century BC and the 11th century, can be classified into three periods: archaic, with the 800 hands painted in negative and accompanied by elementary geometric motifs; the hunting scene including human figures; and the last period, more abstract, composed of abundant geometric and symbolic figures. The objects and copies of the cave paintings in the Piedra Museo are on display at the Pico Truncado Museum. Other cave paintings can be seen in the nearby caves of the Shehuen River. 150 km from San Julian, the caves of Estancia La Maria offer a wide variety of prehistoric paintings. Some of them are colourful and attest to a real technical mastery in the manufacture of pigments. The motifs, equally diverse, depict animals, hands and indigenous symbols. 3,000 years ago, settled peoples began to practice ceramics. The villages thus formed honoured a founding ancestor, the huanca, represented by a stone statue with human or zoomorphic features. These peoples prospered and developed skills such as ceramics, metallurgy and stonecutting. Stone masks and ceramic urns are essential to their funerary rituals. Superb examples, as well as diaguita pieces, can be seen in the Museo Inca Huasi in La Rioja.Colonial period
As in Europe, the colonial period was characterized by a predominance of religious art. The works that adorned the places of worship were commissioned to artists, mainly Italian and Spanish, who produced them locally or sent them to Argentina. The Society of Jesus played a major role in the diffusion of Christian art in Latin America until its expulsion at the end of the 18th century. Among its masters are Andrés Bianchi (1677-1740), and Florián Paucke (1719-1789), whose memoirs in the form of watercolors tell the story of colonial Argentina, its dress, its customs, its natives, its fauna and flora... A precious testimony.
From independence to the beginning of the 20th century
It goes without saying that the political and social unrest that characterized the late 18th and early 19th centuries had a profound influence on Argentine art. Portraits and local landscapes took precedence over religious art. During this period many foreign artists visited Argentina and were able to capture the life of the time. The watercolours of Emeric Essex Vidal (1791-1861) are among the most exciting on the continent. Carlos Enrique Pellegrini (1800-1875) left deep canvases of Buenos Aires and customary street scenes. Adolfo d'Hastrel (1805-1875) published a book of drawings and watercolors on the Río de la Plata. At the same time, Argentinian artists proposed their vision of their country. Carlos Morel (1813-1894) collected a series of lithographs on the Río de la Plata and produced portraits and engravings of the period. Prilidiano Pueyrredón (1823-1873), one of the most notable Argentine painters of the 19th century, set out to immortalise rural customs. He caused a scandal with El Baño,a nude exhibited at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes. The eclectic collection of the MNBA and its branch in Neuquén includes Rembrandt, Rubens, Renoir, Cézanne, Rodin, Chagall, Gauguin, Goya, Van Gogh (Le Moulin de la Galette) Monet (Le Pont d'Argenteuil) or Picasso alongside Argentine painters and sculptors such as Cándido López, Castagnino, Benito Quinquela Martín, Fernando Fader, Xul Solar, Thibon de Libian, Lucio Fontana, Enrique Alonso and Raquel Forner. The Museo de Artes Plásticas Eduardo Sívori, founded in 1938 in Palermo Park, contains 4,000 Argentine works from the 19th century to the present day. A sculpture garden completes the photo gallery and the rooms for paintings, engravings and drawings.Avant-gardes of the 20th century
The 20th century was the scene of a series of tragic events: repressions, executions, political instability, self-proclaimed presidents, and a monetary crisis. Despite this turbulent context, impressionism was introduced in 1902 by the painter Martin Malharro, followed by Faustino Brughetti and Ramon Silva. Shortly afterwards, the Nexus group entered the scene and worked in favor of an Argentine artistic identity in painting.
Thus, a first wave of avant-garde art emerged, driven by the political freedom movements that shook the continent. Three movements stand out: Florida or the Paris group, led by the most emblematic of Argentine painters, Antonio Berni. Around him were Norah Borges, Horacio Butler, Xul Solar and Emilio Pettoruti, among others, all linked by formal research and interest in European avant-gardes such as surrealism or Dadaism. The Museo Xul Solar presents the work of the most eccentric of them all, also a sculptor marked by esotericism. The second group, called Boedo, focuses on social issues. José Arato, Adolfo Bellocq and the sculptor Agustín Riganelli exhibited in factories and poor neighborhoods. Finally, the La Boca group
, strongly influenced by Italian immigration, focused on the work and life of immigrants. A second wave was born from the evolution of the artists of the first avant-garde. The Orion group, inspired by surrealism, the sensitive painters who conveyed strong emotions through chromatic games, the naive, who turned away from social concerns, and neorealism, an extension of Boedo.New art schools
Following the political exclusion of some teachers from art schools, the Tucumán School of Muralists was opened in 1948 in the working-class district of Villa Quinteros. Academic policy evolves. Sculpture, engraving, materials engineering and drawing are taught in parallel with this practice, which has the advantage of freeing itself from restricted exhibition spaces to get closer to the people, its first vocation being political
In the province of Córdoba, several styles are affirmed, from realism to hyperrealism, from moderate expressionism to more dreamlike languages. At the Córdoba Biennials you can admire local artists such as the sculptors Marcela Argañaraz and Clara Ferrer Serrano, the surrealist Pedro Pont Vergés and Antonio Seguí and José Aguilera.
Born in Argentina in 1899, Lucio Fontana began his career as a sculptor, a passion he inherited from his father. In 1940, back in Buenos Aires, he set up a private school with the painter Jorge Larco: the Academy of Altamira. It was there that in 1946 he wrote the White Manifesto, which laid the foundations for his artistic future through the notions of time and space. In 1949, Fontana painted his first monochromes, before piercing his canvases with holes and incisions. He is currently the most highly rated Argentine artist, since the sale in New York of Concetto spaziale. La fine di Dio, sold for $29.2 million.
Abstraction, Madi, Op Art
Emilio Pettoruti is often considered the precursor of abstract painting in Argentina. Fascinated by geometry and Renaissance art, he left to study in Europe. Returning in 1924, he caused a sensation by presenting his futuristic works in the Witcomb Hall.
Born of abstract art, the Madi movement was formed in 1946 in Buenos Aires around Carmelo Arden Quin with the aim of bringing together all the tendencies of modern art. The only movement of international scope, it notably brought together Uruguayan Rhod Rothfuss, German Martín Blaszko, and Japanese Satoru Satō.
Beginning in the 1950s, Argentine neo-surrealism offered an escape from the anxieties generated by political and social tensions. Inspired by surrealism, the artists Osvaldo Borda, Jorge Tapia, Guillermo Roux and Roberto Aizenberg combine dreamlike and metaphysical life.
At the same time, the members of the Espartaco group conceived their paintings as a means of engaging in social struggles through aesthetic forms imbued with Latin American traditions.
These divergent currents paved the way for optical art, led by Gyula Kosice of the Madi group, who participated in Vasarely's consecration in Latin America. The happenings of Marta Minujín, Rodolfo Azaro and León Ferrari find their place at the Instituto Di Tella where artists are invited to express themselves freely, abolishing the boundaries between art, work and life. Although the Instituto Di Tella no longer exists, the Ruth Benzacar Gallery has been an institution in the contemporary art world for some fifty years. Located in the working-class neighborhood of Villa Crespo, the pioneering gallery continues to promote emerging Argentine artists.Nowadays
Twentieth-century Latin American art meets at the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires
(MALBA). Alongside its rich collection, the place offers exhibitions of Argentine photographers. Sara Facio, born in 1932, covered the troubles of the Perón era with her camera and contributed to the acceptance of this medium as an art form in Argentina. A great traveller, she produced striking portraits of her contemporaries, including Julio Cortázar and Jose Louis Borges. Sara Facio was also responsible for the opening of the Fotogalería del Teatro Municipal General San Martín, the main exhibition space dedicated to photography in Argentina. Her contemporary, Alicia D'Amico (1933-2001) devoted her life to photography, focusing on feminist issues and the role of women in photography. Faithful to black and white, she composed balanced and precise images.Born in 1966, the photographer Eduardo Carrera offers another vision of Argentina. From the dictatorship his country suffered, he prefers to capture the signs of violence off-camera, in desolate landscapes, disoriented faces, abandoned objects.
For about thirty years now, the current events of the artistic scene have been brought together at the ArteBA show, which is held every year in May in Buenos Aires. However, Argentina relies on private initiatives to train the younger generation and disseminate its art. Artists are grouped in collectives and students are trained by mentors. Some personalities from the art world organize international residencies to push the emerging scene forward.
