DECEMBER 1, 2004 – JANUARY 31, 2005

The Arte Concreto Invención movement, together with the Madí movement, constitutes the first group of Argentinean artists with a tendency toward constructivist abstraction. Today their work is recognized as one of the most remarkable artistic contributions made by the Río de la Plata region (comprised by Argentina and Uruguay).

The artists represented in this exhibition, with the exception of Fernandez Muro, signed the 1946 Manifiesto Invencionista, one of the most consequential documents in the vanguard of Argentinean art. In it they assert: “The artistic era of representative fiction is coming to an end.  The ancient speculative and idealistic aesthetics will be replaced by scientific aesthetics (…).  NEITHER SEARCH NOR FIND: INVENT.

To them, the artist’s production had to be derived from their daily surroundings.  They considered the “artistic” to be an expression of bourgeois arbitrariness. They chose the constructivist motto: “Art should shape and organize daily life, not decorate it.

This movement is among the strongest vanguards in XXth century Latin-American art.. It based its approach to art on the principle of Konkret Kunst, as coined by Theo van Doesburg in the manifesto he wrote as a reply to the formation of the Cercle et Carré association (which Joaquín Torres García formed part of). The term “Concrete” was then used by others such as Max Bill and Hans Arp.