1.

In October 1953, the exhibition Acht argentijnse abstracten (Eight Abstract Argentines) opened at the Stedelijk Museum, constituting the first institutional presentation of Argentine abstract paintings in the Netherlands. Expanding beyond a continental abstract canon familiar in Amsterdam at the time—which included De Stijl members Piet Mondrian, Theo van Doesburg, and Georges Vantongerloo 1 —the exhibition tacitly contextualized abstraction as a multinational, even global, phenomenon. The show presented fifty paintings as well as fourteen lithographs and drawings by José Antonio Fernández-Muro, Sarah Grilo, Alfredo Hlito, Tomás Maldonado, Miguel Ocampo, Rafael Onetto, Lidy Prati, and Clorindo Testa. In the words of the internationally influential Argentine art critic Jorge Romero Brest, the exhibited artists made up the “most interesting and valuable group currently working” in Argentina (fig. 1). 2 

Abstract art was the dominant formal language in the global art world of the 1950s. While modern art was undergoing rehabilitation in many parts of Europe following its rejection by the Nazi Party, Abstract Expressionism became increasingly important in the United States. In South America, after the Second World War geometric abstract art or Concrete art emerged as the epitome of aesthetic production. 3  As art historian María Amalia García has argued, the formulations of abstract art in Latin America did not simply repeat the tendencies that emerged in Europe in the first decades of the twentieth century but were significantly modified and relocated, 4  with the transformation of everyday life as the ultimate goal of the art movement. 5 

With the founding of the São Paulo Biennial in 1951, a new venue emerged on the map of the global art world that would become a site for a bourgeoning South American discourse around abstraction. The conferral of the Biennale Prize for Sculpture to Swiss architect and Concrete artist Max Bill the same year intensified an active dialogue on theoretical questions of abstraction in Argentina that had already begun in the 1940s. 6  Publishing in the Buenos Aires–based art magazines nueva visión: revista de cultura visual and Ver y Estimar, Bill and Argentine Concrete artists Hlito and Maldonado shared their theoretical conceptions of Concrete art, drawing inspiration from De Stijl, and debating the relationship between Concrete images and design and architecture. 7 

The fact that the tour failed to be realized can be interpreted as resistance from European institutions to a global contextualization of abstract art.

The exhibition Acht argentijnse abstracten at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam can be understood as an attempt to present Argentine abstract art to European audiences as part of a globally developing, coequal visual language. The exhibition was shaped significantly by Romero Brest through his dialogue with the Stedelijk’s director, Willem Sandberg. References to De Stijl within the framework of the exhibition were deliberately used—although not always explicitly mentioned—to legitimize the Argentine artworks to the European public as relying on universal aesthetic principles and thus seeking to inscribe them in the canon of global modern art. As installation views of the exhibition show (fig. 2 and fig. 3), the paintings by the Argentine artists were presented together with chairs designed by De Stijl member Gerrit Rietveld to emphasize their aesthetic parallels. As executed at the Stedelijk, the exhibition eroded the barriers between art and life in a way that directly mirrored the practices of the participating artists and anticipated the activity of Buen Diseño para la Industria, a collective project undertaken a year later in Buenos Aires by four of the artists exhibited in Acht argentijnse abstracten with the goal of uniting fine art and everyday objects through textile design. 

Correspondence in the Stedelijk archive reveals that the show in Amsterdam was intended to be one stop on an international European exhibition tour. The unfortunate fact that the tour failed to realize can be interpreted as resistance from European institutions to a global contextualization of abstract art—a missed opportunity to contribute to a dialogue between artistic equals. 

On October 2, 1953, Acht argentijnse abstracten was officially inaugurated in Amsterdam with an opening speech by the Amsterdam-based De Stijl artist Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart. In his address, the artist referred to the central concepts and principles of Concrete image creation, quoting the deceased De Stijl founder Theo van Doesburg. Vordemberge-Gildewart ended his speech with the following words:

“If the new language of visual art stands above all nationalism, if it never stops at borders, if it appears everywhere as a characteristic phenomenon of our time, it is because everywhere there are forces at work, united in the same ideal. Also in Argentina. Let us celebrate, then, the opportunity to enjoy in our country the works of the Argentine avant-garde.”  8 

Although the Argentine artists were not able to travel to Europe in person for the opening, they eagerly followed their presentation abroad and published Vordemberge-Gildewart’s speech in Spanish translation in the magazine nueva visión. 9  For the Argentine artists, an important European abstract artist’s assertion that their work strives for equivalent aesthetic ideals regardless of its origin was of great importance and was seen as a confirmation that abstract art in Argentina was in dialogue with prevailing global trends. 

A paradigmatic piece in the exhibition is Alfredo Hlito’s Reabsorción del rombo (Rhombus Reabsorption) from 1953 (fig. 4). It is a square oil painting characterized by its positioning with the corner on the top, forming a rhombus. While the work is dominated by light colors such as white and beige, it creates an interplay of lines, angles, and planes in a geometric study that reflects the elements of a rhombus. This artwork embodies the principles of Concrete art, which eschews references to worldly objects and appearances, focusing instead on creation through materiality, the study of forms, and the processes of creation itself. In a similar way, Sarah Grilo’s Pintura No. 53-4 (Painting No. 53–4) from 1953 (fig. 5) is dominated by planes, angles, and lines. However, unlike Hlito’s work, strict linearity is less prevalent, with the suggestion of geometric forms achieved instead through the application or omission of color. 

Six of the eight artists involved were previously part of the Grupo de Artistas Modernos de la Argentina (GAMA), which formed in Buenos Aires in 1952 and was dedicated to Concrete art as well as a wider range of abstract arts. 10  In June 1952, the group was featured in an eponymous exhibition at the Galería Viau in Buenos Aires. Just one month after the opening of the exhibition, Jan van As, the Argentina-based director of the Dutch information office for Latin America, wrote to the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs to suggest an exhibition of Argentine abstraction in the Netherlands. 11  It was through the catalogue for the Galería Viau exhibition that Van As introduced Stedelijk Museum director Willem Sandberg to many of the artists who would become part of Acht argentijnse abstracten. 12  

The Galería Viau catalogue was the origin point for the subsequent Stedelijk Museum presentation, albeit with a few significant redactions and additions. Designed by artists Fernández-Muro and Hlito, the catalogue includes a foreword by art critic Aldo Pellegrini and dedicates a spread to each artist. 13  On one side of each spread, there is a portrait of the artist with a brief biography; on the other, a reproduction of a selected artwork. The portraits show the artists at work in their studios (figs. 6–9). 14  While the Galería Viau exhibition included abstract and figurative works, the biggest difference at the Stedelijk Museum was that only abstract works were presented. This decision stemmed from Romero Brest’s recommendation to Sandberg in a letter: 15 

“I will ask you to write to Mr. Van As, saying that the painters chosen by you are the following, because they are nonfigurative: Maldonado, Hlito, Prati, Fernández-Muro, Grilo, Ocampo, Testa, and Magariños. I believe that in this way we can still organize the exhibition well without offending the excluded.”  16 

With Romero Brest’s advice to Sandberg to focus entirely on nonfigurative artists, he ensured that only one facet of Argentine modernism was shown internationally. Namely, those artists most in line with global trends: geometric abstraction and Concrete art. In the foreword to the exhibition catalogue for Acht argentijnse abstracten, Romero Brest emphasized the universal resonance of the presented artworks:

“Among all of them, the ones I present with fervor stand out, not only for the quality of their works, not only for the combativeness they demonstrate but also for their determination to obtain forms that configure a universal language. This empowerment connects them with the most progressive movements in the Occident and justifies the exhibition.”  17 

In Romero Brest’s opinion, the main merit of the exhibited artworks was their ability to create a universal formal language, regardless of geographic origin. 

Romero Brest’s conviction of the Argentine’s engagement in a globalized aesthetic discourse is born out in the artists’ theoretical writings. Like the Concrete artist Max Bill—who was in active exchange with the Argentine artists—the Argentine artists also referred to concepts of abstraction that were formulated at the beginning of the twentieth century, such as those of the De Stijl group, and developed their own visual language and theories on these concepts.  

Installation views of Acht argentijnse abstracten reveal a further reference to De Stijl not explicitly mentioned in the exhibition catalogue but latent in the curatorial staging: a direct encounter between the functional sculptures of De Stijl and the analytic materiality of the Argentine artists’ works. Hlito’s paintings, for instance, are placed alongside the Aluminiumstoel (Aluminum Chair, 1942) by the Dutch furniture designer and architect Gerrit Rietveld 18  (fig. 2), who, like Van Doesburg and Vordemberge-Gildewart, was part of the De Stijl group. The formal analysis in Hlito’s paintings echoes Rietveld’s effort to create a three-dimensional object from a single piece of material. 19  Similarly, Rietveld’s Eerste Model (Prototype) 20  reflects the formal language of the works surrounding it, most likely by Miguel Ocampo (fig. 3). 

The intermingling of art and design, fine and applied arts, was a crucial component of the Stedelijk show, and already pointed to the most decisive principle for the incorporation of Buen Diseño para la Industria a year later in Buenos Aires: the combination of fine art and everyday objects through design—in this case of textiles. 21  Four of the eight Argentine abstract artists exhibited in the Stedelijk show—Fernandéz-Muro, Grilo, Hlito, and Ocampo—founded the collective Buen Diseño para la Industria in Buenos Aires, merging fine arts and textile design. 22  Backed by the industrialist Jacobo Soifer, they produced textile patterns in clear extension of geometric abstract concepts present in their artwork to bring Buen Diseño to life. 23  As art historian María José Herrera has elaborated in depth, their goal was to transform the fabrics produced by Argentine textile manufacturers, imbuing everyday objects such as wallpaper, bedsheets, and clothing with abstract principles and thereby blurring the boundary between fine art and everyday life. 24 

2.

Before the Argentine artworks were shipped to the Netherlands, they made a stop in Brazil. In August 1953, the exhibition Grupo de Artistas Modernos de la Argentina opened at the Museu de Arte Moderna in Rio de Janeiro, also featuring supplementary works by Claudio Girola and Enio Iommi including sculptures. The exhibition was a great success, garnering praise in the press. Romero Brest’s opening speech and a theoretical text by Maldonado were translated into Portuguese for Brazilian art magazines. 25  Some of the works exhibited in Rio de Janeiro were subsequently transported to São Paulo for the Biennial instead of to Amsterdam. Argentina was officially represented for the first time at this edition of the major international exhibition and Hlito—like Bill two years earlier—was honored with an award for his work Anécdota en rojo (Anecdote in Red). 26 

The success of the Argentine artworks in Brazil contrasts with their reception in Europe. The show in Amsterdam was expected to be the first of several featuring the Argentine artists throughout the continent. In order to arrange the exhibition’s tour in Europe, Romero Brest and Sandberg activated their networks in the European museum and gallery scene. In Romero Brest’s correspondence with Sandberg, he mentions contacting art dealer Hanna Bekker vom Rath in Frankfurt and curator Robert Giron in Brussels. 27  Sandberg in turn wrote to the directors of various art institutions, such as Louis Clayeux, at Galerie Maeght in Paris; 28  Dr. Hildebrand Gurlitt, at Kunsthalle Düsseldorf; 29  Dr. Arnold Rüdlinger, at Kunsthalle Bern; 30  Dorothy Morland, at the ICA London; 31  and even the Public Affairs Office (OLCB) in Berlin (fig. 10). 32 

On logistical, financial, and ideological grounds, the institutions that Romero Brest and Sandberg contacted refused to take on the exhibition. In response to Romero Brest and Sandberg’s petitions, some wrote that their annual program was already in place and that the request came with too little notice. Though slow to respond, Kunsthalle Bern expressed some interest in showing the Argentine works with the planned exhibition Tendances actuelles de l’école de Paris (Current Trends in the Paris School). 33  In the end, however, this idea was also rejected: “Two such exhibitions in a row is something I should not risk in our Bernese conditions,” 34  said Kunsthalle Bern director Arnold Rüdlinger in his letter to Willem Sandberg, a reference to the audience in Bern, which Rüdlinger perceived as conservative toward abstraction. 

The universal language of abstraction held particular importance for Romero Brest and the Argentine artists but also for Sandberg, whose conception of modernism was much broader than was often later portrayed.

In some cases, the cost was the ultimate deterrent. In Cologne, there were preliminary plans to present the exhibition at the local Kunstverein. 35  But when it became clear that the shipping costs for returning the works to Buenos Aires would have to be covered by the German institution, the Kunstverein withdrew. 36  Similarly, Denise René, the “chief defender of geometric abstraction in Paris,” 37  informed Sandberg that her gallery would only take on the exhibition if she did not have to cover any expenses. 38  While these financial concerns may have been legitimate in the context of postwar Germany, it is worth noting that the same year, in turn, many works were shipped from Europe to Latin America for the Biennial in São Paulo. France presented preeminent works of Cubist art with a special exhibition on Pablo Picasso and Germany even showed sixty-five works by Paul Klee. The Netherlands also presented De Stijl works at the biennial, where it displayed works by Mondrian and Vordemberge-Gildewart, among others. 39  The feasibility of sending works abroad for the biennial suggests that European institutions simply had too little interest in and saw little advantage in covering the costs of shipping the Argentine works.  

Others, including Hildebrand Gurlitt, expressed a lack of interest in seeing abstract art from different parts of the world. Gurlitt, who was an authorized dealer of “degenerate art” during the Nazi regime, 40  wrote that he was interested only in “sources and stages of development that were never to be seen in our country” (fig. 11). 41  Gurlitt’s response indicates an outmoded way of understanding modernism, wherein he denies the international art movement’s participation in the language of modernity. This perspective—in accordance with an epistemology rooted in colonialism—assumes that non-European art demonstrates a certain degree of backwardness in history and development. As suggested by his choice of words, Gurlitt views international (non-European) artworks at most as inspiring “sources” for Europe modernism or finds them of interest only if they display local characteristics—which, according to his understanding, would signify a “previous stage” in the development of modernity. 

The universal language of abstraction—which held particular importance for Romero Brest and the Argentine artists but also for Sandberg, whose conception of modernism was much broader than was often later portrayed, 42  was considered irrelevant by Gurlitt and other advocates of modern art in Europe. This resistance by European institutions to embrace a global contextualization of abstraction, as opposed to an exclusively European one, can be seen as a missed opportunity to foster an active dialogue on equal terms. 

When, after eight months, no institution had agreed to take on the exhibition, Sandberg arranged for the artworks to be returned to Buenos Aires. Tomás Maldonado, one of the exhibiting artists and a theorist of Concrete art in his own right, describes his dissatisfaction with the situation in a letter to Sandberg (fig. 12). Maldonado, who arrived in Germany in the first half of 1954 at the invitation of Swiss Concrete artist Max Bill to join the faculty at the Ulm School of Design, expressed interest in managing the tour of the exhibition, but at that point the artworks were already on their way home: 

“In our conversation on June 14, 1954, we agreed that you would wait a month before making a decision about returning the paintings of the ‘Grupo de Artistas Modernos de la Argentina’ to Buenos Aires. As I told you at the time, I was planning to visit some directors of museums and galleries in Germany to negotiate the exhibition of our paintings. Four days after our conversation, I happened to come back to the Stedelijk Museum. When I asked to see my paintings, I was told that the paintings had been taken to the port the same morning. This process is completely inexplicable and incomprehensible to me. I must tell you frankly that I am most unpleasantly shocked and surprised by your decision.”  43 

Nevertheless, in the following years, Maldonado contributed significantly to a dialogue on art and life, engaging in discussions with Bill, as well as with other practitioners of abstract art and design, first while teaching at the art academy in Ulm and then after taking over its directorship. Maldonado’s conviction that design is the only way to overcome the division between art and life 44  was initially informed by Bill’s theory of good form (gute Form). According to Bill, everything—“from spoons to cities”—should be made to last, through a functional and objective, yet aesthetically compelling, design. 45  Under the overarching category of “project disciplines,” Maldonado united fields such as graphic and industrial design, architecture, and urbanism. 46  However, as García demonstrates, soon after, Maldonado’s intentions diverged from those that underlined Bill’s theory. 47  At the end of the 1950s, in line with the trends in technology at the time, Maldonado focused on the systematization of the creation of industrial objects and began to argue for a distinction between art and industrial design. 48 

While the European tour of the Acht argentijnse abstracten exhibition unfortunately failed and must be understood as a missed opportunity to foster an active dialogue on equal terms on abstraction, art history has the potential to revive this dialogue. In the archive of the Stedelijk Museum as well as in its collection, there is evidence that actors such as Sandberg demonstrated their vote of confidence in the Argentine artists. Sandberg acquired three works by Argentine artists for the Stedelijk Museum’s collection: 49  Compositie in rood en zwart by Alfredo Hlito (Composition in Red and Black, 1952), Compositie in geel en zwart by José Antonio Fernández-Muro (Composition in Yellow and Black, 1953), and Compositie in geel, rood en green by Sarah Grilo (Composition in Yellow, Red, and Green, 1953). 50  These works are still part of the collection today and reflect the desire to establish a dialogue between South American and European artistic practice, not only within this particularly collection but potentially throughout the continent.