Morbid Art. Speech by the Minister of Culture Oscar Ivanissevich

Oscar Ivenissevich, Minister of Education during Juan Domingo Perón’s first administration, visits the school of graphic arts. Once, speaking of “morbid art”, he had charged against modern and avant-garde expressions such as abstract art, which was at the height of its development in Buenos Aires, with groups of concrete art. Distéfano relates that:

“The same oratorical piece that he had used at the opening of the [1949] Salón Nacional, he repeated almost verbatim on his visit to our school. That man’s ideas – who, as is well known, was a Nazi sympathizer – were troglodytic. His comments on the works of some artists were those of a troglodyte. On a painting by Fernand Léger called The Couple, he commented sarcastically: ‘I’d say it’s a fridge’. And in front of another by Yves Tanguy called Lunar Landscape, he added: ‘As seen by a paranoid.’ That was the level of thought, insight and appreciation of that man. I remember the faces of Barragán and others who were struck dumb on hearing such words, but who of course could not say anything as they