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Informalism
in Argentina
in Argentina
by
Jorge López Anaya
August 2003
August 2003
Argentine Informalism incorporated processes which went against the “good taste” of the local practices. Based on the existential poetry of the time, through spontaneous gestures and the use of discarded material, it violated the limits of the traditional artistic genre and opened the road to the concept of the object, the installations and the art of action.
Testa
Clorindo Testa
Untitled, 1960
Untitled, 1960
Clorindo Testa (Nápoles, Italia, 1923) exhibited a group of paintings in 1957 that pre-announced the Informalist attitude; two years later he decidedly placed himself in the Informalist tendency. His pieces during this time, exhibited at the Bonino Gallery in 1961, used only white, black, some grays and a matter of subtle superficial treatment: on occasions some sectors of the picture are animated by drippings and thick doodles. The formal repertoire is simple and limited: circles, ovals, rectangles and squares, alone or in pairs, centered or scattered about. The entire image is ascetic and without concessions, deprived of any formal or extreme matter. In 1965, his entry for the Palanza Award acquired a different character. He held his picture onto the frame with some cloth pins which was set on a canvas folded in an accordion like form. The surface is painted with bright colors. The series possesses a curious reference reminiscing of old iron window structures.
