Oscar Bony (1941, Misiones). At the age of 17, he began to study painting with a hometown professor until traveling to Buenos Aires in 1959 to attend the Escuela Preparatoria de Bellas Artes Manuel Belgrano on a scholarship. However, he always considered himself a self-taught artist. Between 1959 and 1963 he attended classes at the studios of Demetrio Urruchúa and Juan Carlos Castagnino, while working as an assistant for Antonio Berni. His imagery during this initial phase reveals a certain expressive realism, along the lines of the new figuration movement. In 1964, his Anatomías series allowed him to enter the contemporary art circuit, where he was invited to participate in the Premio de Honor Ver y Estimar along with holding his first solo exhibition in one of the most important galleries in Buenos Aires, the Galería Rubbers. He formed part of the group of artists who frequented the Bar Moderno, where he befriended Rubén Santantonín, Pablo Suárez, Emilio Renart, and Ricardo Carreira.

From 1965 to 1968, his experiences with Pop Art, Minimalism, Conceptual Art, and objects positioned him amongst the most radical avant-garde movements then taking place in alternative galleries, like the previously mentioned Premio de Honor Ver y Estimar and also the Instituto Torcuato Di Tella. Bony exhibited installations, short films, objects, primary structures, and a sound piece. In May 1968, he hired a working-class family, exhibiting them “live” on a museum plinth for the Experiencias ’68 show at Instituto Di Tella. The reaction from the critic, the public, and the official art world was strong and grew stronger, as did divisions within the avant-garde movement itself. Exacerbated by tensions between art and politics, and the social, economic, and political crises of the time, the divisions became increasingly extreme and the fronts on which these struggles were being waged multiplied. Finally, in response to a court order to close down Roberto Plate’s piece in the show, the rest of the show´s artists decided to destroy their works and throw the remains onto Florida Street as a way of publicly denouncing the infringing act of censorship. It was the end of an era as Bony and several of his colleagues left their activity in the art field.

For almost six years, from 1968 onward, Bony worked as a photographer in the music industry. It was just at the time when the Argentine rock music scene was becoming a popular phenomenon, gaining access to mass communications media such as television, a product consumed by a young and rapidly expanding audience. Record companies had incorporated sales and publicity methods from other markets. Each album release was linked to concerts, festivals, and promotional campaigns. The albums included extensive liner notes, song lyrics, and photographs from special photo shoots and posters for the most popular icons. Each band’s profile was planned by designing wardrobes, hairstyles, and scenographies for their photo sessions and presentations, while various specialty magazines, film, radio, and television stations served as distributors. Bony played an active part in the rock scene and became one of the creators of its visual imagery during the time that he worked with the RCA record label. A certain Bony style became identifiable and distinguishable. The public image of rock bands such as Los Gatos, La Joven Guardia, Manal and Almendra was shaped through the lenses of his camera.

In 1974, Bony returned to the “high art” world, to his “professional” career. He produced paintings and photographs, had a few exhibitions, and finally made the decision he had considered but postponed for years: to leave the country and go into exile. He resided in Milan from 1977 until 1988, maintaining a constant presence in the Italian art scene for ten years, including shows in Spain, Ireland, France, and trips to the United States, and occasional contact with Buenos Aires. Once again, Bony was making installations, objects, montages, interventions, paintings, and mixed media pieces. He was invited to participate in the Milan Triennial and the Venice Biennial, where he began to flirt with styles like the trans avantgarde. And in February 1986 he opened two simultaneous solo shows in two of Milan’s most important galleries, Galleria Zeus Arte and Galleria Fac-Simile.

In 1988 Bony returned to Argentina. He explored, he worked; he waited patiently.
By 1993 he gained recognition once again with his De memoria show. Bony was yet another survivor of the 60s who dazzled younger artists, was respected by critics, and was intensely active. His 1994 golden- framed glasses, paper and lead pieces with bullet holes, together with his first photographs with glass and gunshots from 1996 on, upheld his eccentricity, his intensity, his rigour, his nomadic nature and magical gift for being one and many an artist at a time. He created installations and performances, such as Il limite, presented un-invited at the XLVI Biennale di Venezia; he handed out flyers, made declarations, and held exhibitions. In 1997 he was invited to participate in the 6ª Bienal de La Habana. El individuo y su memoria, in the I Bienal de Artes Visuais do Mercosul in Puerto Alegre, and the 5th International Istanbul Biennal. He said farewell to the century with considerable presence in the specialized press, providing a number of journalistic notes and talks thanks to the impact achieved with the series of “las baleadas” with El triunfo de la muerte exhibition presented at Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (MNBA)in 1998.

La familia obrera from 1968, was reconstructed in Buenos Aires, New York, Madrid, and Ljubljana, and was widely recognized by the international contemporary art history community. Bony died in April of 2002 in Buenos Aires while still in full activity.

With the retrospective titled Oscar Bony. El Mago. Obras 1965-2001, which took place at the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (Malba) in 2007; curated by chief curator Marcelo Pacheco, a phase of a decade of privileged circulation and diffusion of Bony’s art opened in the regional as well as the international world: Bony’s work participated in large exhibitions dedicated to the revisionism of conceptual art and minimalism and the early days of contemporary art in the United States and Europe; At the same time, his position was established even more by high-profile purchases by the Museum of Modern Art of New York (MoMA), the Kunsthaus in Zürich, and the Bengolea and Costantini collections in Buenos Aires.