Carlos Gorriarena was born in Buenos Aires on December 20, 1925. At the age of 17, he enrolled at the National School of Fine Arts, where he studied under two major figures: Lucio Fontana in sculpture and Antonio Berni in drawing. In 1948, he left the institution to pursue an independent course of study with the painter Demetrio Urruchúa, a key figure in social realism who would have a lasting influence on his development.

He held his first solo exhibition in 1959 and was a co-founder of the Grupo del Plata, active between 1960 and 1964. In 1962, he was invited to Vence (France) by the Michael Karolyi Memorial, directed by Bertrand Russell. Between 1971 and 1972, he lived in Madrid, further expanding his international experience.

In 1986, he was awarded the Grand Prize of Honor at the National Salon, the highest distinction in the visual arts in Argentina, for his work Pin Pan Punk. His work is associated with what has been termed Political Art, a current initiated in Argentina by Antonio Berni in the 1930s. However, his practice goes beyond propaganda: it constitutes a sharp ethical questioning of social reality, in which the political emerges as an inherent dimension of contemporary experience.

A tireless painter, from the mid-1950s onward he held more than two hundred exhibitions in Argentina and abroad. He also played a significant role in the training of younger generations of artists.

Antonio Asis (Buenos Aires, 1932) is a key figure in Argentine geometric and kinetic art, recognized for a body of work that consistently investigates the relationships between perception, movement, and structure. Born into a family of Lebanese origin settled in Argentina, he studied at the National School of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires between 1946 and 1950, in a context shaped by the emergence and debates surrounding the Concrete Art Movement. During these formative years, he was a student of Héctor Cartier, whose teaching—grounded in Gestalt theory—proved fundamental to the development of his visual thinking, particularly regarding the relativity of color and perception.

In the late 1950s, Asis moved to Paris, reversing his family’s migratory path. In the French capital, he became part of a dynamic artistic environment and joined a circle of Latin American artists developing their careers there. His early years in Paris were marked by various jobs until he was able to fully dedicate himself to his artistic practice. Over time, he established himself as one of the most prominent Argentine artists working in Europe.

His work belongs to the abstract tradition but introduces an experimental dimension aimed at destabilizing the viewer’s perception. Through the use of grids, metal screens, and layered structures, Asis developed a visual language in which movement is not physical but perceptual. The viewer must move in front of the work to activate the optical vibrations it generates. In this sense, space and time become central elements of his practice: the artwork is not confined to its material presence but is completed through visual experience.

Throughout his career, he participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions in institutions and galleries across Europe and the Americas, including landmark kinetic art exhibitions such as Lumière et mouvement at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 1967. His work has also been featured in exhibitions at the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, and various institutions dedicated to Latin American art.

The ideas developed by Asis have influenced subsequent generations of artists interested in perception and movement. However, his production has always retained an introspective character, largely developed in the solitude of his Paris studio.

Today, his work is internationally recognized and included in major public collections. His “dynamic universe,” based on vibration, repetition, and visual instability, positions him as a central figure in kinetic art, whose investigations continue to challenge contemporary perception.

Ernesto Deira was born in Buenos Aires on July 28, 1928. His studies were oriented towards traditional careers and it was not until four years after graduating as a lawyer that he entered the world of painting, guided by none other than Leopoldo Presas and Leopoldo Torres Agüero. In 1958 he had his first individual exhibition at the Rubbers Gallery in Buenos Aires. A few years later, together with Luis Felipe Noé, Jorge de la Vega and Rómulo Macció, he formed the “New Figuration” group, exhibiting at the Peuser Gallery in 1961 and in the following years at the Museum of Fine Arts and also abroad. In 1964 he participates in the IV Guggenheim Intrenational Award and organizes exhibitions in Europe. Two years later he was invited as a professor at Cornell University (USA). In 1965 he received the Fulbright Scholarship and in 1967 he was awarded the Palanza Prize. Among others, he received in 1965 in the U.S.A. the prize of the First Salon of Young Artists of Latin America and the Palanza Prize in 1967.

He had numerous solo and group exhibitions in Rio de Janeiro, Brussels, Madrid, Paris, Chartres and Venice. In 1981 the Galleria Degli Uci included a Self-Portrait in its collection. In 1992 his work “Adam and Eve #2” (1963) was part of the Konex Exhibition 100 Masterpieces – 100 Argentine Painters (anthological exhibition of Argentine painting) at the MNBA in Buenos Aires. He died in Paris in July 1986. In the following years his work was exhibited both in Buenos Aires and in dierent cities of Latin America. His works are in important public collections: Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, USA; Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, Argentina; Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, Córdoba, Argentina; Fundación Federico Jorge Klemm, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires, Argentina; Banco Ciudad, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Museo Municipal de Bellas Artes ̈Juan B. Castagnino ̈, Rosario, Argentina.

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.

Renata Schussheim, born in Buenos Aires on October 17, 1949, is an Argentine multidisciplinary artist distinguished in costume design, set design, illustration, and visual arts. Her career is marked by the integration of different disciplines and a constant exploration of new creative worlds. From an early age, she was encouraged by her mother to study drawing and painting. At 13, she began training with the painter Carlos Alonso, who helped her find her identity as an artist. At 15, she held her first exhibition at the gallery El Laberinto, with drawings influenced by Hieronymus Bosch.

At 19, she started working as a costume designer, and her work quickly expanded to set design, photography, and animation. Renata has stated that her disciplines overlap organically. In one of her exhibitions, she combined images, videos, performances, and objects, fusing diverse artistic forms.

She has worked closely with musicians such as Charly García, Luis Alberto Spinetta, Walter Giardino, and Federico Moura. With García, she designed the album covers for Música del Alma and Bicicleta, and was responsible for the scenic design of his performances.

In theater and opera, she stood out in productions such as Jesus Christ Superstar, The Magic Flute, and Carmen, staged in major theaters in Argentina, Spain, France, and Chile. She also collaborated with Oscar Araiz on Boquitas pintadas by Manuel Puig.

In cinema, she worked with Héctor Olivera on Buenos Aires Rock (1983) and developed personal projects, such as the set design for a love hotel, exploring intimate aspects of society. Collaboration has been key to her work: she has worked alongside artists such as Marie Orensanz, her mentor, and Jean-François Casanova, from the group Caviar. For Schussheim, mutual stimulation between generations is one of the essential values of art.

She is recognized for having developed the concept of “art of complicity” in Argentina, understanding creation as a collective process. Her figure stands out as that of a collaborator: an artist who dissolves herself in collaboration while producing unique works. She was one of the few artists, along with Marta Minujín, to have a solo exhibition at CAyC under Jorge Glusberg. Her name is associated with a groundbreaking approach to Argentine art.

She has stated that the most important thing is to remain attentive to what inspires her. Her endless curiosity has led her to experiment without attachment to a single discipline. “I’m interested in everything,” she has said. Her work reflects this capacity for transformation, as well as her desire to influence, communicate, and collaborate. In this way, she has established herself as an essential figure in contemporary Argentine art, demonstrating that creativity has no limits and that art is, above all, a space for exchange and continuous growth.