In its bulletin, GRUPO 8, created in Montevideo in 1959, exposed the need to organically and institutionally tie national industries to those Uruguayan artists affiliated with modernity. The objective was to promote labor sources for Uruguayan modern artists, and above all, to aesthetically enrich and “nationalize,” in cultural terms, industrial design in the graphic or textile industry. The textile industry was the most developed in the country as a consequence of the substitution of imports during the Second World War. The group was formed under the idea of creating a market, internal and external, for those artists who, since the mid-fifties, explored various approaches moving between geometric abstraction and Informalism.

In the 1950s in Uruguay, “abstract” art dominated the nation’s visual arts during the period of industrial expansion, with manufacturing linked to artistic practices, such as graphic and industrial design, especially textiles. During that period, visual artists approached trends in graphic advertising and the possibilities that were being offered in the national industrial sector. The good design awards taking place in the United States and Europe, but predominantly in Germany, incited certain artists and intellectual groups with the expectation of work. The criteria for these awards was the ability to recognize designs of innovative and original products at the international level. The same expectations were raised in 1940 and were especially debated between 1958 and 1959 by the professors of the Facultad de Arquitectura and the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes, in relation to the influence of visual arts on architectural projects. The professional skills of architects, artists, and designers proved limited when it came to the design of artisanal objects and objects for domestic use. The original members of the Grupo 8 were Óscar García Reino, Carlos Páez Vilaró, Miguel Ángel Pareja, Raúl Pavlotzky, Lincoln Presno, Julio Verdié, Américo Spósito, and Alfredo Testoni. It was based on the idea of creating a job market for artists who explored different techniques and experimented with new styles such as abstraction and informalism starting in the mid-fifties.

In the 1960s, in Uruguay, the notion of “modern and contemporary art” started developing through new institutions and through what was occurring at international events, notably the Instituto General Electric de Montevideo and the Bienal Internacional de São Paulo. Grupo 8 intended to provide services to national industry, as well as making the work of the new “abstract” Uruguayan artists known abroad, for which it had a member especially linked to financial and cultural centers of Europe, the United States, and Asia: Páez Vilaró, who promoted the initiative. Grupo 8 exhibited in Montevideo, in Punta del Este, and in other cities of the country. It also carried out its mission in Florianópolis, Brazil, Concepción, Chile, Damascus, Syria, Cairo, Egypt, Prague, Czechoslovakia, and to Dallas in the United States.

[For further reading, see in the ICAA digital archive the following texts on the subject: “Educación y diseño industrial,” by Humberto Tomeo (1233713); and “IX Bienal de São Paulo. Demasiadas antítesis,” by Pablo Mañé Garzón (1233548)].