This document is important for analyzing the resurgence of painting in the city of La Plata, capital of the Province of Buenos Aires in the 1960s. This city was one of the focal points of the new geometry (Alejandro Puente–1933; César Paternosto–1931) and of Conceptualism (Edgardo Antonio Vigo).
This exhibition makes it possible to understand the individual course of the members of “lo matérico” [trend focused in painting matter] movement in La Plata, represented by Grupo Sí (1960), a group analyzed by a member of Informalism, Jorge López Anaya (1936). The analysis of the utilization of color at its maximum saturation and in a systematic way is notable, characterizing along with it the art produced at that time in that provincial capital. An aspect that allows to examine the roots of its use by Paternosto as well as Puente, who had exhibited in 1964 at Galería Lirolay, presenting “Geometría sensible” [Sensitive Geometry]. In 1967, both artists were located in New York; Puente returned to Argentina in 1971.
In this document, the geometry employed by both artists is related to modern life and to an optimistic outlook on the contemporary situation. A position far from both the Pre-Colombian reference—spread in the 1970s—as well as the “destructive” outlook of the Informalist group formed by Jorge López Anaya, at the head of which was Kenneth Kemble (1923–98).