This exhibition was installed at the headquarters of the TLA (Taller Libre de Arte), on the 3rd floor of the Edificio Mercaderes, in Caracas; it opened on October 24, 1948. This essay outlines the group’s priorities—which include the concept of abstracción-invención-concreción—such as the invention of the subject, and their interest in abstraction, color, geometry, the plane, and space. The roots of these ideas can be traced back to Madí’s first pre-manifesto, which appeared in Arturo magazine in 1944, and their second pre-manifesto, published in the second issue of Invención magazine, which was directed by Edgar Bayley and Carmelo Arden Quin. Both of these documents were produced in Buenos Aires in those early years.
“Madí” (a contraction of Materialismo Dialéctico, Dialectical Materialism, according to Arden Quin), evolved in Buenos Aires, beginning in 1944. It was based on many things, one of which was an idea that Tomás Maldonado (through his contact with European concrete art) suggested to a group of artists in the Río de la Plata region who had been producing abstract work influenced by industrial design and architecture. The group originally took the name “Arte Concreto—Invención” and had their first exhibition in Buenos Aires in 1945. By the time of José Mimo Mena’s exhibition in Caracas, the Madí movement was rife with internal conflicts that led to the group’s breakup. As a result, the group of artists at the exhibition identified themselves by the movement’s original name (the one from which Madí was derived).
On the subject of the abstracción-invención-concreción modern movement’s exhibition at the TLA, Francisco da Antonio [Textos sobre arte (Caracas: Fundación Editorial El perro y la rana, 2007), p. 269], has this to say: “(…) the most impressive geometric-abstraction work—which was not immune to some rather gratuitous forays into constructive territory—was by José Mimo Mena who, despite the group’s absolute novelty and radical approach, did not spark a great deal of interest, even among the members of the Taller, whose comments were, on the whole, rather more entertaining than serious (…).” This presentation by these Uruguayan and Argentinian artists is undoubtedly the first exhibition of Abstract art in Venezuela.
For more information on articles about the TLA, see the introductory essay to the TLA exhibition by the Venezuelan art critic Rafael Pineda “Sin Título” [doc. no. 1101650]; the prologue by Bernardo Chataing to the catalogue for the first group exhibition at the TLA, “Texto presentación” [doc. no. 1101666]; and the article, which was riddled with inconsistencies, that reports on the demise of the TLA and its replacement by a different institution, the INCIBA, “Han sido destituidos todos los profesores del Taller Libre de Arte” [doc. no. 1172267].
