The publication El Mate was closely tied to the ideology of the Grupo Toledo Chico, a group that advocated local art with social and rural theme. It was committed to supporting theoretical work and exhibitions in Uruguay that took an innovative stance against “isms, ruptures, affirmations, negations […], and—mostly—confusion.”
Eleven issues of El Mate were published by the Grupo Toledo Chico from 1966 to 1968. Founded in 1962 by Joaquín Aroztegui (b. 1943), Ramón Carballal (1919–94), and Jorge Nelson González (1916–73), though others later joined, the Grupo Toledo Chico was characterized by staunch opposition to contemporary art it considered “foreign.” It upheld traditional cultural forms and reexamined art history on the basis of a deep sense of nationalism. Its vision of culture in general and of art in particular was localist and nationalist. The articles in El Mate were illustrated by woodcuts—often by González—similar to the work being produced by the Club de Grabado de Montevideo at the same time.
The end of 1966 and beginning of 1967 marked a watershed in Uruguayan history, with the worsening of social conflicts and the rise of the worker-student movement that would explode in 1968. Significantly, the articles in this issue of the journal reflect the group’s absolute indifference to new aesthetic paradigms; it addressed instead the heated political context. The contents ignored the movement of young draftsmen (“el dibujazo”); happenings and “actions” by Teresa Vila; and the coming together of painters and sculptors to explore formal questions that, in a variety of ways, dealt with both local issues and the problems formulated on the international contemporary art scene.
[For further reading see, in the ICAA digital archive, the following documents published by the Grupo Toledo Chico: released by the Federación de Estudiantes Plásticos del Uruguay (FEPU) “2ª exposición al aire libre en homenaje a Stalingrado” (doc. no. 1210566); “Ha muerto Felipe Seade lloran las paredes blancas” (doc. no. 1193080); by J. Aroztegui (editor-in-chief) “Hacia el encuentro del hombre” (doc. no. 1194504) and “Llamado al espectador” (doc. no. 1195546); and “El XV Salón Municipal de Artes Plásticas” (doc. no. 1193049)].
