In the catalogue for the first one-man show of works by Rodolfo Troncone (1920–2007) at the Museo Blanes, Mario Sagradini (b. 1946) explains that the Arte Concreto — Invención movement and its spin-off, arte Madí, were active on both sides of the Río de la Plata. Sagradini describes the Uruguayan artist and his work, noting that he began his career making painted wooden articulated (transformable) objects, and had joined the Madí group in 1946. The members of that movement broke with the “plane aesthetic” and worked on curved or concave surfaces; they used different forms and colors; they even played with two- and three-dimensional pieces; they experimented with trimmed and/or irregular frames; they approached traditional sculpture with a great deal of freedom; and they created mobile architecture and redefined the notion of the “object” in their art. They embraced the legacy of Joaquín Torres García (1874–1949) in critical terms but rejected the mysticism and traditional approach to painting involved in the maestro’s constructivist works. His Manifiesto was published in the first issue of the Revista Arte Madí (1947), which already suggested the idea of creating objects imbued with “absolute values” that were forged in the furnace of a new society that was able to control space and time in every sense of the terms. In his article, Sagradini captures the irony of the period; the upbeat mood arising from the confidence that the middle classes on both sides of the Río de la Plata had gained from the boom times created by the Second World War. In this narrative of events and apparently insignificant vignettes—that only those with intimate local knowledge can truly understand—the author provides a detailed picture of all the interpersonal networks and connections of a key period in the history of Río de la Plata art. Uricchio (Troncone) honed his artistic talent while he was employed as an industrial worker, with no particular training in the field of art, unlike his close friend Rhod Rothfuss, who was also a member of the Madí group, and who came up with the “trimmed frame” theory and practice [see in the ICAA digital archive by Rhod Rothfuss “El marco: un problema de plástica actual” (doc. no. 729833)]. This is interesting background information because it refers to someone who approached abstract art from an unusual cultural background with no connection to intellectual circles, blithely ignorant of the existence and substance of the European avant-gardes. It is representative of the policy of import substitution that was implemented in the Río de la Plata region during the Second World War, which created small- and medium-sized industries in Uruguay and Argentina, encouraging an illusion of progress. This was based on the idea of a technological utopia created by manufacturing projects which, though sometimes expressed as euphoric visions of the future (as in the case of Gyula Kosice’s work), also encouraged an ironic, biting form of humor directed at a sort of “cottage industry” operating in a machine-driven utopia. That is what this document sets out to do, by spotlighting Uricchio and his “useless machines.” The Movimiento de Arte Madí—the movement founded in 1946 by Kosice, the German visual artist Martín Blaszko (1920–2011), and the Uruguayan visual artists Rhod Rothfuss [Carlos María Rothfuss; 1920–69] and Carmelo Arden Quin [Carmelo Heriberto Alves; 1913–2010]—was part of a broad cultural revolution that sparked a remarkable and productive interaction between visual artists and other artistic disciplines in Argentina. [For further reading, see the articles “Manifiesto Madí” (doc. no.732008); “Madigrafías” (doc. no.1307172); and the dictionary of words invented by Kosice, entitled “Suplemento para el diccionario MADI” (doc. no.1297301)].