In this article, Ernesto Ramallo writes about the Bienal Americana de Arte held in Cordoba, Argentina. He traces the history of the event, from its origins in 1958—as the Primer Salón de Artes Visuales Contemporáneas, organized by IKA (Industrias Kaiser Argentinas)—to the most recent edition, the III Bienal in 1966. He praises the architects Víctor Bentolila and Nicolás Emaides for creating the interior and exterior spaces in which Ernesto Farina, the curator of the exhibition, installed the many different works that were submitted. Ramallo describes the biennial’s organization and results, devoting space in his article to prizewinning artists, especially Carlos Cruz-Diez, the winner of the Grand Prize at the Bienal Americana de Arte. The three images included in the article show the exhibition space, Cruz-Diez’s Physichromie, and César Paternosto’s submission, which won first prize.      

Ernesto Ramallo (on special assignment from La Prensa) describes the III Bienal Americana de Arte, in the city of Córdoba, Argentina, which opened that day at the Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales located in the Ciudad Universitaria. Ramallo recalls the origins of the event, in 1958, which began as a Salón de Artes Visuales for local artists in Cordoba and was then expanded nationally, and finally expanded as a Latin American biennial in 1962. That expansion of a local event to a regional level brought with it a change in the content, going from an exhibition of painting and sculpture (Ramallo refers to a “painting competition”) to the current version that included structures that transcended traditional genres, as in the case of the prizewinning works. This article acknowledges a clear relationship between the spaciousness and (geographical and geopolitical) opening of the continental event and the concept of “space” expressed by the guest artists, who produced “spatialized” paintings or created three-dimensional, sculpture-like pieces extrapolated from a pictorial basis. Ramallo notes the impressive size of the exhibition spaces and the two thousand square meters of exhibition panels. Space is the star of the event.   

Ramallo also notes that the exhibition spaces—provided temporarily by the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba (seven thousand square meters)—were not quite ready. The director of the biennial, Christian Sørenson, entrusted this project to the architects Bentolila and Emaides, who worked on interior and exterior remodels to create the necessary space for two thousand square meters of panels on which to “hang paintings,” a task assigned to the painter Ernesto Farina, who managed to exhibit the various submissions with no differentiation between participating works. One thousand meters of friezes and four hundred electric lamps facilitated the installation of large-scale works. The outer gardens were also modified. All this work created the conditions required to house the largest art competition ever held in Argentina, thanks to the technical and financial resources contributed by IKA.

The (considerable number of) prizes were awarded by an international jury chaired by Alfred H. Barr, Jr., the first director of the Museum of Modern Art (New York). The jury also included Arnold Bode, director of documenta in Kassel (Germany); Sam Hunter, director of the Jewish Museum in New York; the Venezuelan architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva, who designed the facilities at the Universidad Central in Caracas; and the critic Aldo Pellegrini, founder of the Artistas Modernos group in Argentina. The biennial’s Grand Prize was awarded to Carlos Cruz-Diez for his Physichromie, and the first prize went to César Pasternosto, the Argentinean artist. A brief biography of Cruz-Diez underscores his international success.