Contrapunto, a bimonthly magazine, was devoted to literature, criticism, and art. The magazine’s objective was to explore the hidden nuances to be found among the more extreme positions, deliberately adopting a heterogeneous approach when it came to selecting subject matter and writers. The Editorial Board consisted of Héctor René Lafleur (Secretary), León Benarós, Arturo Cerretani, Sigfrido Radaeli, José Luis Lanuza (all of whom were writers), the illustrator Fernando Guibert, the poet Alejandro Denis-Krause, and the painter Raúl Lozza (editors). Daniel Devoto, César Fernández Moreno, and Roger Plá were also in the editorial department, and Tristán Fernández was in management. Contrapunto appeared six times in Buenos Aires between December 1944 and October 1945.
Raúl Lozza, the Argentine artist, was born in 1911 in Alberti, in the Province of Buenos Aires. He was one of the Argentine vanguardists of the 1940s, a member of the Arte Concreto — Invención Association, and was involved in the Perceptivist group that explored the concept of working directly on the background wall. The Arte Concreto — InvenciónAssociation’s membership consisted of Edgar Bayley, Antonio Caraduje, Simón Contreras, Manuel Espinosa, Alfredo Hlito, Enio Iommi, Obdulio Landi, Raúl Lozza, Tomás Maldonado, Alberto Molenberg, Primaldo Mónaco, Oscar Núñez, Lidy Prati, Jorge Souza, and Matilde Werbin. Manuel Espinosa, Raúl Lozza, and Tomás Maldonado took turns in the role of Secretary. Later on, Juan Mele, Gregorio Vardanega, and Virgilio Villalba also joined the group. Héctor Pablo Agosti was an Argentine intellectual who was born in 1911 and died in 1984. Politically active, he held a leadership position in the local Communist Party. He wrote Defensa del realismo [In Defense of Realism] while living in exile in Montevideo, Uruguay, where he’d settled after being forced out of Argentina following the military coup of July 4, 1943. During this period, Agosti and Rodolfo Ghioldi published Pueblo Argentino [The Argentine People], a bimonthly magazine. He also taught a course on aesthetics at the School of Architecture, where he lectured on “The Defense of Realism” in December 1944.
This particular document has been included because it reflects the opposing view held by younger artists who disagreed with supporters of the aesthetics of realism; this article aggressively challenges the position taken by Agosti in the 3rd issue of Contrapunto magazine.
