Removedor [Thinner] was the official journal of the Torres-García Workshop (TTG); it was written and edited in-house. An item therein stated that: “armed with Removedor and a good spatula, we are prepared to continue painting in the old way until we have laid the groundwork for the arrival of the new one.” The magazine was published twenty-eight times between February 1945 and May 1950, and two special editions appeared in December 1950 and July-August 1953. Guido Castillo was the Editor. Sarandy Cabrera was a Uruguayan writer; he was born in 1923 and died in 2005. He was also a journalist, caricaturist, translator, and co-founder of Uruguayan magazines such as Removedor, Número, and Cuestión.
This particular document has been chosen because it shows the support there was for Universalismo Constructivo [Constructive Universalism], understood as a new art that expressed mankind’s unity with the cosmic order through a visual language that blended geometric structure with ancestral symbols of the Americas This article also refers to the manner in which TTG’s work, and the role of its Uruguayan Director, fueled the aesthetic debates that were taking place in the Río de la Plata region at the time. This essay, as well as “Nuestro problema de arte en América” [Our Problem with Art in the Americas] by Torres-García, and “Originalidad e invención” [Originality and Invention] by Cabrera, prompted Maldonado’s reaction. He responded with “Torres-García against Modern Art,” an article which was published in their magazine [Bulletin of the Concrete Art and Invention Association] in December 1946.
