Invitation card for the show Arte Destructivo [Destructive Art]. It is relevant to understand the formal mechanisms of the artistic milieu activated by artists in order to promote the exhibition. Thus exaggerating the show’s radical impact facing the Argentinean art field. It is, on the other hand, a photographic document of the exhibited works—a matter of importance since it was indeed an ephemeral setting of which very few registers exist. 

Kenneth Kemble (Buenos Aires, 1923–1998) was one of the main artists of the Informalist movement in Argentina. Beginning in 1956, he experimented with collages, assemblages, reliefs, and informal and sign painting. Kemble participated in the exhibitions of the Asociación Arte Nuevo [New Art Association], a bastion of abstract trends. In 1959, he was part of the exhibition Movimiento Informal [Informalist Movement] at the Van Riel Gallery. In 1961, Kemble was the driving force behind the exhibition that presented arte destructivo [destructive art]. He practiced art criticism, mainly at the Buenos Aires Herald (a newspaper for the English community in the capital, founded in 1876) between 1960 and 1963. Afterwards, he continued his written reflections, with an emphasis on the theory of the creative process.

This document is part of the group referring to the Arte Destructivo [Destructive Art] show, which took place in the Galería Lirolay, from November 20–30, 1961. Kemble, Luis Alberto Wells (1931), Enrique Barilari (1937–2002), Silvia Torrás (1936–1973), Jorge López Anaya (1936), Jorge Roiger (1934), and Antonio Seguí (1934) all participated in it. This exhibition is pivotal in the history of the 1960s Argentinean art.