This document relates the response of artist Víctor Magariños “D”. to the survey sponsored by Letra y Línea [Letter and Line]. His opinion stresses that creation is the fundamental gist; he believes that if form and content are not the fruit of creation, then art becomes purely formulaic and sentimental.

Letra y Línea. Revista de cultura contemporánea. Artes plásticas. Literatura. Teatro. Cine. Música. Crítica. [Letter and Line. Magazine of Contemporary Culture. Visual Arts. Literature. Drama. Cinema. Music. Criticism] was a contemporary culture publication edited by Aldo Pellegrini (1903-1973) whose four issues appeared between October 1953 and July 1954. Its collaborators included Edgar Bayley (1919-1990), Osvaldo Svanascini (1920), Oliverio Girondo (1891-1967), Mario Trejo (1926), Enrique Molina (1910-1997), Juan Carlos Paz (1897-1972), and Norah Lange (1906-1972), among many others. The survey’s agenda was based on the following questions: 1) What is the fundamental nature of painting in your opinion?; 2) Where is modern painting headed?; 3) Is there such a thing as Argentinean painting?; 4) Do you believe in the previous generation? Tomás Maldonado (1922) Sarah Grilo (1921-2007), José Manuel Moraña (1917-2005), Fernández Muro (1920), Juan Cerdá Carretero, Ideal Sánchez (1916-1988), Lidy Prati (1921), Víctor Magariños “D” (1924-1993), and Miguel Ocampo (1922) responded to the survey. Born in 1924, Víctor Magariños “D” was an Argentinean artist who, in 1946, joined the Grupo Joven [Young Artists’ Group] and developed his art within the lyrical trend of abstraction. At the same time he also performed important work as a teacher and, beginning in 1967, he took up residence in Pinamar, a city on the Atlantic coast of Argentina. This article was selected because it documents a young artist’s opinion regarding the debates that were then mobilizing the Argentinean artistic field at the moment abstraction was being consolidated.