Roger Pla was a writer and intellectual linked to leftist ideas. He was born in 1912 in the city of Rosario, in Santa Fe Province, and died in Buenos Aires in 1982. He worked as an art critic and also wrote numerous novels, among them Paño verde [Green Cloth], El Duelo [The Duel], and Los Robinsones [The Robinsons].
The magazine Continente [Continent] was a monthly publication of the arts, letters, sciences, humor, curiosities, and general-interest news that circulated in Argentina between April 1947 and December 1955. It was published during the years of Juan Domingo Perón’s first administration; afterward the magazine was known as “the Decalogue of Peronismo.”
The cultural policy of Perón’s Justicialist government demonstrated an aversion to the artistic production of abstraction, especially in Minister Oscar Ivanissevich’s attacks delivered during the exhibitions at the National Salons of 1948 and 1949. Nevetheless, works of the abstract trend were included in some exhibitions representing Argentina during that era.
The exhibition analyzed by this critic included such artists as Claudio Girola, Alfredo Hlito, Enio Iommi, Tomás Maldonado, and Lidy Prati, as well as the independent artists Hans Aebi, José Antonio Fernández Muro, Sarah Grilo, and Miguel Ocampo.
This document was selected because it testifies to Roger Pla’s critical opinions, especially his objections regarding Concrete art.
