Aldo Paparella (Minturno, Italy, 1920–Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1977) fought in Africa during the Second WW and was taken prisoner in France. He arrived in Argentina in 1950, bringing a new approach to non-figurative and Informalist sculpture. In the late-1950s, in his Sugerencias [Suggestions] series, he started working with waste materials. His aggressive use of sheet metal gave it an informal quality, and Paparella began to think from the perspective of the object itself, rather than from any traditional concepts rooted in the language of sculpture. This idea is developed in his Muebles inútiles [Useless Furniture]. In the. early-1970s he makes the Monumentos inútiles [Useless Monuments], his most significant work, out of humble materials. This document places Paparella’s work within the context of the 1960s in a couple of ways. On the one hand, he is aware of the impact of the Instituto Di Tella as a space for the free expression of art; on the other hand, he speaks out in support of a traditional artist with a highly developed level of technical skill but with quite different aesthetic ideas from his own. In other words, Paparella is portrayed as a receptive artist who judges art from a humanist perspective that allows him to set aside formal appearances and defend freedom of creation. It is interesting that, during such a period of confrontations and the political radicalization of artists, Paparella calls for a dialogue with all parties to discuss the crisis. Though submitted with great simplicity in his text, his call makes a stronger political statement than some of the radical manifestoes of the period.
