Líbero Badii (Arezzo, Italy, 1916–Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2001) was initially involved with the symbolic meaning in sculpture. In the 1950s, after having traveled throughout Latin America, his work was formally influenced by Pre-Columbian art. He concocted the concept of “the sinister,” both as a form of knowledge and as a way of feeling. The artist named his studio-workshop as Almataller [SoulShop].
Jorge Romero Brest (1904–1989) was the director of the Ver y estimar [To See and Ponder] journal (1948–55). He was appointed inspector of the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes [National Museum of Fine Arts] in 1955, and served as its director from 1956 until 1963, the year he resigned to assume the direction of the Centro de Artes Visuales [Visual Arts Center] of the Instituto Di Tella, for which he was a consultant. In 1962 and being the director, Romero Brest organized an exhibition by Líbero Badii at the MNBA.
This document stands out for the singularity of the critic's writing, which is generally removed from emotional and literary criticism. In this presentation of the sculptures by Badii —at a time when Romero Brest was promoting the group Otra Figuración [Other Figuration]—he explores poetic prose, in search of a definition for “creative communication” as the theoretical safeguard of the poetic text. Curiously, his idea of fearing the sculptures by Badii is compatible with one of the definitions of “the sinister” as American art, previously elaborated by the sculptor.