Federico Manuel Peralta-Ramos (1939–92) was a paradigmatic artist of the 1960s generation, chiefly in the nexus between art and life. From his production, what is outstanding involves the precariousness of matter in painting, the installation Nosotros afuera [We, the Outsiders] shown at Instituto Torcuato Di Tella, in 1965, and a broad idea of conceptual art that stems from writing. In 1968, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. He used the scholarship funds for a lavish dinner at Hotel Alvear and the acquisition of some artworks; this provoked an internal bickering with the North American institution. Then he wrote the Mandamientos Gánicos [Feel-like-it Commandments]. Since 1969, Peralta-Ramos appears and carries out performances in TV shows. In 1970, he records what he names his non-figurative songs: “Soy un pedazo de atmósfera” [“I am a little piece of atmosphere”] and “Tengo algo adentro que se llama el coso” [I have something in my innermost called the thingumajig”].In 1972, Peralta-Ramos unveiled his art at the CAyC (Centro de Arte y Comunicación) [Art and Communication Center] in order to state his concept “the object is the subject”.
As interesting document to understand Peralta-Ramos’ thinking about art, this text asserts that both his notion of writing as an artwork and poetry as a manifesto are at play. In the Buenos Aires artistic milieu he reached media visibility and his work has been recovered by its playful insight focusing art that merges with life. While asserting the subject as an artistic object—a grasp stemming in his generation from another Argentinean artist, Alberto Greco (1931–65)—he reaches the impulsive writing about the daily deeds. His sentences—in which the puns become parodies—evolve the same way as his own idea of the art-object dissolution.
