In the understanding of the 1990s Argentinean art, the Centro Cultural Ricardo Rojas acquires a top importance. Founded in 1984, it is a cultural extension of the Universidad de Buenos Aires, in which various activities are developed, such as courses, conferences, movie cycles, etc. A number of years after its opening, the Galería del Centro Cultural Ricardo Rojas was created in 1989 in the entrance hall of the campus, directed by artist and art critic Jorge Gumier-Maier, joined shortly thereafter by Magdalena Jitrik as an assistant.
What began as an underground space within the Buenos Aires artistic scene immediately developed great visibility between 1991 and 1992. The artists from “El Rojas” (Fabián Burgos, Graciela Hasper, Feliciano Centurión, Martín Di Girolamo, Alberto Goldestein, Sebastián Gordín, Miguel Harte, Agustín Inchausti, Luis Lindner, Nuna Magiante, Emiliano Miliyo, Esteban Pagés, Ariadna Pastorini, Marcelo Pombo, Cristina Schiavi, Enrique Marmora, Sergio Vila, Benito Laren, Omar Schiliro, and Alfredo Londaibere, Liliana Maresca, among many others) began to be incorporated into the programs of key exhibition spaces, such as the ICI (Instituto de Cooperación Iberoamericana), the Centro Cultural de España, and the Galería Ruth Benzacar.
The reference to poetics of the past, such as Pop art, minimalism, Concrete art (under extremely personal reformulations), besides elements of kitsch, have helped to characterize the resources of expression of such artists. Toward the end of the decade, the artists who made up “el grupo del Rojas” were grouped, in a generic manner, as the representatives of the “1990s Argentinean art.”
Art critic Fabián Lebenglik reviewed the exhibitions that the Galería del Centro Cultural Ricardo Rojas housed from inception through his articles in the visual arts section of the Página/12 newspaper.
As the title of the show indicates— El Rojas presenta: Algunos Artistas (Buenos Aires, Centro Cultural Recoleta, from August 26 to September 6, 1992)—it meant the institutional level presentation of the Galería del Rojas. In this sense, the words in the article by L. F., almost exactly the same as those of Lebenglik himself in the exhibition catalog, are more than demonstrative of his expectations for the event. The participants in El Rojas presenta: Algunos Artistas were: Feliciano Centurión, Martín Di Girolamo, Sebastián Gordín, Jorge Gumier Maier, Miguel Harte, Magdalena Jitrik, Benito Laren, Alfredo Londaibere, Nuna Magiante, Enrique Mármora, Emiliano Miliyo, Esteban Páges, Ariadna Pastorini, Marcelo Pombo, Elisabet Sánchez, Omar Schiliro, and Sergio Vila.