After briefly training in Paris (1954–56), Alberto Greco (1931–65) settled in Brazil (1957–58), where he drew closer to the informalist aesthetics that he promoted later in Buenos Aires. In 1960, he exhibited his work at Galería Pizarro under the title Pinturas negras [Black Paintings] and, thereafter, in the Buenos Aires city center he positioned billboards featuring his name. In 1964, he settled in Madrid—he had traveled throughout Europe since 1961—where he had produced works in tandem with Antonio Saura and Manolo Millares; in this manner he continued both his informalist and conceptual experimentation, beginning in the late-1950s. During a brief return to Buenos Aires on December 9, he produced at Galería Bonino Mi Madrid querido [My Beloved Madrid], a performance piece from a genre he called Vivo-Dito [The Living-Finger], on this occasion with the participation of flamenco dancer Antonio Gades. The performance ended at the Plaza San Martín, a square in Buenos Aires downtown. Greco had previously incorporated girls in flamenco dress in his solo exhibition at Galería Juana Mordó in Madrid in the month of May. This was his last work in Argentina; he committed suicide in Madrid on October 12, 1965.
In 1961, his last year in Buenos Aires before establishing himself mainly in Paris and Madrid, Greco exhibited Las Monjas [The Nuns] in the Galería Pizarro, with a brief epistolary text by Manuel Mujica Láinez (1910–1984), with whom he had associated from his beginnings as writer in the 1950s. Having been regulars at the Juan Cristóbal Bookshop, which attracted literary clientele, they were both considered existentialists from the city of Buenos Aires. The basis of the exhibit was a postcard, with Alberto Greco’s image in a traditional baby pose for photographs.
This document is of interest due to its description of Las Monjas by Alberto Greco; it even allows for an understanding of his quick success in the elite circles of Buenos Aires. Dora de la Torre is a poet and draftswoman, active beginning in the middle of the 1940s.
This is a press clipping from Galería Pizarro Archives, Fundación Espigas.