This article is significant as a clipping/selection of the words written by Jorge Gumier-Maier in the prologue of the exhibition catalog El Tao del Arte exhibition (Buenos Aires: Centro Cultural Recoleta, May 13–June 8, 1997). It is a fragment that synthesizes what he understands by “ar;.” moreover, the principles presented here are closely connected to those presented by this same author in “Avatares del arte” [Avatars of Art] (La Hoja del Rojas, a. II, nº 11, Buenos Aires, Centro Cultural Ricardo Rojas, June 1989, record 768333), demonstrating in this way the continuity of his aesthetic “project” that spanned almost eight years.El Tao del Arte can be considered as the second and last institutional presentation of the Galería del Rojas, if we consider El Rojas Presenta: Algunos Artistas as the first one. Both were assembled in the Centro Cultural Recoleta, a space with great public influx, and registered within the traditional exhibition circuit. Another significant fact with which to frame this exhibition is that, at this time, Gumier-Maier had recently resigned as director of the Galería del Rojas.When it comes to understanding the 1990s Argentinean art, the Centro Cultural Ricardo Rojas acquires an important role. Founded in 1984, it is a cultural extension of the Universdad de Buenos Aires, at which various activities developed, such as courses, conferences, film series, and the like. A few years after it opened, in 1989, the Galería del Centro Cultural Ricardo Rojas was created in the university campus’s entrance hall, directed by artist and art critic Jorge Gumier-Maier. Shortly thereafter Magdalena Jitrik was included as an assistant.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.”The artists who participated in El Tao del Arte are: Fabián Burgos, Nicolás Guagnini, Jorge Gumier Maier, Graciela Hasper, Fabio Kacero, Omar Schiliro, Pablo Siquier, Sergio Avello, Elba Bairon, Jane Brodie, Fabián Burgos, Feliciano Centurión, Alberto Goldenstein, Sebastián Gordín, Miguel Harte, Agustín Incháusti, Alejandro Kuropatwa, Fernanda Laguna, Benito Laren, Luis Lindner, Alfredo Londaibere, Liliana Maresca, Zaliante Mussetti, Ariadna Patorini, Marcelo Pombo, Cristina Schiavi, and Marcelo Zanelli.
